Looking back: TM255 Communication and information technologies
This module review comes late and I’ve had more distance than usual between finishing the module and drafting the write-up. As a result, this reflection will likely be more brief than usual. Although the module content was of reasonable quality and I still earned a distinction, I did meet with some frustrations in this module which soured the experience. I’m about to go on a rant about one frustration in particular, but if you just want to read my review of the module then skip down a bit.
This was my first Stage 2 module and my biggest frustration was discovering that at least one fellow student was cheating. The fact that this was still happening in Stage 2 suggests, to me, that students have been getting away with cheating their way through the modules while the rest of us have worked hard to earn an honest grade. While this may not be the case and isn’t necessarily a criticism of the Open University itself, it was still upsetting to discover. One of the assessments tasked us with writing a proposal on a biometric authentication system for a holiday park referring to systems already in use at other holiday parks. One of my starting points then was to type into Google holiday parks using fingerprint authentication. Pretty innocuous search term (I thought) but I guess the Google algorithm successfully categorised my interests with other students on the module because one of the first results was from Course Hero (a haven for academic cheats) with the exact question visible in the preview.
It’s one thing if other students want to take shortcuts. I trust they will be found out quickly when they face the real world. It’s another thing altogether when those of us trying to earn the knowledge, experience and marks are tripping over the sloppy attempts at plagiarism by these academic frauds! The good news is that I quickly found a solution. Although Google doesn’t seem interested in giving users control over the content delivered to them, there are plenty of browser plug-ins to step in. One I settled on is called uBlacklist and allows you to block sites from Google as they appear in your search results by clicking a ‘Block this site’ link next to the result or by entering regex rules.
If you find yourself with similar frustrations, know that these tools exist so you don’t have to put up with unwanted results.
The TM255 module consists of three tutor-marked assessments (TMAs) and an end-of-module assessment (EMA). The last TMA involves a group project and the EMA an individual project that builds from the group project.
Block 1: Enquiring and communicating
This block largely focused on the communication part of ICT, covering data storage and transmission, wireless networking, IoT, and mobile communications technology. There was a strong focus on technical document reading and writing which was tested in the first TMA.
Just a warning for those of you who will end up doing this module, I found (alongside students from this and previous presentations of the module) a lot of the technical detail around mobile networking technologies to be dry and tedious. That said, I did still appreciate getting more into technical details about the technology without any hype or spin. The module material itself brought students up to date as far as 4G and it was up to students to research and understand the evolution into 5G and discuss this at length for a non-technical business audience, with a single section of the overall document aimed at those with a technical background. This question carried the majority of the marks for this TMA and really tested your understanding of the technology itself as well as your ability to communicate to different audiences effectively (an essential skill in most ICT professions).
The TMA also tested technical skill with some practical mathematical and engineering questions, as well as a question making use of Cisco’s Packet Tracer.
Block 2: Protecting and prying
As you might guess, this block is of particular interest to a cybersecurity student. Covering basic elements of encoding, encryption, network security and web application security, as well as some social implications of technology (e.g. data privacy, use of AI by law enforcement and justice systems, etc.).
If you read my rant above, then the TMA for this block is the one with the question about the use of biometrics in a holiday park and you will know how this led to me discovering plagiarism taking place. I won’t go over that again here, but the question asked students to prepare a lengthy technical report investigating two possible biometric technologies to use for guest authentication and make a recommendation on one. After the initial setback in my research, I found some surprising real world use of the technologies and useful consumer and operator feedback to support the technical findings of my report. It quickly became very interesting, even the technical documents were a stark contrast from the dry 5G information of the previous TMA. I don’t personally find artificial intelligence all that interesting, but its application in biometrics was fascinating.
Block 3: Interacting and collaborating
This block was mostly focused on the group project for the final TMA, to collaborate and build a website for a holiday park (we may or may not have promoted the convenience of our biometric authentication system to guests =P). The product of the project itself was only were part of the marks for this assessment came from. The rest of the marks were given for how we worked together and solved issues. When I was assigned my team, I looked back on the forums to learn about my team mates and have some conversations to learn more. I recognised two individuals who would both want to be the drivers of the project, but with different motivations. So I suggested a team structure to reflect the executive leads in a real business. I included a CEO position for the one I believed wanted to be seen as in control and not have to defer to others and a COO position for the one I believed wanted to control the direction of the project itself. The were other positions for the rest of us and I sold the benefits of each position to fit the personalities that I saw. Everyone adopted the idea with enthusiasm and chose the positions I’d carefully designed for them. The two would-be leaders became defacto leaders and I believe averted potential friction. The design also allowed everyone control over an area of the project that meant most to them and gave them a reason to feel invested. I should point out that another frustration I had in this module was seeing other students stating they intended not participate in the group aspect of the project – ignoring the cost this would bring to their team mates. Fortunately, our group only had one no-show (who we believe had deferred from the course earlier).
A short while into the project our COO announced that a life event meant he would also have to defer, now putting us two members down and threatening a power imbalance. However, an unintended benefit to the team structure was that there was a clear path to picking up the remaining workload and we’d firmly settled our course by this point and learned to trust each other so power and position became meaningless. We finished ahead of schedule exceeding all our objectives and spent the remaining weeks polishing elements up.
The group project was a positive experience, but it wasn’t the only element of this block. As well as learning about different group dynamics and best practices for collaboration, we also learned more on interaction design. In fact, in the module resources was an excellent lecture by Professor Harold Thimbleby on interaction design and the tragic consequences of some examples of poor interaction design in medical equipment. The lecture is available on Gresham College’s YouTube channel and highly recommend giving it a watch.
End of module assessment (EMA)
The EMA largely builds on the group project. There is a section testing knowledge and skill from the rest of the module, but the largest section was to build a multi-page website on a topic from a particular part of the module. In the case of this presentation, it was on generative AI (a very current topic).
Going forward
As I mentioned above, I received another distinction for my efforts in this module. Here I would normally talk about my next module (TM256), but as I write this I’ve already completed that module and I am just waiting on the results. I will begin writing my review of that module shortly. I recently started working a new part-time job and I have just begun the next module after TM256. TM257 is on Cisco networking and makes use of the Cisco NetAcademy for the module work. It looks like there is a day school where I will get to physically build and configure a small network – I’m looking forward to that experience.