Bachelor of Applied Information Technology

The Bachelor of Applied Information Technology programme (BAIT) is designed to meet the academic and professional standards required for information technolology professionals. The key feature is the practicality of the curriculum that relates directly to current industry practice, enabling graduates to have a competitive advantage in securing jobs upon graduation. Nevertheless, it is also peppered with specially designed generic core modules to enable graduates to function beyond short term technical specialists.

Organizations of every kind are dependent on information technology. They need to have appropriate systems in place. These systems must work properly, be secure, and upgraded, maintained, and replaced as appropriate. Orpacific BAIT programme is designed to address these very real needs.

Orpacific BAIT program is designed to produce graduates who possess the right combination of knowledge and practical, hands-on expertise to take care of both an organization’s information technology infrastructure and the people who use it. Orpacific BAIT graduates can take on responsibility for selecting hardware and software products appropriate for an organization, integrating those products with organizational needs and infrastructure, and installing, customizing, and maintaining those applications for the organization’s computer users.

Some examples of the responsibilities include the installation of networks; network administration and security; the design of web pages; the development of multimedia resources; the installation of communication components; and the planning and management of the technology lifecycle by which an organization’s technology is maintained, upgraded, and replaced.

The entire BIAT program comprises 120 Credit Hours of course work, or equivalently about 4320 hours student workload, and is comparable to similar programs offered by any reputable universities in the world. The general program core is designed to link the IT professional to the domains of human resource management, corporate management control methodologies and business and finance.

The technical core is designed to achieve two purposes; the first is to give the IT professional a fundamental and generic understanding into the key technical areas of systems, hardware and software. The second purpose is to give the IT professional a profound understanding of system architecting, IT business strategies, system quality assurance and management as well as IT professional ethics.

The rest of the curriculum is devoted to the teaching practical industry knowhow. The modules are classified into three domains; namely infrastructure and network, web development and application development. The nine modules in the three domains are all highly relevant to current industrial trends and practices. However in order to track the current industrial trends, these modules are under constant review, and offering may differ from year to year. Candidates nevertheless are well assured that while industrial used terms may become obselete faster in the IT domain than any other areas, enough generic knowledge and principles are covered to allow the IT graduate to quickly ledge onto new technologies that may come into the horizon.

The teaching and assessment of the underpinning knowledge forms about 60% of the entire curriculum of the program. The other 40% of the programme is designed around problem-based learning and a near real life project.

All programmes, including the Bachelor of Applied Information Technology degree, of Orpacific University of Technology are designed and implemented based on a competency-based approach. Clear performance criteria are listed in the competency standard of each module. Candidates for must show evidence of competent performance in the graduating project, and/or in the process of the problem-based lessons, that they have achieved competence as measure against the competency standards of Orpacific.

Evidences as described above shall be multimedia recordings of demonstrations, presentations or any suitable evidences, and be presented as a portfolio for formal examination. The sets of portfolio of each candidate, at the conclusion of the entire programme, shall be organized into a Personal Graduating Digital Portfolio DVD, and this DVD shall be an integral part of the degree scroll.

Orpacific’s ACCREDITATION is not only a statement that its programs meet academic and professional standards, and on the average, most graduates are competent. At Orpacific, every graduate carries with him/her the evidences that he/she is competent, as measured against published competency standards.

The Orpacific Qualification: Going Beyond Accreditation.

The Orpacific Graduate: What You See is What You Get.

Overview of Curriculum

Candidate must fulfull a total of 120 Credit Hours over 18 regular modules and one major graduation project.

Language of Instruction
The main language for lectures is English. Tutorial in the lower level courses may be done in a second language for students from selected countries. All examination papers will be in English.
Students must present their answers in English only.
Mutimedia recording in the projects and/or problem solutions must be done in English. The English version shall be submitted for examination. Subsequently, upon the assessor’s feedback, candidates are encouraged to re-record in their native language, for inclusion in the gradation digital portfolio. Both the English version and if applicable the native language version shall be included in the graduation digital portfolio.

Entry Requirement
Minimum entry requirements

• two A Levels and three GCSEs or equivalent in five separate subjects, including English and Mathematics.

Mature Student Entry Route

• over age 21 years
• no mandatory academic qualifications
• must sucessfully complete at least 12 Credit Hours of course work in the first year to remain in the program.

Note that under the principle of competency training framework, it is recognised that learning need not necessary be through a formal educational program. Therefore there is no mandatory academic qualification for entry through the mature student route. However potential candidates must be mindful of the difficulties if he/she does not have adequate pre-requisite knowledge to pursue this program. Assessment in this program is through open demonstration of skill and knowledge, and such demonstrations are archived for assessment by official assessors, as well as made available to your prospective employers and relevant members of the public when they are eventually certified. You cannot factor in any element of 'luck', in clearing the assessments. The university has no commitment to pass any candidate unless the candidate clearly demonstrates competence as measured against the publicly accessible competency standard documents of this program.

Students who are assessed to have insufficient command of English will have to attend English Language foundation courses.

Period of Candidature
Minimum period: 2 years
Maximum period: 10 years

Typical period: 3 years
Total workload for entire program is 120 Credit Hours x 36 = 4320 hours.
Works out to approximately 40 hours/week for 9 months per year over 3 years.

Course Computer Requirements
As most of the lessons in each of the modules are delivered online in virtual classrooms, and also the candidates are expected to record multimedia presentation and demonstration of put of the portfolio assessment approach of the University, all students of the program are expected to regular access to a computer that meet the following minimum requirements.

• PC, P4 1.6GHz, 1G RAM, a good quality webcam, writing tablet, and a microphone, and running MS Windows XP or later operating system.
• Internet access.

Fees
USD7,820/= for the entire programme, including two examination attempts for each module and a non-refundable application fee of USD 20.
This is an all in fee; including all lessons, online notes, project supervision fee, examinations (two attempts), application fee, but excludes textbooks.
In the event that for any particular module, a candidate fails to clear the examination in two attempts, the candidate will have to re-enrol in the module. Repeat fees are USD 65 per Credit hour.

Candidates who are claiming exemption for any of the modules arising from prior competence certification by Orpacific under the Orpacific Diploma of Applied Information Technology or Learn and Certify programs, shall be entitiled to a fee reduction of USD 65 per approved Credit Hour exemption.