Units
Curriculum Details
- 3 years full-time online study
- 24 units
- 240 credit points
You can complete ACU’s Bachelor of Information Technology (Online) in as little as 3 years with full-time study. Delivered 100 per cent online, you can study around your existing commitments with convenience and flexibility. To graduate, you’ll need to acquire 240 credit points.
This course is offered over four 10-week terms per year. You’ll access your learning materials from the start of each term and progress at your own pace. Some courses require on-campus intensives or in-person placements.
If you have any questions regarding units, study options, course structure, or any other related concerns, you can speak with an enrolment adviser on (02) 9158 7744 or schedule an appointment.
Foundation units (40CP)
Credit points
Anyone working in, or with, business will interact with organisational systems and the people within them. Understanding the characteristics of how people and organisations work, and are practically navigated, is an important part of any business practitioners’ role. This unit provides introductory information about these issues including basic management theory and practice, systems thinking and management, organisational structures, organisational communication, teams and leadership. It also introduces students to disciplines important in managing people in organisations, namely management and human resource management.
The unit incorporates the values of global social responsibility. The unit will develop the capabilities of students to be future generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and to work towards an inclusive and sustainable global economy.
Students will have the opportunity to apply basic management models and concepts to organisational problems including international and indigenous perspectives.
The aim of this unit is to provide students with a broad foundational base for those working with people and systems in organisations.
Technological advances over the past decades have fundamentally changed the nature of work and communications. As technology continues to evolve at an ever-increasing pace, all employees need an appreciation of how technology impacts various aspects of their lives. In this unit students will obtain a general understanding of Information Technology (IT) components, and emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), Extended Reality (XR), etc. that are having a significant impact on our work and life. Students will explore different applications of emerging technologies, and critically discuss ethics in IT, and technology’s broader impact on the stewardship of creation e.g., considering sustainability and the environment. In addition to the foundational knowledge of IT, this unit will also develop students’ applied skills in using Microsoft Office applications and digital productivity tools which enables them to be a powerful contributor in many career fields. Microsoft’s Excel Associate curriculum has been embedded in this unit, and as part of the assessments, students are provided the opportunity to gain industry certification by completing the Microsoft Excel Associate exam which is recognised and validated by employers’ community. The aim of this unit is to enhance student’s ICT (information and Communication Technology) literacy and knowledge of emerging technologies and their impact on the individuals, organisations, society, and the environment, highlighting both positive and negative impacts of technology on stewardship of creation, and to develop students’ skills in using IT to contribute positively to the effective operation of the workplace.
Information technology infrastructure underpins the effective delivery of digital services across contemporary organisations. A sound understanding of IT infrastructure architecture is essential for students seeking to operate responsibly and effectively within technology-enabled environments. This foundation level unit is designed to provide students with a broad understanding of architecture components of IT Infrastructure. It covers the Information Technology architectural building blocks which include hardware, software and network facilities that are necessary to deliver seamless and ethically informed Information technology services. This includes ethical considerations such as stewardship responsibilities. The aim of this unit is to provide students with the fundamental understanding of IT infrastructure capabilities and the knowledge and practical skills they need to plan, design or manage information technology solutions.
Cyber security is the practice of protecting networks, computer systems, and data from malicious attacks. With the increasing threats of data breach and leaks in our interconnected world, flntech companies, hospitals, government agencies, and every other sector are investing in cybersecurity infrastructure to protect their data and consumers from malicious attacks. However, there is a global shortage of cyber security experts and this number is growing every year. This unit is designed to help students develop a deeper understanding of modern information and cyber security challenges, mitigation techniques and tools. The unit demonstrates the basic cyber security concepts, security tools and the common architectures used as industry standards. Students will learn how to defend against cyber threats and attacks and study existing techniques for managing security issues and maintaining the working environment. The unit also covers ethical and legal issues in cyberspace to understand how cyber security affects legal compliance and solidarity in communities and society. The aim of this unit is to equip students with some background knowledge in cyber security, which scaffolds an advanced unit in network security.
Community engagement unit (10CP)
Credit points
Engaging in business practices which strive to contribute to the common good, to enhance the dignity and wellbeing of people and communities especially those who are marginalised or disadvantaged is an important responsibility for business and reinforces the University’s Core Curriculum and Mission and commitment to serving the common good and for the dignity of all human beings. Further, the ability to communicate effectively in any workplace is crucial.
This unit covers multifaceted business communications concepts to enable effective interaction. In addition, this unit aims to build knowledge and understanding of four key principles of community engagement: critical reflection, active learning, student involvement in service-learning and civic engagement experiences. In this unit, students will develop an awareness of the types of contributions individuals and organisations make to the community, by communicating and connecting the business skills developed in the Peter Faber Business School and their application within communities at local, national and international levels.
In this unit, students will volunteer their time to assist poor, vulnerable and marginalised groups supported by social enterprises, not for profits organisations, and incorporated community groups. and not for profits. Students will further develop cultural awareness and apply their knowledge of community engagement and the skills from their Business degree through a volunteer placement which contributes to the achievement of social and civic responsibility in the wider community. This will be achieved through participation in volunteer experience within a social enterprise, not for profit organization or incorporated groups for up to 70 hours but with a minimum of 35 hours.
The aim of this unit is to foster knowledge and understanding of community engagement and its application within marginalised or disadvantaged communities while applying ethical, personal communication and professional business skills developed within the Peter Faber Business School environment.
Core curriculum units (20CP)
Credit points
This unit, available within ACU’s Core Curriculum, introduces students to some key tools for assessing information, and reasoning and communicating clearly, skills that are of real-world value for all areas of personal and professional life. Students will learn to structure arguments clearly for different audiences; to evaluate evidence and testimony; to engage constructively in cases of disagreement; to identify and guard against characteristic forms of bias and error; and to present oral and written presentations persuasively. Intellectual virtues like clarity, openness and charity are emphasised. The study of reasoning and argumentation has long been at the centre of the Catholic intellectual tradition in its inheritance from the medieval monastic tradition that itself preserved and developed ancient Greek logic and rhetoric. It remains a central dimension of contemporary Catholic thought in its focus on the togetherness of faith and reason in the pursuit of the common good. As such, students in this unit engage with each other on a diverse range of urgent contemporary issues, practicing skills in listening to others, crafting arguments, and conveying views effectively. Set in the context of this social media age, the unit aims to prepare students to be reflective, creative, responsible citizens and effective communicators in diverse domains of life.
The unit aims to develop students’ critical understandings of the origins, nature and roles of the sciences, their relation to philosophical and theological reflection, and the implications of the sciences for our understanding of human dignity, the integrity of creation, and the common good. The revolutions in scientific understanding of the last 500 years have changed how see our earthly home, from the physical centre of creation to a tiny planet suspended within an unimaginably vast universe. The biological sciences have changed the way we understand the human body, its processes, and its relation to other living things. But today’s sciences have developed in complex historical interactions with the Abrahamic faith traditions and wider social and cultural changes, in ways that are often overlooked or misunderstood, but which this unit will lead students to examine. Building on critical understandings of the origins of today’s sciences, students will undertake case studies concerning contemporary social and ethical challenges and opportunities connected to scientific research and technology. Responding to a world where the authority of the sciences is increasingly contested, this unit aims to prepare students to critically engage with community and contribute to ongoing debates around issues in science and technology.
IT specified units (130CP)
Credit points
Data is deemed as the world’s ‘new oil’ while data science is a new inter-disciplinary science of data that employs scientific methods, algorithms, tools and systems for uncovering insights, knowledge and value from massive data generated in different domains. Python, a general-purpose programming language, has gradually become the ‘engine’ of data and data science. In particular, many data scientists use Python because it provides a wealth of data science tools and libraries. This unit will cover fundamental elements of Python programming language and its comprehensive use in the context of data science. This includes Python language basics, data structures, functions, files, tools and various Python data science libraries for data processing, analysis and visualisation. Data ethics and elementary statistics and probability in data science will also be introduced. The aim of the unit is for students to learn how Python can be used for building data science solutions.
In the information age we live in, data is recognised as a vital asset for organisations. Databases have become an essential technology for the organisations to record, process and manipulate data and information efficiently, and preserving data quality and security. This unit will provide you with foundational knowledge and practical skills in database design and implementations. The unit further develops your practical skills in identifying and modelling organisational information requirements; developing using conceptual data models and verifying its structural characteristics with normalisation techniques; implementing and utilising a database using a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) and Structured Query Language (SQL) to manipulate data and generate information. In addition, the unit introduces essentials of data security and quality management, and legal and ethical consideration in handling organisational data. The primary aim of this unit is to provide students with knowledge and practical skills needed to design, implement database solutions to address real-world needs of organisations while preserving data privacy and security to support the dignity of humans served by the organisation.
The increasing use of digital technologies has resulted in generation and storage of vast amount of data. Data needs to be processed to provide valuable insights that enable improved decisions, processes, products or services. Hence, increasingly, organisations need people with the ability to extract, consolidate, analyse data from diverse sources and present information generated from data in an insightful manner, such as visualisations. In this unit you will learn the skills in data management and visualisation to capture, store, model, transform, analyse and visualise data to extract ‘meaning’ (i.e., comprehensible and useable information) from raw datasets. Also, you will learn how to apply data visualisation methods and tools that enable presentation of large volumes of data including geodata for decision makers to easily identify underlining patterns. This unit is designed in alignment with Microsoft’s curriculum and provides a pathway to the Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals certification. The primary aim of this unit is to equip students with the data management and data visualisation knowledge and skills required to solve the real-world data problems, including data-driven solutions to support our responsibility to the common good, the environment and society.
Data science is an inter-disciplinary area that employs scientific methods, algorithms, tools and systems for extracting insights, knowledge and value from data. Machine learning, as a core part of data science and data analytics, and a subfield of artificial intelligence, is the scientific study of algorithms and mathematical models that computer systems use to make decisions or predictions. Machine learning algorithms and models are widely used in human’s digital life such as email client, search engine, social media, virtual personal assistant and recommendation system, although machine bias is an important ethical concern of which many people are unaware. Python is one of the most popular programming languages with comprehensive libraries and tools for putting data science and machine learning into practice in an efficient manner. This unit will cover fundamental concepts and theories of data science and machine learning with focus on their practical use and implementations. The issue of machine bias in machine learning and how it may have an adverse impact on the common good will be examined. The aim of the unit is to learn both theoretical and practical data science and machine learning techniques to build real-world data science and machine learning solutions.
Computer programs are widely used to drive practical business applications. As a result, global demand for people with programming skills is increasing. Programmers are commonly required to ethically maintain legacy code, to develop new applications to make business competitive and to improve software security. This unit introduces students to key concepts of computer program design and development using appropriate data structures, control structures and functions. In addition, students will learn object-oriented programming and basic testing and debugging skills. The aim of this unit is to introduce the basics of a modern programming language for building simple software applications involving objects and functional components. Hence by studying this unit students will be able to support the common good of mankind by overcoming chronic shortages of programmers to drive modern business applications.
With the increasing reliance on technology, it is becoming more and more essential to secure every aspect of online information and data. Therefore, network security is very critical for any organisation and is essential to protecting client data. This unit covers the advanced network security concepts that require to developing students’ knowledge and practical skills in digital communication and security. This advanced unit explores the theoretical foundations and current landscape of cryptography, covering essential concepts required to understand complex security challenges in networked environments. The unit contents include networking concepts, classical cipher design and analysis, key management, digital signatures and hash algorithms, wireless security, web security, email security and data stewardship. The unit also focuses on applications of network security tools to prevent or detect security attacks. The aim of this unit is to provide students with a good understanding of network security issues and the importance of data stewardship, as well as the knowledge and skills they need to plan, design or implement in order to secure a networked environment.
This is the first of two units (Parts A and B) extending across two semesters. Both units provide practical experience in designing, developing and evaluating a particular information technology project or in thoroughly investigating a particular area of information technology. The project is generally software-based, although sometimes it may involve investigation of an information system for a particular industry. It covers the whole system development lifecycle from requirements analysis through design to implementation and testing. The two units provide project management, communication and technical skills to prepare students for transition from study to professional practice in industry. Both units require students to integrate and consolidate knowledge, attitudes and capabilities acquired in other units of study. The project work will involve project management, documentation, presentation, and possibly coding. The focus of Part A is to provide students with fundamental project management, communication and technical skills in the context of a particular information technology project. It specifically covers the catholic social thought of subsidiarity in managing a team-based project. The project has both team and individual work elements. A team of students will work together on the project, while each team member, while also involved in overall team-oriented responsibilities, will contribute to their team by employing the specialist capabilities of their professional pathway.
As software systems become increasingly complex and interactive, a deeper understanding of advanced programming concepts is essential for students aiming to build robust, user-friendly, and data-driven applications. This unit builds on the foundational knowledge and guides students toward the development of more specialised graphical user interface (GUI) based software applications. Core topics include event-driven programming, GUI design, file input/output operations, data structures, and generics. Through practical programming tasks, students will have the opportunity to gain the skills to address real-world problems that require effective user interaction and data handling. These skills are extended to complex, real-world application development. The unit also emphasises the importance of responsible and efficient computing, promoting energy-conscious development practices that contribute to long-term sustainability in software design.
Work Integrated learning (WIL) is the term used to describe learning activities that allow students to apply their academic learning in a ‘real-life’ environment provided by a real industry partner or a University organisation working on a real project. WIL strengthens students’ essential job-ready skills and experiences and provide students with the opportunity to learn about workplace culture, prepare for the future world of work, develop professional networks and build their employability skills. WIL may be conducted on or off campus, face-to-face or online, and paid or unpaid. Each student is jointly supervised by an academic supervisor and a placement supervisor. The aim of this unit is to enhance students’ professional knowledge, apply theory, practices and technical skills, and to develop their understanding of organisational and business culture and processes. Students will gain the confidence, knowledge and skills necessary to effectively prepare for a future career in the IT industry. Through work integrated learning, students will also get a clear understanding of the impact of IT on workers and working conditions.
This is the second of two units taken across two semesters, providing practical experience in designing, developing and evaluating an information technology project or investigating an IT area in depth. Projects are usually software-based and span the full system development lifecycle—from requirements analysis and design to implementation and testing. Together, Parts A and B develop project management, communication and technical skills to support students’ transition to professional practice. Students consolidate knowledge from prior units through project management, documentation, presentations and, where relevant, coding. Part A focuses on foundational project planning, communication and technical skills. Part B centres on implementing and testing the project according to the plans developed in Part A, applying software engineering principles. Students develop and test their system, designing test cases to evaluate functional and non-functional requirements. A final report is required, outlining project outcomes, challenges, performance analysis and recommendations for future improvement, including consideration of human dignity and diversity. The unit aims to equip students with essential project management and system development capabilities, enabling them to become responsible IT professionals who are prepared for industry and committed to working for the common good.
Web and mobile applications have become integral to daily life due to their unique benefits, such as efficiency and connectivity across personal, social, and professional domains. As demand for skilled IT professionals continues to grow, the ability to develop robust, user-focused applications is a critical asset. This unit builds upon prior programming knowledge to advance students’ capabilities in developing industry-standard web and mobile applications. It introduces essential concepts, tools, techniques, and modern development frameworks for designing, implementing, and testing interactive applications. Students will gain both theoretical and hands-on experience with a broad range of contemporary technologies used in web and mobile development. In alignment with the principles of social responsibility, the unit also emphasises the role of technology in addressing real-world challenges. It encourages students to create inclusive and impactful applications that benefit individuals and communities alike. The aim of this unit is to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and ethical awareness required to design and deliver innovative web and mobile applications that are technically robust, socially responsible, and responsive to real-world needs.
In our digital age, vast amount of data is collected and stored at an enormous speed and in a variety of formats. Organisations across various sectors increasingly realise the benefits of exploiting raw data to generate useful knowledge. Data mining is the process of discovering meaningful patterns in large data sets. Data mining utilises techniques from various fields including Statistics, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Database Systems to transform data into a comprehensible structure. In this unit you will learn the foundational data mining concepts and techniques for various data mining tasks such as predictive modelling, association analysis, cluster analysis and anomaly detection. Also, you will learn how to use data mining tools to perform data mining tasks on real-world datasets The primary aim of this unit is to equip students with the knowledge and skills required to perform data mining using state-of-the art tools and techniques to solve the real-world problems and enable informed decision making considering ethical perspectives such as subsidiarity, stewardship of resources, and human dignity.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the intelligence demonstrated by machines, devices, agents or computer programs, in addition to the natural intelligence displayed by humans and animals. AI is often considered as the study of intelligent and rational agents or machines that mimic cognitive functions associated with the human mind, such as problem solving, reasoning, planning, learning, actioning and decision making. Machine learning is a subfield of AI that studies the ability to improve machine performance based on experience. Machine learning (ML) employs algorithms and mathematical models that computer systems use to make decisions or predictions and it is prevalent in many contemporary AI applications that make common good and build better stewardship ranging from microelectronic devices to online services benefiting billions of users. This unit will cover essential aspects of AI and ML, both theoretically and practically. This includes understanding, design and implementation of fundamental problem-solving algorithms in AI such as heuristic search and game theory as well as supervised and unsupervised ML algorithms. The aim of the unit is to learn essential concepts and techniques of AI and ML towards designing and building AI-enabled applications that makes people’s lives better.
Elective units (40CP)
Credit points
Effective cybersecurity governance is essential to organisational resilience, trust, and ethical digital practice in an increasingly interconnected global economy. This unit provides students with a foundational understanding of how governance structures, policies, and ethical frameworks support the management of cyber risk and regulatory compliance in contemporary organisations. The unit equips students with essential skills to understand and manage cybersecurity governance, develop effective policies, and address ethical challenges in global digital environments. Students will explore core principles of cyber governance, including risk assessment, incident response, and strategic oversight, alongside key international legal and regulatory frameworks and the roles of major global governance bodies. Through applied learning, students will learn to identify cybersecurity threats, evaluate organisational vulnerabilities, and design appropriate governance strategies. The unit also examines ethical hacking, breach-response planning, and the governance implications of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. Students will develop the capability to work across diverse IT governance contexts, make ethical and inclusive decisions, and contribute to responsible digital solutions. The aim of this unit is to prepare students to effectively contribute to cybersecurity governance, risk management, and compliance in complex global organisational contexts.
Information systems are essential across all industries to streamline operations and improve organisational efficiency. This unit introduces students to Information Systems Analysis and Design, focusing on the systems analyst’s role in identifying and modelling business requirements for effective software solutions. Students will explore both traditional and modern methodologies, including structured analysis, object-oriented approaches, and Agile frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban, and Lean. Key areas of study include requirements engineering (elicitation, documentation, validation, and management), the use of Unified Modeling Language (UML) for system modelling, and core system design principles such as user interface design, architecture, and usability. Students will also apply industry-relevant tools for modelling and collaboration. Through real-world case studies, students will apply techniques to analyse business cases, model system processes, and collaborate in team-based settings using Agile practices such as user stories, product backlogs, personas, and sprint planning. Emphasis is placed on both the technical competencies and ethical responsibilities of systems analysts, including adherence to the Australian Computer Society (ACS) Code of Ethics. The aim of this unit is to equip students with the knowledge and practical skills needed to analyse, design, and model information systems that support business operations effectively, using both traditional and modern development methodologies.
To make analysts’ work faster, more efficient, and more accurate—and to enable natural-language interaction with analytics systems—organisations are increasingly adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) and augmented analytics. Augmented analytics uses enabling technologies such as machine learning, natural-language processing, and advanced algorithms to support data preparation, insight generation, and insight explanation within analytics and Business Intelligence (BI) platforms. These capabilities extend the knowledge and practical skills of both expert and citizen data scientists. This unit provides students with foundational knowledge of AI-enabled analytics as computerised decision-support. Students will develop practical skills in applying contemporary tools and techniques to design and implement AI-driven analytics solutions, with an emphasis on real-world analytical workflows and decision-making contexts. The unit aims to prepare students for the era of cognitive analytics and artificial intelligence, which is reshaping how people interact with data, how systems generate value, and how organisations operate. By the end of the unit, students will be equipped to build AI-driven solutions that support decision-making for individuals, organisations, and society.
Big Data Analytics focuses on extracting value from extremely large, complex, and fast-moving datasets that exceed the capabilities of traditional data-management and analytic approaches. Such datasets often combine structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data from multiple sources at scale, requiring distributed storage, high-performance processing, and specialised analytical methods. As big data technologies continue to evolve rapidly, employers increasingly seek graduates who can design scalable data pipelines and apply advanced analytics in real-world contexts. This unit provides students with an in-depth understanding of the methods and technologies used to address the three defining characteristics of big data: volume, variety, and velocity. Students will learn about scalable cloud and high-performance computing infrastructures for large-scale data storage and processing, and will apply analytics techniques such as data integration, statistical modelling, stream processing, and machine learning to heterogeneous big-data environments. The unit aims to develop students’ technical competence in big-data analytics and their hands-on experience in designing and implementing scalable solutions. It also builds students’ ability to critically evaluate the organisational and societal consequences of big-data use, including ethical, sustainability, privacy, and equity considerations.
In an increasingly digital and interconnected world, organisations face growing and complex cybersecurity threats, making it essential for professionals to understand how to manage security risks effectively and ethically. Students will develop an understanding of security risk and appropriate frameworks, models, and strategies to identify, categorise and mitigate risk as a scalable, repeatable process, to best prepare and protect organisations from IT related threats. The standards and frameworks examined in the unit are constantly being revised and updated as new technologies and capabilities emerge in the threat landscape, such as cloud computing, quantum processors and artificial Intelligence platforms. The aim of this unit is to equip students with the knowledge and skills to understand and manage security risks in organisations through the application of appropriate cybersecurity frameworks, models, and strategies.
This unit provides students with an ethical and practical approach to the analysis of business data uncertainty with emphasis on generating useful information for business and personal decision-making. It covers gathering and describing data, the role of probability in measuring uncertainty, statistical inference using various common parametric and non-parametric techniques and analysis of relationships between variables. A knowledge of Statistics is critical for many professions including economics, financial analysis, marketing, management and accounting. Numbers and figures are used every day in business to make predictions. If you invest in financial markets, statistics can be used to predict the price of a stock 12 months from now based on company performance measures and other economic factors both locally and globally. This is just one example that illustrates how statistics are used in our modern society. Students will be able to apply data analysis tools with a focus on the application of those tools to understand the issues of vulnerable populations. The unit provides students with the necessary knowledge and skills needed to apply data analysis techniques for business decision making.
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