Intoduction to Information Technology

Assessment 2

Our Project

Team Profile - CONQUERORS

GitHub Repository: https://github.com/nicole-a1/Assessment_2

Website: https://nicole-a1.github.io/Assessment_2/

Team member information

Sharif Ayazi - S3815095

Website: https://sharifayazi.github.io/A1/

My name is sharif I am from Afghanistan came to Australia eight years ago and I finished year 12 in Pakistan. and when I came in Australia on 2013, I started studding IT as a parts time and was working as a full time too. I speak Dari (Persian) and also familiar to other languages such as Arabic, Urdu, English, Persian. I love soccer. I am playing soccer three days a week. I love playing with code and designing. I have finished my diploma and advanced diploma at Chisholm TAFE in Victoria four years ago. I stopped studying for 2 years and now I am continuing again. I am a full-time employee working at a vehicle parts supply company. I have some experience of web design. We are using the Pinnacle system at the current company that I am one of their employees. The Pinnacle system is a powerful stock management system which can identify and display all the details of a car from mechanical parts to panels and print tags, scan, display inventoried parts lists on the company’s website, produce invoices and many other functions. I start studying IT again to achieve to my goal of furthering my IT career and make myself more familiar in programming.

Myers-Briggs:
personalities


Personality Test
Personality test


Education Learning TestEducation learning test


The Big Five – personality test
the big five


The Vark Questionnaire Result
the Vark

Cristopher Ariel Castro Inostroza - S3923904

Website: https://chrisblackspace.github.io/introductiontoIT/

My name is Cristopher Ariel Castro Inostroza, my hobbies are programming Python, going to the gym (home-gym), taking my dog for walks, bike riding, and reading. My interest in IT is leaning towards cloud computing and technology in general. Although I have no experience in Cloud computing, I possess an average level of computing handling.

Myers-Briggs: myers The Big Five – personality test Big 51 Learning preference Test Vark1



Steven Pigatto - S3851506

Website: https://bundyman8.github.io/NewRepo/

My name is Steven Pigatto. I am 34 years old, and I am from an Italian descent. I have a young family with 2 little kids under 5. I am currently working in the automotive industry for over 13 years. I have completed my Apprenticeship and now I run a parts warehouse distribution centre for our local dealership. My hobbies contain sport, GYM, and a huge fan of Mavel Universe. I have travelled overseas to multiple countries which I mostly enjoyed Hawaii, such a magical place to visit. I am a member of my local CFA brigade coming up to 4 years. I have been to many different fires from small to large. My current ranking is 4th Lieutenant. My IT experience is only minimal which is enough for me to get around. I am really interested in cybersecurity because it is a big issue in today's world, and I would like to learn more about it so it could lead to a dream job one day.

Myers-Briggs: Consul The Big Five – personality test Big 5 Learning preference Test Vark

Nicole Attard - S3924819

Website: https://nicole-a1.github.io/Intro_to_IT/

My name is Nicole, I’m 29 and I’m from Sydney. I hold a Bachelor of Science with a major in pharmacology but went straight into a transcript typist role after I graduated. In my downtime, I love reading, catching up on TV shows and movies and playing games. When I get the chance, I also enjoy going for bike rides. I've always had an interest in IT but with everyday life moving more and more online, I began wondering how it all works and what new things are happening in the IT industry. While I don't have much IT experience, I am looking to change that by eventually completing a Bachelor of IT through RMIT.

Myers Briggs

Big 5

VARK Learning Test

Michael Sy - s3921688

Website: https://michael-sy72.github.io/ITproject/

I am currently working full time as a sales consultant in Telstra- Melbourne store. I am originally from Philippines, migrated here in Australia 10 years ago together with my lovely wife who works as a chef and my 12-year-old son. Our native language is Filipino which we insist on teaching our son to learn since he technically grew up and started school here. We as a family is a basketball fanatic, we watch and follow NBA games and my son also started to play Rep basketball. I love gadgets, mobile gadgets in particular that’s why I am in this kind of job right now. My interest in IT helps me to decide to go back to schooling after nearly a decade. Though I don’t carry any IT skills at the moment, I hope that I can learn, adopt and update my skills to the current technology requirements and use it in the future to be qualified to my dream job in IT industry.

Img_1s

Img_2

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Theodore Haluska - S3925389

Website: https://s3925389.github.io/Intro-to-IT/

My name is Theodore I am 34 years old. I am a dual citizen (Australian/American) I spent most of my earlier years growing up in the USA before moving to Australia permanently. I enjoy playing video games, fishing, hydroponic designs and applications, programming / AI intrigue me and would be keen to learn, I have a lovely wife and son who I enjoy spending time with when I can. Overall, I am incredibly detailed when it comes to my objectives, imagining multiple scenarios or even my long-winded explanations.

Theo_16personalities

Theo_bigfive

Theo_Vark

GROUP PERSONALITY PROFILES



Myers-Briggs Test Results

team myers briggs 1

team myers briggs 2

The Myers-Briggs personality test attempts to categorise the personalities of individuals into one of 16 different types based on the theories of Carl G Jung (The Myers & Briggs Foundation 2021). Though this particular test has been found to be practically meaningless, it is still commonly used in the workplace and in educational institutions as a way to analyse the abilities or personal profiles of individuals (Strombert and Caswell 2015).



Having each taken the Myers-Briggs test though as a way to get to know each other as a team, the results have been complied in the graphs above. It can clearly be seen that the group is made up of individuals with very different personalities. Despite this, the results would indicate that while there are varying tendencies, they appear to be quite moderate, with the majority of traits being represented as a balance between two extremes for most of the team.



A team comprised of individuals with different profiles, especially when considering these profiles tend to be in the moderate range of between 30 to 80% is extremely beneficial. In a setting such as this where a team is working in the IT field, the lack of extremes in traits such as being intuitive/observant or thinking/feeling would minimise the extent to which disagreements and issues arise with individuals at opposites ends of the scale. Also, for those individuals with extreme tendencies (for example, introversion or assertiveness) would be tempered by the personalities of the other members of the group, hopefully enabling the team to work effectively and efficiently together to progress towards a common goal.

Big-Five visual Team Test Results



team big five

The Big Five personality test aims to provide a statistical result in relation to a series of questions relating to five personality traits being: extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness and intellect/imagination. From the above graph, we can see that the group is made up of individuals with very different profiles. There is a wide range of results for all categories.

The differences in all these traits will hopefully contribute to a balanced group dynamic where different ideas are able to be brought to the table and different approaches to working will help to keep the project moving forward and on track. For example, the differences in the intellect/imagination traits will enable effective discussions in relation to conventional versus more imaginative ideas and approaches and may provide unique perspectives as the group works to a common goal.

Though there are some extreme differences, such as across the extroversion and intellect/imagination traits, the consistent levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness across the group is likely to help lessen the impacts of any disagreements that may arise, and provides an environment where each team member can contribute effectively.



The VARK Questionnaire Visual Team Test Results



team vark

Throughout the years, many studies have been conducted around the validity and accuracy of learning style assessments. While the majority of these studies have found that knowing a person's preferred manner of learning (visual, auditory, text or practical based) does not help them learn more effectively by tailoring learning styles to suit individuals, they are still widely used as an assessment tool in educational institutions today (Reynolds 2021).

Having each conducted the VARK learning test, we can clearly see in the above graph that while it appears that kinesthetic is the preferred method of learning for the group, all other modes of learning are still represented. This would indicate a team that would be able to process and share information in a variety of ways to ensure the group is able to effectively work together towards a common goal.

Tools

Microsoft Teams Info

Microsoft Teams Channel Link

Recordings of Meetings

Tools

The main two tools used by the team during the preparation of this report and website were GitHub and Microsoft Teams. As a group, we found these two were more than adequate to meet our requirements in order to complete the project and relatively simple to use.

Microsoft Teams

In terms of communication, Microsoft Teams has been extremely beneficial. Not only has it made communication between members convenient given everyone's different schedules, the additional functions that Microsoft Team can perform, such as scheduling and recording meetings, as well as the integration of other Microsoft Office products like Microsoft Word has been beneficial to the smooth progression of this project.

One thing that could be improved upon is being able to utilise Teams more effectively to increase efficiency of the group. For instance, rather than exclusively using the chat function to communicate and share files, we perhaps should have been using the Teams channel to share information, which we only realised towards the end of the project. It appears this is the shared SharePoint folder for all members of the team to be able to contribute and access. However, given that all members are able to simultaneously work on Word documents shared by one member in the chat, this did not really affect our ability to work together as a team.

Microsoft Teams also appears to have an ability to organise, allocate and schedule tasks to be completed which was not really utilised during this time. The use of this inbuilt tool may have allowed us to chart our progress more accurately as a team, as compared to having generalised discussions during weekly Teams meetings with vague deadlines set. However, as we, both as individuals and as a team, gain more experience with Teams, in the future, this tool may be extremely helpful.

GitHub

The other main tool used during the production of this report and website was GitHub. GitHub allows users to create projects and collaborate in real time, by allowing users to "fork" a repository onto their own personal repository where they can then make changes and then request the owner to pull the changes into the original file. Though there does not appear to have been many forks of the repository for this project and each user has contributed directly to the index file as collaborators, the knowledge that this function is there is highly comforting.

Given the fact that the majority of the work was focused on the text-based content, the only real use of GitHub as a team was towards the end as we made finishing touches to the content and began migrating the information from the Word document to the index.html file on GitHub. The progress we have made in relation to the project can clearly be seen on the GitHub repository. As we slowly began to input information into the index file, committing changes and uploading different files, GitHub began a log of who contributed what and at what time.

The audit trail on GitHub is both extremely accurate and detailed. On the main branch in the repository, it can clearly be seen how many commits have been made, when files were added/modified with a short description of the latest modification. When a file in the repository is opened, the contributors are noted, along with the latest commit. We are also able to see the complete history from the creation of the file to the present time. While some commits have been described in a basic form, there is still enough information to be able to note that something has been changed, and then to visually see the actual change by clicking on the commit description.

However, one difficulty arose as we all attempted to input data into the index file. As we are all relatively new to the use of GitHub, we found that as each person worked locally on their own devices, when it came time to merge changes, oftentimes we had forgotten to merge the changes others had made in the meantime which removed the new changes by others. Hopefully as we all become more experienced in the use of GitHub, this difficulty will become non-existent.

Group Member Ideal Jobs

IDEAL JOBS DEMANED FROM EMPLOYERS IT SPECIFIC SKILLS GENERAL SKILLS
Cloud Architect S3923904 11% jump in self-identified cloud architects between 2018 and 2021 IT engineering, experience with programming languages such as Python, Ruby and Elixir.AWS eco sys.SQL server Databases Variety of software's Cost and models Problem solving, Strong people skills, Excellent written and verbal communication.
Cybersecurity Analyst S3851506 By 2026 there will be an additional 17,600 cyber security jobs. A big demand in Australia. Experience with coding such as HTML, Java, Python ect. IT engineering, Networking, and IT knowledge. Platform Knowledge: foundation in computer forensics Understand hacking Problem solving, Technical Aptitude, Knowledge of Security across different platforms, Communication Skills.
Software Quality Assurance Engineer S3924819 Currently no shortage in Australia, strong future demand (National Skills Commission). Small group in Australia (640 in 2016, 88% employed full-time) (Joboutlook). Expected 34% growth for ICT support and test engineers by 2025 (Labour Market Information Portal) Programming languages (python, java, c++, etc). Knowledge of software testing applications (Jira, TestLink, confluence, etc). Understanding of the software development life cycle. Communication, teamwork, time management, attention to detail, problem solving skills.
DevOps S3925389 Future Projections for Software and Applications Engineering are 30% by 2025(Labor Market Information Portal) Programming Languages(Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Python, PHP, Bash, plus others) Dev Ops Tools (Version control, Continuous, Integration servers, Configuration management, Deployment automation, Containers Infrastructure, Orchestration, Monitoring and analytics, Testing and Cloud Quality, tools, Network protocols DevOps tools and technologies, Linux fundamentals and scripting, Continuous Integration And Continuous Delivery,4 Infrastructure as Code (IAC) Soft Skills and Communication Skills, Sufficient Knowledge about Different Source Control Systems, Cloud Service Knowledge, Security Skills, Knowledge about Various Infrastructure Automation Tools, Scripting Skills, Collaboration, Problem Solving Skills
ICT Support Technician S3815095 ICT Support technicians can expect very strong industry growth in the coming years, with expected increase of 65,800 workers in 2018 to 77,900 by 2023. Referance Windows, General computing Office 365 Hard skills required, soft skills required, University degree Communication problem solving customer service
Cyber Security Analyst s3921688 Australia is currently short 2300 cyber security workers Current salary range is from $75k - $125k per annum Refer: Top 10 Cyber Security Jobs and Salaries | ECU Online Needed to learn: Reverse engineering, application design, firewall administration Communication Skills Time management, Curiousity, attention to details

Future Team’s Job titles in demand:


team's ideal jobs in demand

As a group, there is a variety of ideal jobs, each having a different focus in the IT industry. From the above graph, it is clear that by far, the most in demand job is for cybersecurity analysts. This is also reflected in the fact that the ideal jobs of two members of a team of six is cybersecurity analyst. With the increase in the use of online services, it is obvious that security is going to play a major role in the future as more of our personal and sensitive information is uploaded onto the internet in particular, thus fuelling the demand to protect this data. By 2026, it is predicted that there will be an additional 17,600 jobs for cybersecurity analysts.

The next highest demand is in relation to cloud architects. The reasons for the demand for cybersecurity analysts can also be seen to be contributing factors in the demand for cloud architects. From 2018 to 2021, there has been an 11% increase in self-identified cloud architects. No doubt this figure will continue to rise as more industries take advantage of developments in this field, moving their operations to the cloud to reduce their costs and increase efficiency, with further benefits in choice, scalability, speed, integration, auditing and compliance, and business continuity planning (Saint-Marc 2014).

Next in demand is DevOps, with expectations of around 30% growth by 2025. Similar to the growth in demand for cybersecurity analysts and cloud architects, the increasing use of software and developments in IT technologies and the fact that many businesses are now moving much of their process into the cloud has contributed greatly to the demand for DevOps engineers, especially in terms of facilitating effective collaboration between software development and IT teams (DevopsCurry 2020).

Software quality assurance engineers are next in demand. So far they appear to have a small presence in the industry with only 640 persons employed in this role in 2016 in Australia, but would appear to have strong growth outcomes, reaching levels of 34% growth by 2025. Like all the ideal jobs described previously, developments and improvements in terms of software will require software quality assurance engineers to ensure that the end product provides the desired outcome.

Finally, though it seems to have the smallest demand, growth in the ICT support technician field is expected to increase from 65,800 in 2018 to 77,900 by 2023. As with all other IT positions, the increase in the number of people accessing and using IT technologies will lead to the requirement for consistent and ongoing support. ICT support technicians are often the first point of contact for end users to provide technical support and assistance for users of computer infrastructure and web technologies.

Though there are differences in terms of job roles and technical skills required for each job, people employed in these positions often work as a team in order to provide services to the consumer. For example, when working on a particular project involving cloud architecture, obviously a cloud architect would be required to head the project, designing the architecture to suit the client's instructions. DevOps would be involved to ensure the appropriate software and technologies are being utilised, while software engineering analysts are needed to ensure the technologies utilised work correctly for the client. Cybersecurity analysts and IT support technicians would likely be involved in the ongoing support and security for the clients and other end users (Sheehy 2019).

Industry Data

Identified and ranked Team’s future skill set needed for ideal job


common future skills


Nowadays, the increasing demand for specific skill sets is growing. Nevertheless, we found some standard skill sets throughout different carriers. The above bar graph shows some of the most critical and relevant skills needed for the Team’s ideal job. The most appropriate skill set sought is people skills such as problem-solving, communication skills, time management. These basic skill sets are highly ranked. They add value to any work environment. Thus, mutual understanding and practical communication skills are a must. Furthermore, we have soft skills, which are highly desirable for almost every employer in the IT industry. Lastly, special Software such as Linux and virtual machines ranked highly in our Team’s bar chart due to its flexibility and malleability to undertake complex projects in general

Common IT specific skills:

  • Programming languages.
  • General technical aptitude.
  • IT Experience/Engineering.

Common general skills:

  • Communication Skills.
  • Problem solving.
  • Teamwork.

How do the IT specific skills rank in terms of demand from employers?

Programming languages are ranked in individual types. The highest on the list SQL (Structured Query Language) Followed by JavaScript, JAVA, and Python.General Technical Aptitude would come under technical support which is ranked 11th.IT Experience/Engineering would come under 2 fields, System Engineering and Software engineering. System Engineering is ranked 24th and Software Engineering ranked 15th.

How do the general specific skills rank in terms of demand from employers?

  • Communication skills top the list at number 1.
  • Problem solving comes in at 2nd.
  • Teamwork is ranked in at 5th.

Three highest IT-specific skills NOT in required skill set?

  • Project Management.
  • SAP.
  • Business Management.

Three highest general skills NOT in required skill set?

  • Organisational Skills.
  • Detail-Orientated.
  • Planning.

Has your opinion of your ideal job changed after looking at the Burning Glass data? Why or why not?


Sharif Ayazi s3815095

Ideal Job: ICT Support Technician.
My ideal job is the ICT Support Technician. They provide support for and maintenance for the computer related infrastructure. I haven’t changed my opinion after looking at the Burning Glass date. I can see a lot of opportunity in this field, and it is getting increased annually. as I can see there several relative subjects which can help me to have knowledge of other fields in terms of job lack in the future. So, this is the Great opportunity for me to grow and progress in this field and I keen to learn as much as I can.

Cristopher Ariel Castro Inostroza s3923904

Ideal Job: Cloud Architect
My opinion has not changed, because I find that working with an emerging technology is rewarding, and in this field, there is plenty to advance in terms of career pathway.

Steven Pigatto s3851506

Ideal Job: Cybersecurity analyst
My opinion on Cybersecurity has not changed, in fact it has given me more motivation to strive for my goal to break through into this field. It will be challenging work but at the end, I believe it will be rewarding and a fantastic opportunity to grow in this field.

Michael Sy s3921688

Ideal Job: Cybersecurity analyst
After checking Burning Glass data, my opinion on my ideal job hasn’t change. Perhaps, it confirms that I may be making a right choice since the demand for this job is so high and the opportunity around it is so exciting and rewarding. That is all I need to motivate myself and prepare the necessary skills needed to succeed.

Nicole Attard s3924819

Ideal Job: Software Quality Assurance Engineer
From looking at the Burning Glass data, my ideal job has not changed so much. If anything, I am now aware of other career paths and different positions that are available in the industry if this job would not be available to me in the future. Though there are multiple skills necessary for this job such as learning various programming languages and having a knowledge of the software development life cycle and testing processes, as well as general skills such as communication, problem solving, organisation and time management skills, I feel all these are applicable to many different positions in the IT industry.

Theodore Haluska s3925389

Ideal Job: DevOps
The Burning Glass data did not effect my Ideal Job, the growth in the field is promising, the time required to gain the skills and understanding takes several years in the field. DevOps is still my current goal down the track as this is a challenge not only to myself but those who acquire these positions have a sound knowledge and understanding of a vast range of software and programming skills.

Interview with an IT professional

By Sharif Ayazi and Michael Sy

Appendix A

With this, we interviewed Mr. Chris Televantos, 29 years of age. An IT professional currently working as a customer field services officer for Financial Services Solutions Corp. He started his passion for IT when he is 16 years old, influenced by his uncle (who owns a Telstra licensee store.) and continue to pursue it by studying at Boxhill Institute of TAFE and took up Advance Diploma of Computer System Engineering. From then on, He worked from various IT related industries.

His day to day job involves troubleshooting and diagnosing network related issues. His clients mostly from banking and retail doing technical diagnosis of ATM machines dealing with the complexity of electromechanical devices that runs thru windows which often resulting to some issues like IP problem and defective components as far as drivers' issues and firmware. In terms of communication, he is constantly interacting with his colleagues and superiors specially for some problems and situations that needed an escalation to a higher level of skills and authority. The challenging part of his work is having a time constraint for a particular task and the SLA agreement.

Perhaps, the best input that I learned with my conversation with Chris is that IT is one of the fastest growing industry now and the demand for IT skilled people are so in-demand particularly in cyber security and cloud computing. The skills needed are also constantly changing and evolving due to a substantial risk of cyber security and competitions among giants in IT world. That is why an IT person should continue to study and keep updating his knowledge and skills to be able to cope with all the updates and innovations. An IT world is so broad that anyone who wants to grow with it will always find his ways from an entry level of encoding, programming, developing and inventing.

IT Technologies

CLOUD COMPUTING

By Cristopher Ariel Castro Inostroza S3923904

What does it do?

With internet access availability, the cloud allows the user entry to distinct types of data stored in the cloud through any chosen device, smartphone, laptop, tablet, etc. This technology also permits the user to work together with other users, making more accessible and more efficient time management and allowing working from home or away from the office.Considering all the advantages cloud computing gives to businesses, flexibility would be one of the most influential and crucial parts of cloud computing success. The future for this emerging technology looks promissory, helping cutting costs in technology deployment, sometimes cutting even half of the total cost of companies. Cloud infrastructure allows different institutions to deploy any application globally in minutes with just a few clicks. This is a new way of delivery, and therefore new implementation and creation are updated in a brief time. For example, cooling systems are essential for physical cloud centres. It keeps the cloud’s hardware at a suitable working temperature. Nevertheless, cooling systems come with a prohibitive cost when building a physical clouds database. New colling systems models are being implemented and develop, being one of the latest: under the ocean cooling system by google cloud “Hamina,” one of the many data centres across the globe to handle the 40,000 search queries a second.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

PaaS takes away the task of managing the underlaying infrastructure (usually hardware and operating systems) and allows you to focus on the deployment and control of your applications. This helps to make you more efficient work as you don’t have to worry about resources attainment. “Capacity planning, software maintenance, patching, or any of the other undifferentiated heavy lifting involved in running your application.” (Harvard EDX, 2021)

Software as a Service (SaaS)

SaaS procures you with the complete package since the service provider arranges and manages the operations of your Cloud service. In most cases, “In most cases, people referring to SaaS are referring to end-user applications” (Harvard EDX, 2021). With SaaS as a service, you only need to think about how to use that particular software. (Harvard EDX, 2021)

Infrastructure as a Service (LaaS)

LaaS carries the foundation blocks for cloud IT. Typically grants you access to networking features, computer (dedicated hardware or on virtual), and data storage. LaaS provides you with almost full flexibility and management control over your IT resources. “It is most like the existing IT resources with which many IT departments and developers are familiar.” (Harvard EDX, 2021).

Cloud alliance

(2021, “Cloud alliance”)

An organization usually moves to cloud services due to its benefits, such as increased agility, reduced cost, elasticity, DevOps friendly, and improved time. On average, organizations are finding that clouds meet these expectations or even exceeding them

Cloud alliance

(2021, survey “Cloud alliance”)

What is the likely impact?

The use of cloud services has been increasing over the past decade. Especially in the wake of the COVID-19 health crisis, plenty of companies are accelerating their cloud implementation in their services to enable employees to work from home. Furthermore, people and organizations have been positively impacted by cloud services. Now not only can you access important files, but also you can have all your most dearly information on just one click away.Plenty of companies and organizations are running 41% or even more of their workloads in clouds. This digitalization from standard company systems to cloud platforms has grown exponentially since 2019. This article also suggests that 25% of organizations were running 41% or more of their workload in a public Cloud. The last recent survey by “Cloud Alliance, 2021” indicates that 63% of respondents expect to be running 41% or more of their workload in a public Cloud, pointing to a trending public Cloud usage that will only keep growing. Due to the recent health crisis, remote working has become important for many organizations encouraging the use of Cloud computing and complex system involving the process of adapting this technology. Another survey done in 2020 by CSA shows an increase in diversity of production workloads (e.g., container platforms, virtual machines) which, is also expected to increase. All this combined, plus the growing remote workforce, and the cloud computing environment continues emerging with more advances in its complexity. Inevitably, soon additional security tools will have to improve, to protect the demand and the threats in Cloud platforms. (2021, “Cloud Alliance”).

Cloud alliance

(2021, different cloud platforms and user usage “cloud alliance”)

“Due to demand many companies have come up offering cloud computing to the private and public sectors being the dominant AWS by amazon, used by 67% of organizations and Azure a close second at 65%, most of the organization are also using multi-cloud strategy (62%) with 27% using three or more public cloud platforms”. (2021,” cloud alliance”)The usage percentage shows how cloud computing is changing the way businesses are and daily life in general. The potential impact could drastically change the way we live.

How will this affect you?

On average, the highest-ranked security concerned was “sensitive data leakage” in a professional environment. We could see the following:

Cloud alliance concerns

(2021, user security concerns “Cloud alliance”)

“It is worth noting that the second and fourth most selected responses are both related to issues with staff, with a combined total of 79% surpassing the most frequently selected response “network security””. (2021, Cloud alliance) Cloud computing comes together with virtualization and enables us to live in a constant dependency on this technology. It connects us in a way never seen before allows work more efficiently. You can share files or any type of documents with a person across the globe, deploying an application in mere seconds.

Cloud usage in different continents

Cloud alliance

(2021, user Cloud usage in different continents “Cloud Alliance)

RASPBERRY PIS, ARDUINOS, MAKEY MAKEYS AND OTHER SMALL COMPUTING DEVICES

By Theodore Haluska S3925389

What is it, and what does it do?

Small computing devices such as Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and Makey Makey are known as SBCs (Single - Board Computer) with not only processing capabilities but have the potential for communication options through either onboard functions or additional modules that may be added such as Ethernet, Wireless, or Bluetooth. SBCs are manufactured to not only supply a cost-effective, compact design but a highly portable hardware solution. SBCs are not only an excellent choice for monitoring sensors or used in a remote setting, they are used in proto-typing, and due to the low cost of these devices, they are also used in education to provide young and old with the concepts of basic computer functions as well as programming.

Below is an example of SBC sizes (although not limited):

Cloud alliance

Table 1.1 Role of Single Board Computers (SBCs) in rapid IoT Prototyping, by G. R. Kanagachidambaresan

Short explanations of Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and Makey Makey

Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi has its own on-board RAM, CPU, Display ports, Ethernet port, USB ports for a start, it also uses an operating system such as Raspbian OS, Snappy Ubuntu Core, Ubuntu Mate, OSMC and LibreElec (Kodi-based media center), non-Linux based Risc OS, it can even run Windows 10 IoT Core (differs from a normal Windows 10 installation). These are the official operating systems that are listed for the device with countless others out there. Raspberry Pi’s operating system Raspbian OS uses Scratch to write and debug python code for your intended use by sending those commands to the GPIO (general purpose input/output) pins which in turn you have your hardware connected to.

Arduino

Arduino is classified as a microcontroller (embedded controller, memory, peripherals, processor) and does not have an operating system, instead, you write the code and upload it straight to the board which leaves out the chance that a third-party application or operating system will interfere with the commands or code

Makey Makey

Makey Makey is a simple device that lets the user use everyday objects as a keyboard or mouse input, you can create your own sensors, the idea is to get users to use their imagination when it comes to an invention or even out of the box thinking in everyday life and the main purpose is the education with the use of sensors and circuits.SBCs are used in all forms of applications from education, industrial, software and hardware development, scientific applications such as weather balloons, and even robotics. They supply necessary systems at a low power advantage to otherwise power-hungry traditional computers.SBC’s will more than likely find their way into more commonly used products whether the user is aware or not. SBCs are becoming more AI friendly while traditionally AI has been sent to the cloud for processing, due to privacy concerns over the years these devices are evolving and have the capacity at least on a general level to possibly provide the AI calculations locally instead of remotely.Advances in computer chips and what are called AI co-processors are taking what would take an SBC a long time to generate a result though AI to a more consistent and efficient time when comparing the original time it takes the SBC to do the calculations to say a Cloud-based system.

What is the likely impact?

The impact of these technologies is that they have to potential to automate certain aspects of a job which some may argue this will create job losses. While this may be true in some form or another, it can also create new positions, if we use the example of automobiles, this forced carriage makers out of business, while also creating a new field of work for autobody makers.As SBCs technology evolves, becoming faster, smaller, more plug and play, the range of users increase leaving the potential for much bigger audience as well as their applications in everyday devices we use from a workplace setting to more personal at home.The growing number of users educated in computer sciences also has the chance to affect the number of job seekers increasing competition for positions such as in programming. SBCs can streamline or automate some processes and potentially make some workers redundant although this does not affect all industries instead SBCs may also take the workload off those employees so that they may focus more on the critical aspects of the job rather than some of the minor details.

How will this affect you?

The more individuals involved with SBCs and their development may affect daily life through several ways by increasing the creativity and potential to lead into new products. Let’s take the normal household chore of vacuuming or cleaning the floor, robot vacuums already exist and although they cannot navigate all obstacles or pick up items that had been left on your floor, they do a particularly decent job when it comes to daily cleaning at least for the floor leaving you to focus more on other tasks and events happening in your daily life. These robots use SBCs to navigate your home along with some form of AI to choose the appropriate route and mapping, the boundaries within the home, even remember obstacles, they even return to the dock to empty their canister and recharge when low on battery.As far as my personal day to day life, SBCs have the ability to change my daily life by making me more efficient at more important tasks whether it be at work or home, the age of technology although the benefits have also created more work for the average user and through the use of SBCs we may be able to cutback the reliance on certain aspects of our lives so we may enjoy it more.

NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING AND CHATTERBOTS

By Nicole Attard s3924819

What Does It Do?

Natural language processing (NLP) is a branch of artificial intelligence which refers to the use of computational techniques to "learn, understand and produce human language content" (Hirschberg & Manning 2015). In other words, a computer will receive input from a user, either in a written or oral form, gain an understanding of the content and then respond appropriately. Given the complexities of human language, especially with verbal communication, NLP combines "statistical, machine learning and deep learning models" (IBM Cloud Education 2020) in order to derive meaning and provide the desired outcome.Machine learning is a key element of natural language processing. By providing learning algorithms with large amounts of data relating to languages, the computer is able to learn more effectively how to identify the intent, categorise the request and respond in a conversational format (IBM Cloud Education 2020).

Cloud alliance

(AthenaTech LLC, 2019)

As a result of the developments in areas of NLP, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) came the development of chatbots. A chatbot is essentially an automated conversational tool that is able to interact with users through text (for example, website chatbots) or speech (such as automated phone banking services, or interacting with Siri or Alexa) (Oracle 2021).

Cloud alliance

(Drift, n.d)

Both NLP and chatbots use what are known as NLP tasks, where computers manipulate and translate language into information they can understand to produce a certain outcome (IBM Cloud Education 2020). Some of these basic, fundamental tasks are:

  • Speech recognition
  • Speech tagging (also known as grammatical tagging)
  • Word sense disambiguation
  • Named entity recognition (NEM)
  • Co-reference resolution
  • Sentiment analysis, and
  • Natural language generation

Search engines and email filtering are some of the most common services where NLP is used. Both use combinations of NLP tasks to analyse large amounts of data from different sources to return results or sort messages based on filters selected by users. NLP has also been applied to speech recognition based, personal-assistant devices such as Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri, where users are able to interact with the device to complete various tasks using conversational, everyday language.Chatbots are now often the first point of contact for individuals in areas such as customer support and assistance. Many companies that provide goods and services, such as telecommunication providers or technology suppliers, usually provide a chatbot service on their websites or even in their call centres.NLP and chatbots are also used in areas such as the medical industry where large amounts of unstructured data sets are able to be analysed through machine learning algorithms to gain essential information for a variety of different reasons, such as determining where to direct future research or how to allocate resources, or gaining understanding of results from clinical trials (ForeSee Medical, Inc 2021).

Despite the benefits of both NLP and chatbots in today's society, one main limitation has been the intricacies of languages. The first step performed by a chatbot is to extract from the input the relevant information (Expert.ai Team 2020). As there are so many combinations of words that a person may choose to use to request a particular function of a chatbot, the chatbot must sufficiently be able to extract the relevant input and understand what the user is attempting to achieve. If the chatbot is not able to understand what is being requested of them, there may be no action the chatbot can perform in response. However, with the progress made in the fields of NLP, AI and machine learning, chatbots are becoming more advanced, capable of providing a greater range of services.

What is the Likely Impact?

Natural language programming has already contributed greatly to society, with many new applications and services that have been developed. Most people would have interacted with chatbots in one form or another and with the progress being made in these related fields, the use of chatbots for not only individuals but also businesses will become more prevalent, such as context-sensitive digital assistants that are able to learn personal preferences and habits and are integrated with other programs (Lindquist 2018).One industry which may be impacted by improvements in NLP would be transcript, subtitle and closed-captioning services. Currently, these are mainly created through individuals reproducing what they think they can hear. Not only does this often result in inaccuracies, but also the process is time consuming and labour intensive. Though NLP has already led to various speech to text converters, for example, with autogenerated subtitles on YouTube, just as humans experience difficulties, the complexities of human language can also make it difficult for computers to accurately reproduce what has been said into a text format.

Despite the limitations of both human efforts and NLP, it is clear that these two processes in combination may assist in terms of maximising production while decreasing time and effort, for example, by automating the speech to text conversion with humans undertaking a quality assurance role rather than manually creating the complete transcript.The use of chatbots as customer service assistants can be seen as having both a positive and a negative NLP impact on society. Service providers like banks and internet providers often use chatbots in order to collect initial information from users to directing inquiries to the relevant department. Using chatbots as the first contact enables streamlining of the customer service experience and higher service satisfaction for users by receiving information from the user before connecting to an agent and categorising and directing requests to the appropriate departments for faster responses (Makadia 2019). However, with more efficient and interactive chatbots entering the customer service areas previously reserved for individuals, there may be a corresponding decline in the number of persons employed in these positions.Overall, while there are positives and negatives to progress being made in the fields of NLP and chatbots, for many, the convenience provided by the devices and services developed will greatly improve their quality of life, completing tasks more efficiently and improving customer satisfaction through less human interaction.

How Will This Affect You?

In modern society, there are already many examples of natural language processing and chatbots being employed, from closed-captioning for live television or subtitles on videos which assists the hearing impaired to the interactive nature of AIs such as Siri and Alexa that has the potential to dramatically improve our quality of life.The benefits of using NLP in order to analyse large data sets has already been proven and in use in industries such as medical, retail and education, amongst others. In the medical industry in particular, the move towards things such as digitisation of patient records and audio recordings of consultations which can be automatically transcribed may result in better patient care where doctors and nurses are not engaging in time-consuming administrative actions and are instead able to improve quality of care by focusing on more important issues (McQuilkin 2020), with NLP‑based data mining able to collect and produce relevant information from various sources.The use of devices utilising NLP such as the Alexa voice support on the Amazon Firestick also has great benefit in terms of allowing users to easily access content, particularly those who may be elderly or disabled by simply verbally asking these devices to complete an action.The prevalence of text-based and speech-based chatbots on a variety of different platforms has also had a major positive impact both in terms of individuals and businesses. While customers are receiving more targeted assistance and faster solutions to their issues, businesses are also able to save costs and increase efficiency by reallocating their labour force to perform higher order tasks that would be difficult for computers to complete.

Cybersecurity

(By Steven Pigatto. S3851506)

What does it do?

Cyber threats have come to be more prominent in the early 2000’s this is when the internet was more available for people to start using it. Once coding was available, threats such as malware coding could be produced. With the world fast approaching modern technology, which will result in a big surge of threats daily, A virus that was circulating in the 2000’s was affecting Microsoft systems called “ILOVEYOU” which was an attachment on an e-mail. This caused damage to data and would also send copies to people on your e-mail list.

Cybersecurity is a practice for protecting systems, network, and programs from digital attacks. The practice enables defending against malware, Phishing via e-mail, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and ransom attacks on personal and corporate sensitive data. Cybersecurity provides a layer of protection against any threat that arises against data, infrastructure and tools that could be stolen. It has become one of the most important tools due to the increase of activate movement of data and sensitive information over the internet.

Humans are the weakest link when it comes to cybersecurity. Human errors recur and that’s when computer systems come vulnerable. This is when countermeasures are required. Software, hardware, and procedures is requiring preventing applications from external threats. Software design and security development has become more important. As more application are enable to accessible over the network, this would result in more threats. This has applications building its own security to try minimising unauthorized code trying to manipulate data.

Countermeasures have been put into place to prevent threats or unauthorized users accessing information or hardware. Different software and have been developed to prevent attacks:

Security system: helps control any access to the computer. The security system can also block any traffic that it concedes to be harmful to the system. The software is design to restrict incoming or outgoing traffic and protects data from applications installed on the computer.

Routers:are able to prevent IP addresses of the user’s computer be visible on the net to prevent hacking. The VPN is the identity of the network, the router helps to protect all activity and its identity, by doing this helps prevent any data theft.

Encryption software: is when messages that are sent would be converted into meaningless text. The software is design to keep sensitive information to be kept secret and can only be decrypted by the receiver. The decrypted software converts the encrypted text back to the correct format.

Anti-virus programs:help protect your computer from virus. Virus such as malware can apply itself to applications by coding. The anti-virus software scans the computer files to identify any threats inside your system and removes them.

Spyware detection software: is design to remove any traces of spyware in your computer system. Spyware is design to prevent any glitches in your system, therefore users do not detect the attachment. Spyware can be in malware form or through cookies, the tracking system of your internet.

Biometric Authentication Systems: works by comparing two sets of data which the data requires to be nearly identical. Once the data is matched, it will give the required access to the person. The data cannot be exactly matched because it is impossible to have two sets 100% the same. This helps prevent hackers be able to get access to the sensitive information or hardware because it's harder for them to collect the information unless they are near you. However, If the system was bypassed, the hacker risks getting caught easer then an outside hacker.

Biometric methods:

  • Fingerprint scanners.
  • Retina scanners.
  • Iris scanners.
  • Speaker recognition.
  • Facial recognition systems.
  • Hand and finger geometry.
  • Vein geometry.
  • DNA based.
  • Behavioural Identifiers such as Typing recognition and Gait biometrics.

What is the Likely Impact?

With the future facing more threats due to the extant on technology has been available, Organizations must be smarter in how they protect their data. This is when the following methods come in place according to Navigating New Cyber Risks pp 125-135 Under Future Solitons written by Ganna Pogrebna and Mark Skilton.


Scenario Testing:
Organizations could simulate different attacks to understand the potential impact it could have on their business. By doing this, the data that was collected can be used to create a risk assessment and develop a risk management plain to try stop any future attacks.


Terraforming Cyberspace:
This exciting technology would be hard to get pass by. Terraforming would work by removing any possible human related risks such as human errors or abuse to the software and hardware. The technology would possible be ran by AI or quantum computing. Terraforming could be reality soon and this could eliminate the use of Cybersecurity analysts.


Cryptography of the Future:
With new developing technology fast approaching, using encryption will become obsolete. Other tools to help keep and manage passwords safe at the highest level of security will be the way of the future.


Zero-knowledge proofs:
defined as “a method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that something is true, without revealing any information apart from the fact that this specific statement is true” If this vision is successfully adopted, it would be very use-full in levels which could protect people’s identity and privacy.


Mobile Targets:
An attack on a mobile which resulted in data breaches would require the Tech company to adjust all data that was attached and the toolbox as well. Instead of doing this, creating an index for the targeted phone would make it impossible for the hacker to do their job.


Algorithmic active Cyber defence:
This type of defence uses traps to help lure and capture any interruptions caused by hackers. This technology is already in place. The future for this technology will be more practice in systems in the future. The traps would be well calculated that it would be more effective in capturing, diagnostics, and even future threats. The future of Cybersecurity looks strong. Having this possible innovative technology to fight cybercrime would be harder for any breaches to occur. However, the impact in having them in place could cost jobs. It would replace an entire range of cyber jobs because it would be less human interactive because majority would be algorithm controlled.

How will this affect you?

Growing up in the early 90’s and the 2000’s and see the advancement of technology was so excited I could not get enough of it. I remember the diel up internet which I thought was the bees’ knees. Playing games and chatting to friends on MSN and IQ after school while doing homework was fun. I do not recall anything about security, except for a Firewall and Anti-Virus software. Back then, I did not know what that was out there could harm the computer.

After doing this research, I have learnt a lot of dangerous software in the cyber web that could do lots of damage that I was not aware of existence. This is a real revelation, not just for myself but for my family and friends as well.

With technology advancing each year, more dangerous the world wide web will become. Having a 5-year-old with iPad is concerning because they access the web. I rely on Apple’s security system to keep the iPad safe from harmful things. Sure, I could just monitor the usage, but I cannot be there 24/7. If the iPad were compromised, my phone could be next due to the linking of Apple products.

Seeing new software emerge in the market is a good sign we will be protected from outside interference. Having products with the latest security features such as fingerprinting, and face recognition software installed is a wonderful thing. Not only it will stop unauthorized access but also protecting all our information and all passwords. However, the fingerprint scanning can be time consuming because sometimes and it fail then you need to go through the process of putting your passwords in.

Looking into the future, I feel at ease for my growing family. My kids will have one of the strongest security systems in the world working before they understand about all this. But having all this security still does not stop online behaviour such as bullying. We should investigate software that detects unwanted behaviour so we could stamp it out completely.

Project Ideas

CONVERSATIONAL/FAQ CHATTERBOT

Overview

There are many different chatbots in use in today's society. While the majority are made for businesses to improve customer service while also minimising costs, there are also chatbots created for other uses, such as conversational tools or entertainment. For example, Endurance is a Russian technology company that in conjunction with four US universities began an open-source project to create a chatbot that provides patients living with Alzheimer's an ability to communicate while also enabling doctors to monitor the progression of the disease through detecting deviations in normal conversational patterns between the user and the chatbot (Oswald 2018).

As a group, we have decided to attempt to expand on and progress the project idea of Cristopher from assessment 1, being a chatbot. A chatbot is extremely versatile, so that one can be adapted for any type of industry. For this project, we will attempt to link a chatbot to a website to provide easy to access information that is presented on the website, or to allow the users to have a general chat with the chatbot as a communication tool.

Robot Face (Rossi Intelligence, 6 November 2016)

Motivation

A chatbot enables businesses to put a layer of automation or self-service in front of customers in a friendly and familiar way. Bots are quickly becoming a key component, from providing customer service to a user or answering their questions to just simply carrying on a conversation in some cases.

To better understand the opportunity for chatbots in the market, a survey shows the most common frustrations using online services such as messaging apps, search engines, and product/service websites are:

graph (“2018, State of Chatbots Report”)

Consumers at some point might be introduced to such technology ("Chatbots") that no question will be left unanswered, with the assistance of this "emerging real-world solution"(2018, state of Chatbots). Online businesses offer a great variety of products and services. Although, more attention needs to be emphasized on the good timing when a customer is looking for some information, which could be detrimental for a prospect's future transaction for any business in general. Demanding consumers are on the look 24/7, and often after hours, hardly anyone answers questions immediately. Because of time and customer care, there is always a chance that by having a Chatbot, a business can maximize its financial return or customer satisfaction.

Description

Often when you open a website, a little chatbot appears on the page waiting for you to click on it so that it can provide you with some type of assistance. The icon can be anything - from a little box with a question mark on it to a graphic of a person that pops up with some form of a "How can I help you" message. They can also provide different services for users.

“Drift’s 1.000 plus participants” survey (2018, State of Chatbots Report) reflected that the most common uses for chatbots consumers might need are:

graph (2018, State of Chatbots Report)

Also, it is worth noting that 34% of consumers would use chatbots to have "human interaction". (2018, State of Chatbots Report)

In a business environment, to keep up with consumer expectations now turning towards faster responses and solutions and resulting in many customer support teams struggling to meet demand, more and more businesses are now employing chatbots to fulfil these expectations and improve customer expectations.

As above, another use for chatbots is to provide social interaction, with the smartest chatbots, using the latest developments in natural language processing, machine learning and AI, being able to receive, analyse, understand and respond to a user's input (Drift 2021). For example, Insomnobot 3000 was created by mattress start-up Casper and provides insomniacs with an opportunity to have a conversation with a humanlike counterpart when the rest of their worlds are asleep (Johnson 2016).

The aim of our project is to create an interactive chatbot that provides both a FAQ and conversational function and attach it to a website which outlines the process that we as a team would expect to follow in the production of the chatbot.

Given the name of our team, the chatbot should naturally take the form of a knight's shield that appears on the bottom of the screen. When clicked on, the knight's head shall appear, bearing the first question, asking the user what they would like assistance with. The user will then be presented with two options: either access information or have a conversation. Both options will then request the user to choose from a number of options. If the first choice is to access information, the chatbot will then show a list of subjects, and will display to the user a summary of the information requested along with an option to take the user to the relevant part of the webpage. If the user instead chooses to have a conversation, hopefully the chatbot will be able to analyse the inputs and respond appropriately, in a humanlike manner. The conversation may take two tones: serious or humorous, depending on the mood of the user.

Tools and Technologies

To create a chatbot, we first must understand how a chatbot works, and more important, how it learns. Advancements in natural language processing, machine learning and AI technology has led to the development of the modern day chatbot. A chatbot must be able to receive text or speech and through natural language processing, identify key words of phrases that will enable it to respond to the user's intent.

Chatbot Architecture (Khodukina 2021)

To start this project, we need specific technological tools that allow fluid development, the most basic tools being a laptop with moderate wi-fi available. Though there are a number of ways that chatbots are created, for people new to the technology, we will use Python 3.8, and code the chatbot through the Python programming language as Python has a specific inbuilt library for creating chatbots (Navlani 2020). We will then utilise Anaconda software (an open-source distribution for Python), import statements (Python language), import Json (is a lightweight, text-based, language-independent data interchange format), import Pickle (it is the process of converting a Python object into a byte stream to store it in a file/database), import NumPy (most commonly used packages for scientific computing in Python), import NLTK (is a platform used for building Python programs that work with human language data for applying in statistical natural language processing), import from TensorFlow, "Sequential, Dense, Activation, Dropout, SGD". Libraries are essential to complete any project concerning programming (2021,” Techgig”)

There are two types of chatbots: rule-based or AI bots. Rule-based bots are mostly used for simple question and answer tasks, using the concepts of “if/then” while the more complex AI chatbots apply deep machine learning and artificial intelligence in order to interpret the user’s intention and provide a suitable response (Khodukina 2021). For this particular chatbot, we believe a combination of both approaches are needed as there are two components: the simplified request for information from the user, and the conversational format. Therefore, not only must we manually enter all the code that the chatbot needs, we also must provide it with machine learning algorithms so that in the future, for each choice that the user makes, the chatbot is able to analyse the request, access its database and provide the correct response (Carter 2019).

Skills Required

To commence the building of the project idea certain skills with software development and technology platforms are required. The following skills listed are:

  • Knowledge of machine learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a program that can help analyze and understand human language to get the best out of the conversation, this is called NLP.
  • Programming language skills in Java, PHP, Python and Ruby.
  • A platform is required in enhance the chatbot. Examples of platforms are: Lobster, Smartloop, Botsify, Hyro etc.

Once the chatbot is created, tracking and making updates to enhance its intelligence is required. The conversation the bot engages in, all the input data, words, will be analysed to enhance the bot’s intelligence. The bot requires great conversation skills such as welcoming and guidance messages to engage with the user with its request.

Outcome

Chatbots are a way of giving fast delivery to any question and eventually incrementing sales. In a business environment, this technology has many benefits including improved customer satisfaction, cost reductions and labour efficiency. Depending on how much customization they make to the chatbot, there is an increased value to the business. However, they have not only been utilised in the business environment, but also in other industries such as the medical industry, with chatbots that help to diagnose conditions, such as MedWhat, or in the entertainment industry, with chatbots such as the Zootopia chatbot in 2016 that allowed children to help a character from the film Zootopia solve crimes (Shewan 2021).

In terms of this particular project, once it has been completed, we hopefully will have created a chatbot that is able to be attached to a website and provide the user with a great experience, whether by answering their questions or requests for information, or providing them an opportunity to have a generalised conversation if they require. The process and the code that we use should be able to be customised for other businesses or individual clients.

GROUP REFLECTION

INDIVIDUAL REFLECTION

Michael Sy s3921688

It must have been God’s will that I am belong to this group, “The Conquerors”. My teammates, consist of young skilful and talented individual who are all hungry for learnings and experiences. Our TeamWorks is amazing, we have a natural born leader who organizes our regular meetings thru Microsoft Teams, patiently making meeting’s agenda and recordings. Volunteers, who despite of busy schedule at work are willing to spend time and contribute their knowledge and skills for the success of this project.The challenges we faced for this project is the availability of everyone, thru time differences, workloads, other personal situations and lockdowns we were able to cope up and now we are on the finishing stage. There are also some technical difficulties such as using Teams and Github. I for example, considered myself as a novice for this project cannot make it without the help and support of my teammates. I constantly message them and ask for help and information specially on the technical side of it.Perhaps the one thing that I learned working in a group is to value the time and effort that everyone contributed to make this project a successful one. You cannot put a price on anyone's passion to make this happen. The camaraderie and respect despite just working together for about 3 weeks. The confidence developed that despite all things we can make it happen.

Sharif Ayazi s3815095

In overall I am very happy that I am one of the members of this group. We have effective communication with each other and each member feeling their responsibly. We using everyone’s skills. We share our idea with each other’s and identify the issues together. In my opinion we achieved to a successful project outcome. There were complex problems in the process of our project but we resolved the issues together. I think if I were alone, I couldn’t solve the issues by myself. I am feeling the benefit of teamwork such as less time needed for managing the project. and the teamwork also adds to the quality of projects.

Cristopher Ariel Castro Inostroza s3923904

Team work most of the times stands for a challenge, working with different minds is often a valuable experience. Luckily, I had the chance to share and work with people with commitment. Working in a team allowed us to identify our strengths and weaknesses, making sure no one is left behind when meeting through Microsoft video Teams. It also made me more confident and gave me an awesome feeling that working with others can be an enjoyable experience. Effective communication was essential to carry out this assessment. Each one of us has a unique skill that makes us who we are.

Challenges

The challenge is to put each other’s work together, to make it fit between each other’s ideas or frames of what is presentable, but in the end, we could agree on having different perspectives and have a great assessment delivery.

Benefits

Get to know different opinions from my own and to realize that working in groups is a lot of fun.

What will I do next time?

It depends on the types of people we are doing the group work. I would use Microsoft Teams and GitHub again definitely.Pleasant experience overall and great teamwork!

Steven Pigatto S3851506

One week into the assessment, I was struggling to find a group. I couldn’t get a contact. I reach out to the members of this group to see if I could join. Just to be able to join this team I was excited to learn from others and learn more about teamwork. Putting my head down and finding a group, I believe I went well because I was determined and persistent.

I believe I could improve in the CSS area. I tried to help style it but didn’t succeed. I feel like I failed the team by not able to contribute to that area. So, I would like to work more on learning the styling coding.

English wasn’t my greatest subject in school. The assessment tested me with word limits, especially not knowing something I’m familiar with, Cybersecurity. It was a great challenge to do the research and learn the technology. Putting it all together in 900 words was a surprise that I was able to each that amount. But looking at my work, I feel great about it.

Communication is the key to be able to work as a group. I’ve never worked in a group through Microsoft teams, and I’ve learnt that communication is an important contribution for an effective team in the making of projects. Without this skill, it will collapse, and the project will be a flop.

Nicole Attard S3924819

Personally, I thought this group worked extremely well together. Though made up of different personalities and work and life situations, we were able to come together and collaborate effectively on the project. Each person contributed equally to the assignment, and we were able to provide a well-rounded report with all the relevant information required.

Some difficulties that we came across during this period was the different situations for each person and as a result, scheduling was difficult. We also seemed to have pretty lax deadlines throughout. Though we did end up forming the team and getting started relatively late, I believe stricter deadlines and a clearer outline of tasks to be completed would improve our efficiency as a team.

One surprising thing I learned is how different everyone's approach to working is. While some people preferred to complete certain aspects of the work, each person was able to put forward their ideas without criticism or judgment so the group was able to have meaningful discussions and come to agreements.

In terms of working as a group, one thing I have learned is it is absolutely essential to be flexible, and to facilitate effective and clear communication between the group so that we ensure all project requirements are met.

Overall, I have been very impressed by the commitment and work ethic of this lovely group of individuals. It's been a pleasure to work with them and I'm excited to work with them all again in the future.

Theodore Haluska S3925389

The collaboration between the team was overall good and we have some wonderful ideas, views, and not to mention a few laughs. We worked as a team to achieve and end result I believe everyone was happy with.

I need to improve in areas such as CSS and debugging any potential problems in HTML. We as a group for this assignment had initially started a bit later and may have not had as much time to work on the project as a group as others, next group project I believe our timelines for drafts etc should be tighter giving us more room for error, fixing issues, or even adding in useful features without the deadline creeping up on us quickly.

Although it may not sound like a lot of work from reviewing the criteria of the assignment, the amount of reading, editing, and testing that goes into the project is quite the experience.

Groups outside of a workplace setting become a little more difficult to accomplish certain tasks due to other life commitments such as if other group members are working fulltime and also have a family. That being said groups have the ability to lend each other a hand to attempt to accomplish a common goal with the view of other team members.

GROUP REFLECTION

Once the group was set up, and we found our feet by starting our first meetings, getting to know each other and trying to gel together went well. The constant communication on Microsoft Teams when someone had an issue, or an idea showed that a team environment was happy, and everyone was on the same page. We would constantly consult with each other to get opinions on any changes etc. We believe constant communication was our strong point, which went well. Once the group came together, a team leader was born. It ran smoothly for everyone to choose a subject to work on.

Reflecting on what could be improved in the group is a difficult one. It’s hard to find an issue because we feel we all came together nicely and worked things out accordingly. The team is only young, eventually little issues most likely arise. But if there could be one area it would be Microsoft Teams. We all feel that our skills could improve in the knowledge of Microsoft Teams and all the functions on this. The start was hard to try and find areas where tasks could be laid out and ticked off. Sometimes we had issues forming a group call on the calendar, but it really didn’t affect us.

Living in different states, having jobs and families can be a challenging to get together and discuss our project. Working on a time frame with our busy lives, our contribution to the team’s effort to help each other was a surprise. Why? We all have our own work, but we all got together and helped each other by asking if anyone was behind and would they like some help. It’s a wonderful team effort by all, especially what is happening in the world. We thank and applaud our families for the support given to our team members.

Working with people with different experiences and personalities on this project was interesting. Each member comes from a different background and different lifestyles. Coming together and talking to each group member, we learnt that our common is the same trying to learn and better ourselves in the future and be able to work in the Technology industry. We all know it’s the way of the future and we are striving towards it. Our team is enjoyable, by having talented team members, all working together with no issues. We all look forward in this course to continuing working together.

Appendixes

Appendix A: Email interview with IT Professional

What is your job title?


Job Title: Customer field services officer

Please tell us about your IT work. What exactly do you do?

My day-to-day assignments change based on the customer however overall, I am frequently involved in troubleshooting and diagnosing network related issues, alongside the implementations and integration of new IT hardware technologies.

Please tell us about the industry you work in.

I work for a technical “Financial Services Solutions Corporation, we provide currency.

What other kinds of work do you have to do?

New hardware / Software deployments eg windows 7 to 10 Migration and network equipment Troubleshooting and General Business as usual maintenance of proprietary banking IT equipment.

Who are some of the people you deal with on a day-to-day basis and what role do they play in your job?

Banking and retail are the most common customer type, it plays a large roll certain environments call for a strict protocol of behaviour and security procedures.

Please tell us about your interactions with other IT professionals.

There are many other levels with in my organisation and the clients often I will interact with them for the correct escalation if the issue cannot be resolved by my self.

What about your interactions with clients or investors?

They are as long as required to obtain the key information to deliver a solution that is required, every situation in my case is unique that required adaptability of personality.

What aspects of your work do you spend most time on? Please tell us about these.

Technical diagnosis of ATM systems, they are a complex electro mechanical device, built around a windows environment many different issues can be present, some include IP issues, and some include defective components and as far as driver issues / firmware.

What are the main types of software that you use daily?

Mostly just a windows environment if anything command prompt within windows.

Which aspects of your work do you find most challenging?

Time restrictions and SLA agreements.

Finally, can you share an example of the work you do that best captures the essence of the IT industry?

I am a field Service engineer, mostly my engagements include project work specific hardware deployments and configurations of new terminals.

In your job and the I.T industry in general what do you find the skills that are most in demand and which ones would you say you utilize the most?

Knowledge around cloud services seem to be the most in demand now and I find myself using a form of them to remotely solve problems time to time.

Do you find you work mostly in a team, individually or is it a mixture of both?

Primarily I am working alone but I have lead teams many times, I could say yes to a mixture.

References

Group Profiles


Ideal Jobs


Industry Data


IT Technologies - Cloud, Services, Servers


IT Technologies - Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, Makey Makeys and other small computing devices


IT Technologies - Natural Language Processing and Chatterbox


IT Technologies - Cybersecurity


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