The course has four areas of study:
Software design and development
Candidates develop knowledge and understanding of advanced concepts and practical problem-solving skills in software design and development. They do this by using appropriate modular software development environments. Candidates develop modular programming and computational-thinking skills by analysing, designing, implementing, testing, and evaluating practical solutions and explaining how these programs work. They use their knowledge of data types and constructs to create efficient programs to solve advanced problems.
Computer systems
Candidates develop their understanding of how data and instructions are stored in binary form and factors affecting system performance. They gain an awareness of the environmental impact of intelligent systems, as well as the security risks, precautions and laws that can protect computer systems.
Database design and development
Candidates develop knowledge, understanding and advanced practical problem-solving skills in database design and development. They do this through a range of practical tasks, using a minimum of three linked tables and implemented in SQL. Candidates apply computational-thinking skills to analyse, design, implement, test, and evaluate practical solutions, using a range of development tools. Candidates apply interpretation skills to tasks involving some complex features in both familiar and new contexts.
Web design and development
Candidates develop knowledge, understanding and advanced practical problem-solving skills in web design and development. They do this through a range of practical and investigative tasks. Candidates apply computational-thinking skills to analyse, design, implement, test, and evaluate practical solutions to web-based problems, using a range of development tools including HTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript. Candidates apply interpretation skills to tasks involving some complex features in both familiar and new contexts.
Course assessment structure
Question paper 110 marks
Candidates have 2 hours and 30 minutes to complete the question paper.
Marks are distributed across all four areas of study:
- software design and development approximately 40%
- computer systems approximately 10%
- database design and development approximately 25%
- web design and development approximately 25%
Section 1 is worth 25 marks and consists of short-answer, restricted-response questions from across all four areas of the course.
Section 2 is worth 85 marks and consists of structured, restricted-response and extended-response questions from across all four areas of the course.
Assignment 50 marks
The assignment must be carried out within 8 hours, starting at an appropriate point in the course and once all content has been delivered. It is not anticipated that this is a continuous 8-hour session but conducted over several shorter sessions.
The assignment has three distinct tasks, with marks distributed across the following areas of study:
- software design and development 25 marks
- database design and development 10–15 marks
- web design and development 10–15 marks
Candidates gain marks for the following skills:
- analysis 5 marks
- design 5 marks
- implementation 30 marks
- testing 5 marks
- evaluation 5 marks
Note: implementation (including writing code) is assessed in all three tasks every year. The other four skills are sampled in different tasks each year.
