Faculty of Science

First Year

COM101G0: Computer Literacy for Science (New Syllabus)

COM101G0: Computer Literacy for Science (New Syllabus)

Theory: 5 Hrs

Practical: 30 Hrs

Independent Learning: 35 Hrs

Objectives

Provide knowledge and practical experience on ICT tools and techniques required in the present learning and working environment.

Intended Learning Outcomes:

  • Describe the functions of computers and communication networks components
  • Create documents using word processing software
  • Design slides using presentation software
  • Make use of spreadsheet application software for data manipulation and data visualization
  • Apply Internet tools effectively for learning, communication and personal organization

Syllabus Overview

No Topic Hours
1 Fundamentals of ICT 5 hours Lectures
2 Word processing 10 hours practical
3 Presentation Techniques 04 hours practical
4 Spreadsheet Applications 10 hours practical
5 Applications on the Internet 06 hours practical

Fundamentals of ICT (5 Hours)

No Topic Hrs
1 Basic Concepts of ICT: ICT and its Promises, Computer System, Characteristics of Computer, Type of computers and its classifications, Data versus Information, Units of measurement for  capacity and encoding data. 1
2 Hardware & Software: System Unit, Input devices, Output devices and Secondary storage devices, System software and Application software. 2
3 Networks and communication services: Types of Networks, Major Components of a Simple Network, Data communication standards, IP Addressing and Network Services (Web Browsing, e-mail, Short message services, Downloading, Teleconferencing, Shared resource, Telnet, E-Learning, E-Commerce, Portable works and etc). 2
4 Challenges of Information Technology: Health Issues, Ergonomics & the Environment, Cyber Ethics, Threats and Safeguarding Computers and Communications Systems. 1

Word Processing (with Advanced Techniques) (10 Hours)

No Topic Hrs
1 Introduction to Windows, toolbars and Navigating the word Document. 1
2 Working with Text, Formatting Pages, Formatting Characters and Paragraphs,  Tabs, Working with Tables, Documents with Columns and Art 6
3 Automating Tasks, Tracking Changes, Creating simple web pages, Mail merge, Previewing and Printing Documents. 3

Presentation Techniques ( 05 Hours)

No Topic Hrs
1 Creating presentations, applying and modifying design templates, viewing and formatting presentations 1
2 Adding and modifying slide text, animating text and objects 2
3 Inserting multimedia information into powerpoint, drawing and modifying shapes 1
4 setting up and delivering a slide show and printing a presentation 1

Spreadsheet Applications (10 Hours)

No Topic Hrs
1 Environment settings, working with cells, formatting cells and worksheets 2
2 Working with formulas and functions 6
3 Creating and modifying charts, page set up and printing 2

Applications on the Internet (6 Hours)

No Topic Hrs
1 Websites and effective searching, learning with the aid of the Internet. 2
2 Communication tools, personal organization tools. 2
3 document collaboration. 2

Teaching / Learning Methods: Lecture, laboratory practical, Discussion, tutorial classes

Method of Evaluation

In-course assessment : 10%

1 Two Theory Assessment  01 hour each
2 Two Practicals Assessment  90 minutes each

Mid Semester Examination : 30%

Part I MCQ and Structured questions – 02 hour
Part II Practical – 02 hours

End of course Examination : 60%

Part I MCQ and Structured questions – 02 hour
Part II Practical – 02 hours

Note:

  • Each student must have 80% attendance to be eligible to sit the examinations at the first attempt. Failing to do so would result in wasting the time for a year or so to sit for the repeat examination.

  • Assessment examination cannot repeated for absentees unless the reason for absence is acceptable to the Board of the Faculty. The repeat examination will be conducted on the next academic year. 

  • A completion certificate may be awarded to those who complete all the practical assignments and obtain a final mark of 40%.

COM106GA2: Computer Literacy (Old Syllabus)

COM106GA2: Computer Literacy (Old Syllabus)

Theory: 15 Hrs

Practical: 45 Hrs

(For Bio Science, Computer Science and Physical Science students at Level 1)

This course is conducted for all first year students to enhance the ICT skills of them. These skills will support them for their studies and helpful when they join in employment after completing the degree. The need for the change is to increase the weight of Practical skills and to support the UCTIT exam conducted by the HETC project.

Objectives

Students would be able to

  • describe the basic concepts of ICT
  • identify the basic components of a computer and describe the function of each, identify different types of software and general concepts relating to software categories
  • identify network fundamentals and the benefits of networks
  • design and produce various types of documents such as notes, research reports etc
  • create and format spreadsheets, including the use of formulas
  • prepare and do effective presentations using computers
  • create and manipulate databases

and students would be knowledgeable of computer ethics

Outcome

At the end of the course student will be able to describe the basic concepts and components of ICT and do Word processing, Graphical presentation, Spreadsheet and Database packages.

Syllabus Overview

No Topic Hours Credit
1 Fundamentals of ICT 15 hours Lectures 1 credit
2 Word processing 14 hours practical 1 credit
3 Presentation Techniques 07 hours practical
4 Spreadsheet Applications 12 hours practical
5 Database handling 12 hours practical

Fundamentals of ICT (15 Hours)

No Topic Hrs
1 Basic Concepts of ICT: ICT and its Promises, Computer System, Characteristics of Computer, Type of computers and its classifications, Data versus Information, Units of measurement for  capacity and encoding data. 2
2 Hardware: System Unit, Input devices, Output devices and Secondary storage devices 4
3 Software: System software and Application software 4
4 Networks and communication services: Types of Networks, Major Components of a Simple Network, Data communication standards, IP Addressing and Network Services (Web Browsing, e-mail, Short message services, Downloading, Teleconferencing, Shared resource, Telnet, E-Learning, E-Commerce, Portable works and etc) 3
5 Challenges of Information Technology: Health Issues, Ergonomics & the Environment, Cyber Ethics, Threats and Safeguarding Computers and Communications Systems 2

Word Processing (with Advanced Techniques) (14 Hours)

No Topic Hrs
1 Introduction to Windows 1
2 Working with Text, Formatting Pages, Formatting Characters and Paragraphs,  Tabs, Working with Tables, Documents with Columns and Art 6
3 Documentation of project reports/thesis 6
4 Automating Tasks, Creating simple web pages, Mail merge, Previewing and Printing Documents. 1

Presentation Techniques ( 07 Hours)

No Topic Hrs
1 Creating presentations, applying and modifying design templates, viewing and formatting presentations 2
2 Adding and modifying slide text, animating text and objects 3
3 Inserting multimedia information into powerpoint, drawing and modifying shapes 1
4 setting up and delivering a slide show and printing a presentation 1

Spreadsheet Applications (12 Hours)

No Topic Hrs
1 Environment settings, working with cells, formatting cells and worksheets 2
2 Working with formulas and functions 8
3 Creating and modifying charts, page set up and printing 2

Database Handling (12 Hours)

No Topic Hrs
1 Creating and Modifying databases and tables 4
2 Queries and relationship 6
3 Designing forms and reports 2

Method of Evaluation

In-course assessment : 60%

1 Two Theory Assessment  01 hour each
2 Two Practicals Assessment  90 minutes each

End of course Examination : 40%

Part I MCQ and Structured questions – 02 hour
Part II Practical – 02 hours

  • Final Marks = (Practical Marks + Theory Marks)/2

Note:

  • Each student must have 80% attendance to be eligible to sit the examinations at the first attempt. Failing to do so would result in wasting the time for a year or so to sit for the repeat examination.

  • In-Course Assessments carry 60% weight while the End of Course Examination carry 40% weight. Students are requested to be aware of it, and the attendance is important to score good marks in the assessment tests.

  • Assessment examination cannot repeated for absentees unless the reason for absence is acceptable to the Board of the Faculty. The repeat examination will be conducted on the next academic year. 

Third Year

ITE301G2: Software Tools for scientific calculations

ITE 301G2: Software tools for scientific calculations

Course Code ITE 301G2
Course Title Software tools for scientific calculations
Credit Value 2
Core / Optional Supplementary
Hourly Breakdown Theory Practical Independent Learning
0 60 40
Objectives:
Provide an introduction to the scientific computing using software such as MATLAB, R, and other free tools for scientific calculations, design, statistical analysis, and decision making in research.
Intended Learning Outcomes:
·         Demonstrate fundamental programming concepts

·         Design simple algorithms to solve problems

·       Solve variety of computational problems like scientific and mathematical problems

·         Choose and conduct appropriate statistical analyses

·         Review a variety of advanced statistical techniques

·         Discuss situations in which each technique would be used, the assumptions made by each method, how to set up the analysis, and how to interpret the results

·         Critically evaluate results of statistical analyses, and to draw appropriate conclusions
Syllabus Outline
Course Contents:
·         MATLAB basics, Visualization and Programming, Solving Equations, Curve Fitting, and Numerical Techniques, Advanced Methods, Various Functions and Toolboxes, Hands-on session

·         Introduction to IBM SPSS Statistics, Selecting cases for analyses, Transforming variables, Using functions to transform variables, Setting the unit of analysis, Merging data files,  Summarizing individual variables, Basic descriptive statistics, Graphs, Describing the relationship between variables, Advanced statistical procedures

·         Introduction to R, Basic concepts of Object Orientation and Programming, Data manipulation, Data analysis, Machine Learning
Teaching and Learning Methods:
Laboratory practical, Tutorials discussions
Assessment Strategy:
·         In-course Practical Assessments                                                                  30%

·         End-of-course Practical Examination                                                          70%
References:
·         Attaway, S., MATLAB: A Practical Introduction to Programming and Problem Solving, 5th Ed., 2019.

·         Field, A., Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics, 5th Ed, 2013

·         Wickham, H. and Grolemund, G., R for Data Science, December 2016

 

ITE302G2: Computational and Scientific programming using Python

ITE302G2: Computational and Scientific programming using Python

Course Code ITE 302G2
Course Title Computational and Scientific Programming using Python
Credit Value 2
Core / Supplementary Supplementary
Hourly Breakdown Theory Practical Independent Learning
0 60 40
Objectives:
Provide the fundamental concepts of computing programming, how to solve simple problems using Python, with a specific emphasis on data manipulation, transformation, and visualisation of scientific data.
Intended Learning Outcomes:
  • Explain what an algorithm is and its importance in computer programming
  • Recognize and construct common programming idioms: variables, loop, branch, subroutine, and input/output
  • Describe the principles of structured programming and be able to describe, design, implement, and test structured programs
  • Design and implement a program to solve a real-world problem using the language idioms, data structures, and standard library
Syllabus Outline
Course Contents:
·         Installing Python; basic syntax, interactive shell, editing, saving, and running a script.

·         The concept of data types; variables, assignments; immutable variables; numerical types; arithmetic operators and expressions; comments in the program; understanding error messages;

·         Conditions, Boolean logic, logical operators; ranges Control statements: if-else, loops (for, while); short-circuit (lazy) evaluation

·         Strings and text files; manipulating files and directories, os and sys modules; text files: reading/writing text and numbers from/to a file; creating and reading a formatted file (csv or tab-separated).

·         String manipulations: subscript operator, indexing, slicing a string; strings and number system: converting strings to numbers and vice versa.

·         Lists, tuples, and dictionaries; basic list operators, replacing, inserting, removing an element; searching and sorting lists; dictionary literals, adding and removing keys, accessing and replacing values;

·         Design with functions: hiding redundancy, complexity; arguments and return values; formal vs actual arguments, named arguments. Program structure and design. Recursive functions.

·         Simple Graphics and Image Processing: “turtle” module; simple 2D drawing – colors, shapes; digital images, image file formats, image processing.Simple image manipulations with ‘image’ module (convert to black and white, greyscale, blur, etc.).

·         Object Oriented Programming, An introduction to classes and objects, define a class, work with object composition, work with encapsulation, and work with inheritance, override object methods, Illustrative programs.
Teaching and Learning Methods:
 Laboratory practical, Tutorial discussions.
Assessment Strategy:
·         In-course Practical Assessments                                                                 30%

·         End-of-course Practical Examination                                                          70%
References:
·         Lambert, K. A., Fundamentals of PYTHON, 2nd Edition, Cengage Learning, 2019

·         Lee, K. D., Python programming fundamentals, 2nd Edition, Springer, 2014

·         Lutz, M., Programming Python: powerful object-oriented programming, 5th Edition, O’Reilly Media, 2010

·         Brain Heinold, B., A Practical Introduction to Python Programming,  BrainHeinold.net, 2012

ITE303G2: Web Development Technologies

ITE303G2: Web Development Technologies

Course Code ITE 303G2
Course Title Web Development Technologies
Credit Value 2
Core / Supplementary Supplementary
Hourly Breakdown Theory Practical Independent Learning
0 60 40
Objectives:
Provide hands-on training in web application development techniques on client side (HTML, JavaScript, and CSS) and server-side programming (PHP, MySQL database connection).
Intended Learning Outcomes:
·         Describe a variety of ways that web-sites may be developed

·         Create dynamic web pages using HTML, CSS and JavaScript

·         Demonstrate skills to upload websites to a web server

·         Design and Develop fully functioning web-sites using sever side scripting languages to enable interaction

·         Validate web pages according to W3C standard considering the need of clients and users
Syllabus Outline
Course Contents:
·         Introduction to WWW: Protocols and programs, secure connections, application and development tools, the web browser and server,

·         Web Design: Web site design principles, planning the site and navigation,

·         Introduction to HTML: The development process, Html tags and simple HTML forms, web site structure

·         Style sheets: Need for CSS, introduction to CSS, basic syntax and structure, using CSS

·         JavaScript: Client side scripting, What is JavaScript, How to develop JavaScript, simple JavaScript, variables, functions, conditions, loops and repetition

·         XML: Introduction to XML, uses of XML, simple XML, XML key components

·         PHP: Starting to script on server side, Arrays, function and forms, advance PHP.

·         MySQL: Basic command with PHP examples, Connection to server, creating database, selecting a database, listing database, listing table names creating a table, inserting data, altering tables, queries, deleting database, deleting data and tables, PHP myadmin and database bugs.
Teaching and Learning Methods:
Laboratory practical, Tutorial discussions
Assessment Strategy:
·         In-course Practical Assessments                                                                    30 %

·         End-of-course Practical Examination                                                              70%
References:
·         Purewal, S., Learning Web App Development, 1st Ed., 2014.

·         Felke-Morris, T., Web Development and Design Foundations with HTML5, 9th Ed., Pearson, 2019.

·         Robbins, J., Learning Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics, 5th Ed., O’Reilly Media, 2018.

Nixon, R., Learning PHP, MySQL & JavaScript: With jQuery, CSS & HTML5, 5th Ed., O’Reilly media, 2018.