The demand for mobile applications continues apace as people rely on smart phones and tablets to stay connected socially and/or increase their productivity at work. A point has been reached where it is not only reasonable but actually appropriate for a student's first programming and application development experience to be targeted at a mobile device.

BBIS students have, to date, relied upon FIT1002 to give them the skills to program in a real world programming language (viz. Java). Many BBIS students are expected to have such skills in their first employment placement. IBL students, in particular need to acquire these skills early in their degree before their first IBL placement where their allotted tasks often include programming.

FIT1002 is expected to morph shortly from a technical, Java-based programming unit to a less technical unit that focuses on programming concepts. The chosen environment of BYOB does not employ a real world programming language.

Therefore there is a need for a second year, first semester unit for BBIS students that introduces them to a real world programming language. There is a fortunate nexus of Java and Android development that will allow students to learn practical Java skills in the context of mobile application development. FIT2081 intends to take advantage of this nexus.

Oct 2013 Removed references to a particular implementation technology so that we can better follow industry trends. Effective Semester 1 2014.

Updated prerequisites to include new programming unit FIT1040.

Sept 2015: CE updated workload requirements following a discussion with Clayton HOC resulting from suggestions from the student/staff meeting. Implementation Sem 1, 2016.

Sept 2016: Amended prerequisites to cater for 2016 BInfoTech students and amended unit content in 2017 (add FIT1045, FIT1048 and FIT1051, remove FIT1040).

October 2016: Add FIT2071 (equivalent to FIT1048) as an alternative programming prerequisite for BITS transition purposes.

20 Feb 2017: Updated prerequisite requirements to cater for BITS (3334) teach-out arrangements. Approved by UGPC Chair 5 December 2016.

12/06/2017: Admin - updating location of offering to reflect actual campus offerings at the ADE's request.

AUG 2017: Update of prerequisites as discussed at UGPC 4/17 to remove FIT1040 as it was not considered an appropriate prereq.

07/12/2017 - Updating prerequisites to include the new programming unit FIT1053.

11/12/2017: Admin - removing FIT1040 from prerequisite list which was entered by South Africa on 4/12/17.

29/06/2018: Admin - amendment to Assessment removing the 30 minutes reading and noting time and reverting to the standard 10 minutes reading and noting time, as per FEC Email Meeting 1/18.

24/9/2019: Admin - updating exam duration to include additional 10 minutes as per University requirement.

4/5/2020: As the MSA course 4307 Bachelor of Computer and Information Sciences is in teach-out, the MSA offering of this unit has been re-coded to FZA2081 effective Semester 1, 2021. These units will be managed by South Africa and therefore no separate Monatar entries will be made

17/09/2020 Admin: Update to include new assessment and teaching approach fields as per Handbook requirements.

This unit is a second year core unit in the Bachelor of Business Information Systems (BBIS).

This unit has the dual purposes of:

On successful completion of this unit students should be able to:

1. Perform object oriented design and coding to create, test and debug non-trivial, working mobile applications that are maintainable and use the best practices of the development platform
2. Upload these apps to an appropriate marketplace
3. Describe the current software technologies and standards used in mobile app development
4. Describe the current platform and ecosystem landscape in the mobile app space

020103 Programming

This unit introduces an industrial strength programming language (with supporting software technologies and standards) and object-oriented application development in the context of mobile application development for smartphones and tablets. The approach is strictly application driven. Students will learn the syntax and semantics of the chosen language and its supporting technologies and standards and object oriented design and coding techniques by analysing a sequence of carefully graded, finished applications. Students will also design and build their own applications.

Recommended Reading:

Android How to Program Deitel et Al Prentice Hall/Pearson 2013 ISBN-13: 978-0-13-299054-7 ISBN-10: 0-13-299054-7

Recommended resources

Additional Resources: In addition to the prescribed text, the following resources will be used. * The Java tutorials presented at http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/ * The many Android resources (especially documentation of the Android API) at http://developer.android.com/develop/index.html

Technological requirements All the required software can be downloaded for free (details in Week 1).

On-campus

Examination (2 hours and 10 minutes): 60%; In-semester assessment: 40%

1. Laboratory Assessments: - 20% - ULO: 1, 2
2. Pre-reading Quizzes: - 10% - ULO: 1, 2, 3, 4
3. Lectorial Quizzes: - 10% - ULO: 1, 2, 3, 4
4. Examination 1: - 60% - ULO: 1, 2, 3, 4

Minimum total expected workload equals 12 hours per week comprising:

(a.) Contact hours for on-campus students:

(b.) Additional requirements (all students):

In any given week of the semester all tutorials must be scheduled after the lectorial/workshop but before any labs

Faculty of Information Technology 100%

FIT1045, FIT1053, FIT1048, FIT1051, FIT1002, FIT2071 or equivalent