Subject Objectives

What do the the core subjects offer?

Each of the core subjects have a number of learning objectives. Assessment tasks for each subject are designed to assist students in achieving them.

By the time you have successfully completed this subject, you should be able to:

• Outline your own career direction and skillset, identifying any learning needs and how they can be met
• Identify the nature of and skills required for small, medium and large-scale multimedia productions for both CD-ROM and Internet delivery
• Develop project plans including budgets, timelines, business plans and storyboards for small, medium and large-scale multimedia productions for both CD-ROM and/or Internet delivery
• Critically analyse and reflect upon the experience of group/teamwork in multimedia project development
• Understand the key aspects of successful teamwork, such as interpersonal communication and leadership capabilities

By the time you have successfully completed this subject, you should be able to:

• Gain an awareness of a variety of software and hardware technologies relevant to, or utilised in, the development and maintenance of moderately complex web-based environments
• Develop and demonstrate a deeper knowledge and understanding of several of these technologies through applying them in the production of a web-based product or site in a manner appropriate for a practicing professional. These technologies must include HTML-style formatting languages and one or more simple scripting environments. Other technologies may be employed as appropriate
• Develop and demonstrate an understanding of the technical, ethical, legal, and social issues relating to the use of technologies in the production of web-based environments
• Demonstrate capability in applying research and reflection by engaging in self-managed learning activities, and in effective communication, through active participation as a learner in a community of peers and professionals

By the time you have successfully completed this subject, you should be able to:

• Understand the website design process from the perspective of the visual designer
• Apply a variety of creative research methods in the visual design of online media
• Identify and understand a range of visual modes of communication and design and their applicability to online media
• Recognise the symbolic power of typography as it relates to visual design
• Apply visual literacy skills in critically interpreting and deconstructing still images from a variety of social, cultural, ethical and political viewpoints
• Demonstrate basic competency with graphic software, scanning and digital photography to create original images
• Present work visually and orally in an engaging, convincing and professional manner
• Understand image manipulation, processing and optimisation for the web

By the time you have successfully completed this subject, you should be able to:

• Define a digital interactive experience, and its differences and similarities with other types of experiences
• Think critically about how people experience digital media products and how such experiences can be designed
• Develop and articulate a personal theory of digital experience design
• Refine your theory of digital experience design through application of your theory to the design of a digital project and evaluation of that project
• Compare and contrast existing theories of design, whether they pertain specifically to information and interaction design, or are more widely drawn from other design disciplines
• Identify what you have learned about information and interaction design over the semester's study

By the time you have successfully completed this subject, you should be able to:

• Show an understanding of the broad areas of media and cultural studies and be able to articulate in writing the ways in which digital technologies can be understood, using media and cultural studies as critical and analytical tools
• Understand how current multimedia technologies and their applications are situated within contemporary social contexts, and are part of continuing historical frameworks that include developments in both culture and technology
• View existing multimedia works critically and analytically, and bring to the creation of your own products insights gained from having a deeper understanding of the social aspects of digital multimedia

By the time you have successfully completed this subject, you should be able to:

• Examine the role of sound and moving image in interactive media
• Refine the ability to make informed choices about animation, audio and visual technologies and how can these be used appropriately
• Justify the inclusion of sound and moving image across a range of new media products for different purposes and audiences through critical analysis and reflection
• Create and apply sound and moving image to new media products with flexible and alternative modes of distribution

By the time you have successfully completed this subject, you should be able to:

• Collaboratively produce an original digital media product
• Understand the role and importance of critical experimentation and innovation in the development process and multimedia industry
• Manage and participate in a project from development through to completion
• Apply and consolidate the skills and knowledge you have acquired in your postgraduate learning
• Identify your own lifelong learning needs and objectives in the short, medium and long term future
• Explore potential research and development opportunities in the field of multimedia