COSC480-25S2 (C) Semester Two 2025

Computer Programming

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 14 July 2025
End Date: Sunday, 9 November 2025
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 27 July 2025
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 28 September 2025

Description

An introduction for graduate students to imperative computer programming using Python. Topics include: expressions, assignment, selection and iteration, structured data (lists, dictionaries, tuples, arrays), functional decomposition, file processing, using library code, and an introduction to object-oriented programming. Students must develop a significant piece of program code in a project that demonstrates mastery of programming for practical applications, typically in data science.

This is an accelerated course aimed at graduate students without any prior programming background. It introduces the concepts of imperative programming, using Python, to develop programming skills aimed at data science-centred problems.  

Learners will develop their skills throughout the course through a project that involves data cleansing, data analysis and visualisation. Topics covered throughout the course to support the completion of this project include:
• Expressions
• Assignment
• Selection and iteration
• Structured data (lists, dictionaries, tuples, arrays)
• Functional decomposition
• Object-oriented programming
• Data manipulation using Pandas
• Visualisation with matplotlib

Learning Outcomes

  • Fluently solve simple programming problems with a given programming language.
  • Analyse programming code to predict program behaviour.    
  • Employ appropriate third-party programming libraries to deal with complex programming problems.    
  • Develop a program to cleanse data, including organising, identify trends and visualise data for ill-specified, complex data-science problems.

Prerequisites

Subject to approval of the Head of Department.

Timetable 2025

Students must attend one activity from each section.

Computer Lab A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Thursday 14:00 - 16:00 Jack Erskine 010 Computer Lab (17/7-21/8, 11/9-16/10)
Jack Erskine 001 Computer Lab (17/7-21/8, 11/9-16/10)
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
02 Friday 12:00 - 14:00 Jack Erskine 010 Computer Lab (18/7-22/8, 12/9-17/10)
Jack Erskine 001 Computer Lab (18/7-22/8, 12/9-17/10)
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
03 Thursday 08:00 - 10:00 Jack Erskine 010 Computer Lab (17/7-21/8, 11/9-16/10)
Jack Erskine 001 Computer Lab (17/7-21/8, 11/9-16/10)
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
04 Tuesday 11:00 - 13:00 Jack Erskine 010 Computer Lab (15/7-19/8, 9/9-14/10)
Jack Erskine 001 Computer Lab (15/7-19/8, 9/9-14/10)
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct
Tutorial A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Tuesday 09:00 - 10:00 Ernest Rutherford 465
14 Jul - 24 Aug
8 Sep - 19 Oct

Course Coordinator

For further information see Computer Science and Software Engineering Head of Department

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage  Description
Project part 1 5% Project part 1 - Read me
Project part 2 20% Project part 2 - Mini project
Project part 3 35% Project part 3 - Final project
GIT Portfolio 10%
Quizzes 25%
Forum activitry 5%

Notes

There are several important documents available online about departmental regulations, policies and guidelines at the following site. We expect all students to be familiar with these.

Notices about this class will be posted to the class forum in the Learn system.

COSC students will also be made members of a class called “CSSE Notices”, where general notices will be posted that apply to all classes (such as information about building access or job opportunities).

Additional Course Outline Information

Academic integrity

All work completed as part of COSC480 must be:

• Substantially your own work; and;
• the work of others – including generative AI – is cited correctly to acknowledge use of external materials.

Grade moderation

To gain a passing grade in COSC480 students must:

1. achieve an average grade of at least 50% over all assessment items
2. achieve a passing grade in each of the two oral exams delivered*

Upon satisfying the above criteria your grades will be determined by University-wide grade scale . However, if you do not satisfy both passing criteria you will be given either a D or E grade depending on marks.

* If a student fails 2. above, they must pass a invigilated python proficiency exam.

Delivery

This course is primarily delivered online, with only two assessments requiring in-person attendance. Students can attend a weekly:
• lab session - Where you can ask programming questions.
• tutorial session - Where you can seek support from the COSC480 tutor with your COSC480 project

You can add these events to your personal timetable using My Timetable . You are also welcome to attend more than one of each event if you would like more assistance, so long as there is space available in the room.

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,176.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Computer Science and Software Engineering .

All COSC480 Occurrences