Overview

This unit is designed to introduce students to the ICT profession, focusing on the ethical, legal, and professional obligations, as well as compliance and governance in cybersecurity and AI. Topics covered include an introduction to ethics, cyber laws and regulations, ICT professional responsibilities, cyber threat risk assessment, responsible AI, the importance of secure software, network and cloud security, and intellectual property in cyberspace.

Requisites

Teaching periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date
Date Semester 1
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
03-March-2025
01-June-2025
Last self-enrolment date
16-March-2025
Census date
31-March-2025
Last withdraw without fail date
24-April-2025
Results released date
08-July-2025

Learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

  • Analyse the ethical and socio-technical challenges faced by ICT professionals, including human factors, accessibility, and usability
  • Develop policies, and guidelines for organizations to address the ethical and legal implications of ICT standards, codes of conduct, and legislative/regulatory obligations
  • Describe the fundamental principles of secure software, network, and cloud systems, and identify common cyber threat risks
  • Apply and evaluate Responsible AI use cases in real-world contexts
  • Analyze and apply intellectual property principles in digital and cybersecurity context

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
On-campus
Lecture		 1.00  12 weeks  12
On-campus
Class		 1.00  12 weeks  12
Online
Lecture		 1.00 12 weeks 12
Unspecified Activities
Various		 9.50  12 weeks  114
TOTAL     150

Assessment

Type Task Weighting ULO's
Assignment  Individual/Group  35 - 50%  1,2,3,4,5
Portfolio Individual 20 - 30% 1,2,3,4,5
Test Individual 30 - 35% 1,2,3,4,5

Content

  • Codes of Ethics
  • Teamwork concepts and issues, and cyber roles
  • Importance of software, cloud and network security
  • Societal issues/legal issues/privacy
  • Understanding the ICT profession
  • IT governance, cyber policy development and organisational issues
  • Systems acquisition
  • Threat Modelling
  • Responsible AI
  • Intellectual property related to technology

Study resources

Reading materials

A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.