Learn a Broad Range of IT Skills
This course is a great way to learn a range of IT skills to prepare you for a range of work tasks and environments.
Students have great flexibility to choose modules that suit specific goals
and learning needs.
Gain IT and Management Skills in one Course
The course develops a balance of skills in both information technology and management to produce a graduate with the foundation training to manage an IT business or department. This course does not require any previous IT experience though experience in using a personal computer will be useful.
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This course allows students to combine an education in broad IT skills with business and management training.
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Self-paced, 900 hour professional training, supported by a team of tutors from around the world.
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A very practical course, where every student is treated as an individual; and helped to develop skills that will set them apart and improve their employability anywhere in the world.
Modules
Note that each module in the Advanced Certificate in IT Management is a short course in its own right, and may be studied separately.
COURSE CONTENT
The lessons in some of the modules are as outlined briefly below:
Writing a Web Site (HTML)
- Introduction to the Internet and HTML
- The most important HTML Tags
- Simplification through HTML Construction Software
- Creating Links
- Loading a Site onto the Internet
- Adding Graphics
- Designing a Web Site that Works
- Advanced Features
Visual Basic .Net Programming
- Introduction To Visual Basic
- Code Theory (Part 1)
- Code Theory (Part 2)
- Objects (Part 1)
- Objects (Part 2)
- Application Design
ASP.Net
- Introduction
- VB.NET Essentials
- Web Forms
- Web Server Controls
- Form Validation
- Classes and Namespaces
- ASP.NET Applications
- Interacting with Databases
- Error Handling
- Email from Your Applications
- Project: Creating an Online Store
E Commerce
- Introduction – what is e-commerce (more than the internet)
- Success and failure – what makes the difference
- Promotional strategies – are different on the internet
- Optimizing web site potential
- Increasing web site exposure
- Automating supply of goods, services and cash flow
- Managing constant change
- Dealing with e-commerce problems
SQL
- Introduction to Databases
- Fundamentals of SQL
- Building a database with SQL
- Storing & Retrieving Data
- Advanced SQL database access methods
- Database Security
- Using SQL in applications
- Cursors
- Stored procedures
- Error Handling
- Dynamic SQL
- Advice & Tips
Javascript
- Introduction
- JavascriptEssentials I
- Javascript Essentials 2
- Functions
- Events and Event handling
- Advanced Javascript
- Dynamic HTML
- Writing Simple Web Applications
- Pop Ups and Navigation Menus.
- Javascript Applications
Photoshop
- Learning the menus
- Working with digital image files
- Understanding the Tool Palette
- Using Layers, Actions and History
- Digital painting, shapes and colours
- Selecting, Resizing, Transforming and Masking
- Adjustments and modifications
- Adding Filters and Styles
- Preparing files for print and web
Publishing I
- Nature and Scope of the Publishing world
- Desktop Publishing A
- Desktop Publishing B
- Illustration: Graphics
- Illustration: Photography
- Research Skills : Market Research, researching an article, etc
- Marketing of Publications
- Ethics & the law in publishing
- Developing a publishing project
Computer Servicing I
- The Computer Workshop.
- Computer and Workshop safety.
- Hardware Components.
- Different Systems & Basic Disassembly.
- System Assembly.
- Peripherals.
- Installation of software.
- Computer Maintenance.
- Troubleshooting.
Computer Servicing II
- Introduction to hardware components
- Basic Diagnostic Equipment
- Electric Circuits and Components
- Problem Solving and Fault Analysis
- Diagnostic Testing [A] (Self Tests and Diagnostic Cards)
- Diagnostic Testing [B] (System Board and Memory Tests)
- Software maintenance and troubleshooting
- Disk drives and CD-ROM
- Video and Audio Systems
- Developing a Maintenance Program
Business Studies
- Procedures for establishing a business
- Management procedures, including Quality Assurance
- Communication with suppliers and customers
- Problem solving techniques
- Staff management
- Financial management
- Developing production strategies
- Evaluating marketing performance
Business Planning
- Introduction to business plans
- Focus and Direction – Developing a clear direction and developing mission and vision statements
- Developing strategies and objectives
- Planning for growth
- Risk management and contingencies
- Systems – quality management, innovation management, information technology and control processes.
- Marketing plans
- Operations plans
- Human resources plans
- Financial plans
Project Management
- Introduction to Project Management
- Project Identification
- Project Planning
- Project Implementation
- Project Completion & Evaluation
- Improving Key Technical Skills
- Improving Key Leadership Skills
- Improving Key Interpersonal Skills
Networking Foundations
- Networking Terms, Concepts and Standards
- Network Topology, Architecture and Transmission Media
- Network Components and Hardware
- Network Design and Planning
- Network Upgrading and Project Management
- Network Protection and Maintenance
- Understanding Network Connecting Options
- Installation and Configuration of Network
- Basic TCP/IP Services and Applications
- Troubleshooting Tools for TCP/IP Networks
Marketing (Foundations)
- Marketing and the Business
- Scope of Marketing
- Target Marketing
- The Marketing Mix and Managing the Marketing Effort
- Product Presentation and Packaging
- Promotion
- Product Pricing and Distribution
- Customer Service
- Market Research
- Organisations - Structures and Roles
Research Project I
The Research Project involves some theoretical studies followed by designing, conducting and writing up research on a relevant topic. Selection of the topic, and progress in this project is monitored and guided by a tutor.
Industry Meetings (100 hours)
Industry Meetings involves attendance at committee meetings, seminars, conferences, exhibitions, trade shows, or any other events that are relevant. The student needs to submit documentary proof of attendance (eg. references, testimonials, receipts etc)
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Protecting Your Data
Data integrity is a term used extensively nowadays in the field of information security, so it is important to understand what the term integrity really means in this context.
Data integrity refers to data being unchanged when it is being created or stored on a disk or while being transmitted. To preserve data integrity, changes to data created, stored or transmitted should only occur when these changes are authorised. Data integrity is violated when stored data undergoes unauthorised changes whether these changes are caused by accident (such as bad disk sectors, hard disk crashes, transmission errors, noise in the transmission, etc.), by human error (from users, administrators, customers, etc.), or malicious intent.
There are many computational techniques used for verifying data integrity, the most common ones used are check sums, comparisons, message authentication, message digests and other mathematical algorithms. Cyclic Redundancy Check (also known as CRC) is one of the most important check sum technique and is used to check for errors on computers’ hard drives.
In order to preserve data integrity in information systems, it is important for any individual or business to understand and apply the protection, detection and correction models explained below.
Protection
Any business should be able to establish a set of standards and procedures in order to protect their information systems, and minimise the threats to data integrity. These threats include but are not limited to: human errors, hardware and equipment failure, computer viruses and worms, cybercrime and natural disasters (such as cyclones, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, etc.)
Detection
It is also important to be able to detect any risks to data integrity before they start causing havoc and adversely affect the business.
Correction
Most businesses understand that data loss is never fully preventable, and regardless of how much they try to avoid it, data loss might still happen at some stage. This is why every business should have business continuity plans in place, and they should be able to implement them as soon as data loss occurs, in order to minimise business downtime. As its name implies, a business continuity plan aims at recovering crucial data and allowing a business to resume its normal operations as quickly as possible, by minimising business downtime and recovering crucial data.
To apply the protection, detection and correction models, individuals and organisations can follow a few primary ways to fully realise data integrity such as redundancy, frequent backups, offsite storage, disaster recovery planning, installing antivirus software, installing hardware and/or software based firewalls, using UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) devices, etc.
Full backup
A full backup is done when a copy of all the data is stored on the required media device (i.e. tape or disk). There are advantages and disadvantages for this type of backup. The main advantage is that a full backup allows you to store a complete copy of all the data on the system, although this would prove to be time consuming, resource consuming, and requires a lot of disk space for storing the backup copy.
When a person or a business performs full backup copies on their data every couple of days, weeks or months, some part of this data might be unchanged whereas other parts of the data might have changed. Therefore, performing regular backups on data that has not changed is considered as senseless work because the same data will be present on multiple backups. For this reason, a full backup should be used only when a complete disk image backup is required. In other cases, systems administrators should consider other types of backups such as incremental, differential or mirror, or a combination of a few backup options. These will be explained in the sections below.
Incremental backup
An incremental backup is a backup type that saves a copy of the files that have been created or modified since the last backup was run. An incremental backup is generally scheduled to run at regular intervals of time, after a full backup is taken of the data. As soon as some files get created or modified, the incremental backup will process those files and take a copy of them. Incremental backups rely on an index file in order to find out which files have been created or modified on the drive or drives being backed up.
Differential backup
A differential backup is somehow similar to an incremental backup but the main difference is that it does not update the index file when each task is executed which means that every task execution will process any modifications to the data since the last full backup.
The main advantage of a differential backup is its speed of data restoration, but on the downside this backup requires more disk space because every differential backup will be of the same size or larger than the previous one.
Mirror backup
A mirror backup is very similar to a full back up, but the main difference is that the backup files in a mirror backup cannot get compressed and cannot be password protected. The main purpose of a mirror backup is to create an exact copy of the source data so if the source data is lost, the mirrored backup data can be accessed using tools such as Windows Explorer.
Onsite backup
When data is backed up and saved locally using devices such as magnetic tapes, DVD drives, CD drives or other disk drives, the backup method is referred to as “onsite backup”. In order for a backup to be considered an onsite backup, the storage devices will need to be located in the same location as the place where the backup is being taken. With larger organisations, data is backed up using network attached storage (or NAS) drives. NAS drives are hardware devices that have special networking capabilities. Only medium to large businesses were able to afford NAS storage drives in the past, but these devices have since started to drastically drop in price and have since been used by home computer users and businesses alike.
Offsite backup
Unlike onsite backup, “offsite backup” refers to a data backup method whereby the data is backed up and stored in a remote location in order to provide an added layer of security for the data, in the event of a disaster.
WHAT WILL THIS COURSE DO FOR YOU?
THIS COURSE IS NOT A MAINSTREAM PROGRAM - But with many University IT graduates struggling in their careers; being different can be a big advantage!
Change is rapid and unavoidable in the computer industry.
Often courses simply don't keep up to date; but if you learn the fundamentals across a wide enough swathe of the industry, from people who are not only teachers, but also practising programmers and technicians; you have the capacity to be part of the changes that are moving the IT industry forward.
This course is designed and delivered to prepare our graduates for change. It is a substantial and broad based course. Graduates from our courses have been very successful in the past; and often that is because our courses are outside the mainstream of education.
They are not the same as what you find elsewhere; they are focused on what you need to develop an outstanding future in the industry.
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