INFO1111 Chap.1 The IT Profession, Professionalism and Careers
The IT Profession, Professionalism and Careers
This chapter covers the Week 1 and Week 2 material on what it means to work as a computing professional.
It separates three terms students often merge: a profession is an occupation built on specialised education, expertise and ethical standards, usually with a professional body; practice is the repeated application of knowledge and skill, and also the work itself; professionalism is the conduct expected of a person in a professional role, broken into competence, accountability, ethical behaviour, reliability, and respect and courtesy.
It introduces the Australian Computer Society, its membership grades and the 30 hours of yearly development a Certified Professional must complete. It follows IT careers through four bands of experience, from graduate roles to chief technology officer, and the alternative paths of consulting, research, entrepreneurship and specialisation.
It closes with the structure of the Bachelor of Advanced Computing, the prerequisite and prohibition rules, and the four majors.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Knowledge, skills and expertise
- 02
Profession, practice and professionalism as separate ideas
- 03
The five aspects of professionalism
- 04
Six qualities of an IT professional
- 05
The ACS, its grades and Certified Professional status
- 06
Four career bands and four alternative paths
- 07
Seven core roles of IT in organisations
- 08
Degree core, prerequisites, prohibitions and the four majors
Worked example · free
Diagnosing a professionalism gap in a new graduate
- +1Competence: unreproducible defect reports fall short of the knowledge and skill the role needs, even though the tester spots problems.
- +1Improve it by practice: use a fixed template with steps, expected result and actual result for every report until the habit is automatic.
- +1Accountability and honesty with the client: announcing an undeployed fix shows a lapse in taking responsibility for what you say.
- +1Improve it by checking the deployment status before any client message, and correcting the earlier statement promptly.
Key terms
- Profession
- An occupation requiring specialised education, expertise and practical skill, guided by ethical standards and often regulated by a professional body.
- Professionalism
- How a person in a professional role is expected to behave, showing competence, ethics, integrity and respect.
- Expertise
- The combination of knowledge, knowing about something, with skills, being able to do it.
- Certified Professional
- An ACS recognition based on an assessment of skills and competencies, kept by completing recognised development each year.
- Prohibition
- A rule that stops enrolment in a unit when a unit with too much shared content has been completed or is being taken.
- Prerequisite
- A unit that must be passed before enrolment in a later unit that relies on its knowledge.
The IT Profession, Professionalism and Careers FAQ
How is a profession different from professionalism?
A profession is the occupation and its structure: education, a body of knowledge, ethical standards and often a professional body. Professionalism is personal conduct, the competence, accountability and courtesy a member is expected to show at work.
What does the Australian Computer Society do?
It is the professional society for the Australian IT industry. It runs education and networking events, offers certification, accredits degrees, certifies the skills of migrants and seeks to enforce standards of behaviour on its members.
How many hours of development does an ACS Certified Professional need each year?
Thirty hours of recognised continuing professional development each year, through formal classes or self-learning, to keep the certification. The lecture uses this figure to show that learning continues for a whole career, not just through a degree.
Which roles do graduates usually start in?
The lecture's graduate roles include IT support, junior development, data analysis, QA testing and business analysis for the first two years, with work done under supervision while technical foundations are built.
What are the four majors in the Bachelor of Advanced Computing?
Computer Science, Software Development, Computational Data Science and Cybersecurity. Every student completes one, and many keep two open during second year by choosing units that count towards both.
Exam move
Make a three-column card for profession, practice and professionalism and add one workplace example of your own to each column; most confusion in this topic comes from mixing the three. Learn the five aspects of professionalism as verbs you can spot in a story, then test yourself on short scenarios from your own part-time work or group projects.
For the ACS, remember what the society does and the one number the lecture attaches to certification, 30 hours a year. For careers, sketch the four experience bands on a timeline and place two roles you might want in each. Finally, check your own study plan against the degree rules: confirm prerequisites for next year's units, look for prohibitions, and list which units count towards the major you are leaning towards.
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