First Year Computing (Level 5) Course Overview

Business Communication
• Text processing skills to produce business information
• Learning Microsoft Office suite to produce complex documents
• Establishing a Systems for maintaining and promoting quality of text processing production
• Oral presentation skills
• Group formation, advantages & disadvantages of groups, group effectiveness, group stage development
• Group roles, groupthink, leadership styles
• Culture, conflict management
Windows XP Administration and Networking
• Installing Windows XP
• Installing Devices, Service Packs and updates
• Installing Applications
• Installation planning and Documentation
• Network topologies, Hardware and Connection Media
• Network protocols and OSI model
• Windows XP networking (Peer to Peer, Joining Domains)
• Administering Windows XP user accounts
• Administering Windows XP Security
• Printing with Windows XP
• Windows XP Local group Policy
• Managing User Profiles
• Windows XP backup and restore
User Support
• Help Desk Processes and Procedures
• Service level agreements
• Staffing the Help Desk
• Problem Escalation
• Problem Closure
• Maintaining Positive Customer Relationships
• Using statistical techniques to analyse problem trends
• Maintaining a user support database
• Providing level 1 and level 2 support

Visual Basic Programming (VB 2005)
• System Development Life Cycles
o Generic
o Waterfall
o Prototype
• Windows Forms and Console Applications
• Working with Windows Controls
• Handling Strings, Characters, and Dates
• Storing Data in Collections (Arrays, Arraylists, Hashtables)
• Accessing Files and Folders
• Reading and Writing Text Files
• Error Handling and Debugging
• Application Deployment

Database Design and Implementation (MS Access 2003)
• Normalization (1NF, 2NF, 3NF, BCNF)
• Defining Tables (Columns and Datatypes)
• Implementing Referential Integrity
• Create and Implement queries using QBE
• Create and Use Forms
• Create Reports
• Design and implement a simple database (At least 10 related entities)