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Inside Engineering 2026: Trends and Study Pathways
6 November, 12pm – 12:45pm (AEST)
Join our upcoming interactive webinar to meet the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Engineering Discipline Lead, Dr Adrian McCallum. Discover UniSC’s suite of postgraduate engineering programs, designed to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application, enhancing the readiness of graduates to solve real-world challenges and land impactful roles in their field.
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Missed one of our recent webinars? Find the replay below.
Neil Ismail: Okay.
Neil Ismail: Okay, welcome. I think we’ll just,
Neil Ismail: Hang out here for a minute on the, title screen, waiting for everyone to…
Neil Ismail: Join the webinar, and then we’ll give that a minute.
Neil Ismail: And… Then we’ll get started.
Neil Ismail: Yeah, so people are still joining in, awesome.
Neil Ismail: Okay.
Neil Ismail: And the people still coming in, we’ve got
Neil Ismail: Alright, I think I’ll, I’ll get started, so…
Neil Ismail: Just like to welcome everyone, and thank you for attending today’s webinar to discuss online cybersecurity and forensic degrees at the University of the Sunshine Coast. My name is Neil, and I’m a Student Engagement Advisor at UniSC.
Neil Ismail: And joining me today is Dr. Dennis Desmond, our program coordinator. Hey, Dennis, for cybersecurity and Forensics Programs.
Neil Ismail: Okay, so… Before we begin, I’d just like to make an acknowledgement to country.
Neil Ismail: The University of the Sunshine Coast acknowledges that this webinar and many participants are located on the lands of many custodians of Australia. We recognise their ongoing connection to the land and value their unique contribution to the University and wider Australian society.
Neil Ismail: We pay our respects to the Indigenous elders, past, present, and emerging, and extend this respect to any Indigenous participants viewing this webinar today.
Neil Ismail: Okay.
Neil Ismail: So, just some housekeeping.
Neil Ismail: This session is being recorded. You will receive slides and link to the recording after.
Neil Ismail: Videos and microphones are muted for all attendees. However, if you have questions, please put them into the Q&A box, because
Neil Ismail: There will be a Q&A session at the end of the webinar.
Neil Ismail: Okay, just going through today’s agenda, we’re gonna meet with Dr. Dennis Desmond, our program coordinator.
Neil Ismail: And then we’re going to talk about why you should study at UniSC,
Neil Ismail: We’re gonna do a bit of a deep dive into online cybersecurity and forensics programs.
Neil Ismail: Look into career outcomes.
Neil Ismail: The entry requirements… What it’s like to study online, some key dates.
Neil Ismail: And then we’ll move to our Q&A, and how to apply right at the end.
Neil Ismail: Okay, so, I’m just going to hand it over to Dr. Dennis Desmond, our program coordinator, to introduce himself. Over to you, Dennis.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Thanks, Neil, appreciate it. So, I’m relatively new to academia. I haven’t really been in the field for very long. Historically, I spent about years in the United States Army, working as a counterintelligence special agent, with about years of Russian language training, and travel.
Dr Dennis Desmond: So, most of my experience has been working on that side. Fortunately, I was able to adopt the cyber side fairly early on. I was recruited by the FBI to work as a special agent.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Oh, pardon me.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Bring that off. There we go.
Dr Dennis Desmond: All right, work as a special agent with the FBI, again, targeting Eastern European hackers, and, from there, the, FBI was,
Dr Dennis Desmond: very happy, unfortunately, to hand me over to Defense Intelligence Agency, where I worked also as a counterintelligence special agent, specializing in online cyber operations. I supported human intelligence collection, clandestine collection.
Dr Dennis Desmond: By identifying, operational collection activities globally, I was able to travel to different embassies around the world and work with CIA and DIA clandestine collectors. And then,
Dr Dennis Desmond: Ended up being offered the opportunity to work as Special Operations Command as an identity scientist, and from there, ended up in,
Dr Dennis Desmond: working with IDCare Australia and New Zealand, was asked if I’d like to get my PhD at the University of the Sunshine Coast, and I said, absolutely. I specialized in the disruption of cryptocurrency money launderers.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And which is what I got my PhD in, and from there, I’ve been teaching since about here in Australia. And, really enjoyed every minute of it. I especially like the campus, and I have been writing, developing courses in cryptography.
Dr Dennis Desmond: cyber threat intelligence, cyber intelligence, and network and device security as well. And, again, really enjoyed my time here, been enjoying it quite a bit. It’s a great area.
Neil Ismail: Excellent.
Dr Dennis Desmond: You know, one of the things is, you know, why cybersecurity, why cyber, why ICT? And the reason is, is there’s such a shortage in
Dr Dennis Desmond: Australia, cybersecurity professionals. And we’re not talking just, you know, people who run and build networks and run cabling. No, that’s not really what cybersecurity is. It’s much greater than that.
Dr Dennis Desmond: What we’re talking about is governance, we’re talking regulatory compliance, we’re talking about offensive and defensive cyber operations, we’re talking about managing cybersecurity within large organizations. We’re talking about working in the government.
Dr Dennis Desmond: One of our students actually just ended up as a cyber warfare officer for the Australian defense Force.
Dr Dennis Desmond: I’ve had other students go into intelligence, defense, law enforcement, and so we’ve really been able to get a lot of our students out
Dr Dennis Desmond: Practical jobs, but they’re still not enough.
Dr Dennis Desmond: If you’re aware, the, in we’ll be hosting the Olympics, and there’s going to be a huge need for cybersecurity professionals. You’ve no doubt heard the news about the, telecom
Dr Dennis Desmond: organization that this U.S. Secret Service took out that had the ability to take down the telecommunications services in the United States.
Dr Dennis Desmond: The growing threat of nation-state attacks, organized crime, and individual cybersecurity attackers
Dr Dennis Desmond: Continues to grow every year, and there’s just not enough people to address all those threats and be able to support even small to medium businesses and large organizations in defending against these kinds of attacks.
Dr Dennis Desmond: So, you know, I get asked a lot, you know, why the University of Sunshine Coast? Well, I chose the university, not just because of its location, but because of the opportunities here. You know, we’ve got a fiber optic cable that’s running in. It’s a growing area, it’s developing. We’ve got, one of the first smart cities, locally in Australia that’s being developed, in Maridador.
Dr Dennis Desmond: We’re seeing the development of high-tech capabilities within the region.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And again, it’s,
Dr Dennis Desmond: It’s just a great place to be. We were very fortunate recently to be identified as number one in overall educational experience throughout Australia, and also received a -star rating for teaching quality in Australia, and that is a testament to the folks that we have working within cyber and ICT.
Dr Dennis Desmond: You know, % of our graduates are employed within months of finishing their degrees. Our classes generally are pretty small. You won’t see the hundreds of students to one instructor. And we also have embedded certifications. We’re one of the first universities in Australia to actually embed certifications
Dr Dennis Desmond: with our cybersecurity courses and our ICT courses, and that’s a huge draw. If you were to get these certifications out on the civilian market, you’d be paying thousands of dollars to get those, and these are included within many of the degree programs that we offer.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Talking about the certifications, we just started the Fortinet certifications. You can become certified in cybersecurity. There is an -module, level where you receive certs, and the first are available for free, within, our cybersecurity courses.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And then, also Microsoft Security Compliance Identity Fundamentals Certification.
Dr Dennis Desmond: So, I have to give you a little personal information here. My wife is currently getting her master’s in cybersecurity and forensics. So, I liked it so much, she decided, yeah, I really enjoy this, so she’s about halfway through her master’s degree, and she really likes the program.
Dr Dennis Desmond: She’s been having a ball with it, and I have to keep saying, I can’t help you, you know, sorry, you gotta be on your own.
Dr Dennis Desmond: I can’t give you any inside baseball, but she’s doing really well in the program, and she’s met a lot of really cool people, which is great as well.
Dr Dennis Desmond: So we talked about the program. The program itself is designed to be not theoretical, but a lot of hands-on.
Dr Dennis Desmond: You know, we teach a lot of hands-on tools and a lot of products, you know, like Wireshark, Nessus, MMAP. We have the device and network security, where you learn about the different structures of routers.
Dr Dennis Desmond: how packet switching works. And if we talk about the forensic side, the digital forensics, it’s pretty cool. And…
Dr Dennis Desmond: In fact, apparently, it is of such a quality that one of the state police agencies recently adopted our digital forensics program.
Dr Dennis Desmond: As part of their training program to teach their law enforcement officers about digital forensics and certify them within the state police agency for digital forensics examiners, which is pretty cool.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Within those courses, again, hands-on autopsy, Magnet Axiom are a couple of software applications you’ll learn. We talk about, things like how to build Raspberry Pi networks. I’m a big, hobbyist with my little mini PCs, my NUCs, and my Raspberry Pis.
Dr Dennis Desmond: I just, in fact, got today in the mail, I’m so excited, I got my AI Thinker module, to build in with my Raspberry Pi, so I’m going to start working with some AI thinking integration with that as well. So you learn a lot of really cool stuff within the program, and again, it’s designed so that
Dr Dennis Desmond: When you get to the job, it’s going to be…
Dr Dennis Desmond: as they say, bums in seats, ready to go to work. You’re going to be able to immediately start work. It’s not going to be all theory, where you have to, oh, well, we talked about this, but I actually didn’t do anything.
Dr Dennis Desmond: You’re actually going to be able to, to walk into the job and be able to have an intelligent conversation with your management and your leadership about what you do.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Whether it’s incident response, whether it’s governance, policy development, whether it’s talking about pen testing, whether it’s talking about
Dr Dennis Desmond: Evaluating and integrating artificial intelligence into network security, which we’ve been adopting more and more. And you’ll have a familiarization with all those different aspects that will help you get connected.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And the other thing is, we are…
Dr Dennis Desmond: Pretty closely aligned with all these little, the startup cyber companies and a lot of the major corporations with our industry panel to get internships, as well as introduce you to industry folks who actually are working in the field, which is, again.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Kind of like a day in the life. What do you actually do during the day? What kind of work do you do? What skills do you need? What should I be focusing on?
Dr Dennis Desmond: And that’s a huge draw with this program, is that cybersecurity is such a broad field. There’s so many different
Dr Dennis Desmond: positions that you could possibly hold, whether you’re an AI ethicist, whether you decide to get into cyber law, whether you decide to become a code evaluator, a vibe code quality assurance technician, a SOC analyst, whatever it is. There’s a lot of opportunities there.
Neil Ismail: Great.
Dr Dennis Desmond: So this is what our course looks like, and what I often tell folks is, if you’re not sure about a master’s degree, consider the grad certs. The grad certs incorporate the four courses, and
Dr Dennis Desmond: Or, if you’ve got a cybersecurity background, you can get into digital forensics and the laws and digital forensics courses as well.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Within the again, it’s an introduction to cybersecurity, and you have the Fortinet backup, which also helps you get a well-rounded education within cybersecurity.
Dr Dennis Desmond: You’ll learn about ethics and digital investigation, cybersecurity. You’ll also get a really good course instruction from one of our great instructors, Nason, on introduction to Device and Network Security. And then, of course, near and dear to my heart, is the cryptography, blockchain security.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Where you’ll learn a lot of different aspects about cryptographic processes. We even talk a lot of spy stuff in there, how spies communicate clandestinely and covertly using different types of cryptographic applications and processes.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And then, of course, you get into the managing data side. The research industry dissertation is actually a lot of fun. You get to pick your own research, both individual and group. We’ve had students do everything from drone forensics to human trafficking.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And a whole bunch of other different cyber-related activities. And again, you develop this, and you know, if you want to take this beyond into a PhD or a more formalized publication, you have that option as well.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Again, if you’re not sure about a master’s, and you want to just kind of get your feet wet, I recommend grad certs in cybersecurity. It’s pretty easy to get into. You don’t need a lot of tech background. It helps if you do have some knowledge and understanding of technology.
Dr Dennis Desmond: So I usually recommend folks look
Dr Dennis Desmond: pretty closely at doing some background study prior to jumping in, if you don’t have any experience in the cybersecurity field. But again, it’s the primary four courses.
Dr Dennis Desmond: After you finish it, if you decide you like it, you just convert it over your master’s degree, and it’s pretty easy to jump into the master’s after you’ve completed your grad certs.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And again, cyber forensics, you know, I worked this when I was in the FBI. We targeted, obviously, primarily child sexual abuse material and child sexual exploitation was a big focus of the area in which we worked. But cyber forensics can be anything from looking at mobile devices, including NUCs and Raspberry Pis. It can be doing PC digital forensics, it can be recovering SD cards.
Dr Dennis Desmond: USBs.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Extracting data from a wide variety of devices, including different kinds of cell phones, and it’s actually a really good course.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Again, it’s more advanced. It really helps to have a background in cybersecurity, but you’ll also receive an overview of cyber laws and the rules of evidence, which is really important for our law enforcement officers.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And intelligence officers, and it’ll give you a great dive into the digital forensics field.
Dr Dennis Desmond: So, look, I’m not gonna… I’m not gonna blow smoke, I’m not gonna say, hey, if you complete our courses, you’re automatically gonna get a job. That’s not really true.
Dr Dennis Desmond: But, I will tell you, in our grad certs and our master’s, we get a lot of mid-careers. We get folks who have been working in industry, they’ve been working in healthcare, transportation, mining, and they’re looking to get into a management position or expand their knowledge of cybersecurity.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And what they typically do is they will look at how they can integrate cyber or ICT into their existing profession. And what we see a lot is folks saying, hey, now that I’ve been working in healthcare.
Dr Dennis Desmond: I’ve been working in this field for a while, I want to be able to get into management, I want to increase my skill set, or I’m looking maybe to change jobs and get into the cybersecurity realm.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Well, the opportunities are there. Again, so many businesses are looking for people to do policy, incident response, continuity of business operations, or continuity of operations.
Dr Dennis Desmond: as it relates to cyber and ICT, and this is a really good opportunity for you to consider doing that.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Again, UC…
Dr Dennis Desmond: the pay ranges. I could tell you how much I get to do consulting, but I won’t, but let’s just say that it’s a good, healthy field.
Dr Dennis Desmond: You might even want to specialize in being a court subject matter expert, where you become an expert witness. Again, pays really well, and again, there’s not enough of us to do that. And they’re always looking for folks who can serve as a court
Dr Dennis Desmond: subject matter expert and go to testimony on cyber-related activities. Again, going after hackers, white-collar crime, fraud, things like that.
Neil Ismail: Okay.
Dr Dennis Desmond: That was very informative, Dennis, thank you.
Neil Ismail: Thanks, Neil. No worries. So yeah, I’ll take it from here, and sort of discuss what the online…
Neil Ismail: study experience will be like at UniSC.
Neil Ismail: So, the first thing is, is the learning material is all done asynchronously.
Neil Ismail: All of it was designed for busy professionals and full-time workers in mind, so what that means is that you can study where and where you want to.
Neil Ismail: So long as you get your, assessments submitted on time, so…
Neil Ismail: You know, we won’t be tracking your attendance.
Neil Ismail: But as long as you get your assessments in on time, you’ll be all good.
Neil Ismail: Another really important… Point is access to teachers, mentors, and support services.
Neil Ismail: similar to that of students that are studying on campus. Now, I remember the last webinar, Dennis, you had, one of your previous students
Neil Ismail: You know, being on this webinar as well, and…
Neil Ismail: What I remember him saying was how seamless he felt the whole online experience was.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And he said that…
Dr Dennis Desmond: Yeah, it’s really good, and I mean, you have the option of doing either online or in-person, or both. I have students that like to do the in-person, and then will go online to hear the lecture as well. The big thing is, we try to plan around people who have jobs and families.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Most of our courses occur in the afternoons, after people have gotten off work.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And typically, again, like, with my wife taking her master’s degree, you know, she’s working, and so she has to kind of balance time between her assessments and her lectures.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And what’s nice is the way the lectures are built, she can attend the lectures later in the afternoon, later in the day, so that she still can work during the day and attend those lectures as well.
Neil Ismail: Yeah, that’s awesome. And I remember he was saying as well, just how highly responsive
Neil Ismail: You know, his teachers, mentors, and the support service
Neil Ismail: were when it came to, reaching out, so that’s really amazing.
Neil Ismail: Another amazing thing is that there’s -tech support. So, if you’re having any issues with
Neil Ismail: the Canvas learning system, you know, such as, like, uploading an assessment or something like that, there’s gonna be someone there ready to help you.
Neil Ismail: As Dennis mentioned before, The projects and assessments are all of a practical and authentic nature.
Neil Ismail: To get you work ready, which is super cool.
Neil Ismail: Now this thing I really like is the interactive live sessions.
Neil Ismail: So… They are not mandatory, but they are highly recommended that you attend.
Neil Ismail: And the really great thing here is that, you know, you get to meet your fellow students. It’s an opportunity as well to ask questions and learn directly from your course coordinator and subject coordinator.
Neil Ismail: And I was speaking, actually, to a student, last week, and her experience so far with, the online courses is that
Neil Ismail: She felt she was really connected, which is something that
Neil Ismail: she didn’t, expect to experience as an online student, you know, you guys do, like, breakout sessions, I believe, you know, in those… in those Zoom tutorials, and yeah, she, she said it was a great way to meet other students, and… and didn’t feel isolated in any way, so…
Neil Ismail: It’s amazing.
Dr Dennis Desmond: It’s pretty cool. One of my students actually works in a company who said, hey, Dennis, I’ve got a job opportunity, you want to announce it to the student body, which is pretty cool, because again, we do get, you know, we get active law enforcement, defense, intelligence, and industry professionals taking our courses.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And that networking piece is huge, because you get to know people who are actually working already in the field, which is pretty neat, and they’re pretty amenable to asking them anything, like, you know, how much do you get paid, what do you do, is it hard work, you know, where do you work? And that’s really been super beneficial to the students.
Neil Ismail: That’s awesome. Now right in the center here, you’ve got your one-on-one support. So, as an online student, you will have non-academic support as well with our student support coordinators.
Neil Ismail: Who are there, basically, to guide you from the moment you start all the way to when you graduate.
Neil Ismail: With issues such as, enrolling into courses, if you need to defer and take a break, even things such as, managing your time a little bit better.
Neil Ismail: So you’ve got that support to ensure that
Neil Ismail: you know, you have a great student experience, and also, you know, it also ensures that you have a successful student experience. And, you know, we also have support leading up to the
Neil Ismail: applying, so you can get in touch with someone like myself, a student engagement advisor, and we can answer any questions that you might have, in terms of the program, fees, transferring, you know, requirements, etc. So, the support’s there, all the way from
Neil Ismail: Applying, all the way to graduating.
Neil Ismail: And finally,
Neil Ismail: study when it best suits you. So, I guess, being an online student at UniSC, it doesn’t mean that you’re, missing out on anything compared to a student that’s
Neil Ismail: Studying on campus, the support’s there, the access to all your students, teachers, and mentors, and…
Neil Ismail: Your peers, support, services are there, you’ve got tech support, so… You’re set up for success.
Neil Ismail: So this is just a recap.
Neil Ismail: what studying online is like at UniSC. So, like I was saying, it was developed for busy professionals.
Neil Ismail: Study when it best suits you, wherever you have an internet connection, of course.
Neil Ismail: You’ve got the same access to teachers, mentors.
Neil Ismail: support services, that are… that on-campus students have. There’s that -hour tech support, which is amazing. There’s… you’ve got peers and faculty members are accessible via phone, live chat, email, and discussion posts.
Neil Ismail: And then you’ve got that one-on-one support, from enrolment to graduation, from student enrollment advisors, and as well as student support coordinators.
Neil Ismail: Okay, so here are some key dates.
Neil Ismail: Trimester will begin on the rd of November, and applications are currently open and will close on the th of October.
Neil Ismail: You’ve got your… your break, your mid-trimester break times there, when the trimester will end, and your exam periods as well. And trimester one.
Neil Ismail: For next year.
Neil Ismail: That’ll start on the nd of March and applications will close on the th of February
Neil Ismail: Just as a quick note, I believe the Cyber Forensics is not available for Trimester
Neil Ismail: And if you are considering Cyber Forensics, Graduate Certificate of Cyber Forensics, you will be…
Neil Ismail: The intake will be for trimester one.
Neil Ismail: Okay.
Neil Ismail: So, we are up to our Q&A.
Neil Ismail: section now, and I’m just… Gonna read out some questions from some of our attendees.
Neil Ismail: I’ll start with this one first.
Neil Ismail: Can you tell me when the courses will be available to view for Trimester ?
Neil Ismail: when and when I, when I begin the Masters.
Neil Ismail: Do you know when that is, Dennis?
Dr Dennis Desmond: I think it was on the, the schedule,
Dr Dennis Desmond: they usually open up a few weeks before enrollment occurs. You may just keep on looking. I want to say late October is when they should be available, when everything’s finalized, and you can take a look.
Neil Ismail: Okay, awesome.
Neil Ismail: Here’s one for… from Prakash.
Neil Ismail: How many hours study commitment is required per week?
Dr Dennis Desmond: So, it varies. You know, we usually recommend, folks, if you’re gonna do the grant cert or the master’s, that you don’t take more than two courses at a time.
Dr Dennis Desmond: It’s usually sufficient, especially if you’re working or if you have a family. Two courses is usually sufficient to get through the program. And again, what we generally see is anywhere from to
Dr Dennis Desmond: hours per week max. But again, it just depends on your experience, your background, your understanding of technology.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And it just varies, really, a lot. It’s not going to be, especially if you only take two courses, so intense that you are unable to manage it. It’s going to be digestible and manageable by being able to attend those courses.
Neil Ismail: Okay.
Neil Ismail: Here’s the next question.
Neil Ismail: Do you help find students’ employment?
Dr Dennis Desmond: We… we don’t, as instructors in the courses, have employment, support. However, they do have what’s called WIL, Work Integrated Learning Opportunities, which you can find the website for at the UNESC website.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And also, we announce job opportunities, we announce internships. We kind of work behind the scenes in order to facilitate these things, as well as having job fairs. We usually have two job fairs a year as well.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And again, so it’s, you know, the instructors, quite honestly, on my personal time, I am happy to look at CVs and resumes to help folks.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And recommend changes, or, kind of work with you a little bit to say, hey, look, you might consider this or this, or even be able to answer questions about what it’s like to work in different aspects of cybersecurity or digital forensics.
Neil Ismail: Awesome.
Neil Ismail: I’ve got a question here in relation to,
Neil Ismail: which days do you run classes in a week for the grad cert courses? I’m not sure if he’s asking, for courses in person, or if it’s online, but I believe it’s fully asynchronous, so…
Dr Dennis Desmond: Yeah.
Neil Ismail: Every day. Every day, yeah, every day, anytime, yeah, yeah, exactly. Whenever you want to do a course, that’s when you can do it, so…
Neil Ismail: We’ll move on to the next question.
Neil Ismail: This is a good one. How would this compare to doing, say, online hack-the-box type courses and certifications?
Dr Dennis Desmond: Look, we encourage students to use both TryHackMe and, Hack the Box. They are great learning resources. There are over or possible certifications that you can get. If you look at Coursera, if you’ve looked at online certs, C+, A+,
Dr Dennis Desmond: CSIP, all the different certifications that are available.
Dr Dennis Desmond: It depends on the job that you want. The benefit to this is you’ve got people who actually have worked in the industry that you can ask questions of anytime.
Dr Dennis Desmond: I mean, basically, these are resource, live resources that you can ask questions of and say, hey, I need help with this, what do you think, or would you consider working in this area if you were me? You know, that’s something that Hack the Box and TryHackMe don’t have.
Dr Dennis Desmond: They’ll give you the theoretical, but we, again, can provide a little more practical application, but we encourage you, to use those resources to hone your skills and develop even new skills, absolutely.
Neil Ismail: Amazing.
Neil Ismail: Yeah, nothing replaces the real human interaction there, so…
Dr Dennis Desmond: Absolutely.
Neil Ismail: Is OSINT embedded?
Neil Ismail: And the curriculum, I’m not sure if I read that acronym correctly.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Aston, great question. I am an OSIT guru, absolutely. We teach you how to Google Dork.
Dr Dennis Desmond: We teach you open source intelligence collection and analysis. Especially the course, we teach you, basically, how to look for open source information. We recommend students go over to GitHub and download Python scripts to support their open source intelligence collection activities.
Dr Dennis Desmond: If you were taking my undergraduate courses, Cyber Threat Intelligence, I spent a lot of time, including AI-supported OSINT collection, as part of my CTI course, and how to Google Dork, how to look at Shodan, how to look at different online tools to actually collect information.
Dr Dennis Desmond: This one, I’ll try to… he said you cannot start.
Neil Ismail: Awesome.
Neil Ismail: Got a question here, I’m not sure what exactly what the anonymous attendee is trying to ask, but do you have hands-on configuration?
Dr Dennis Desmond: Yeah, especially in the device and network security piece, on SEC absolutely, they talk a little bit about, configuration both of network devices, connected devices.
Dr Dennis Desmond: You get more in the digital forensic side, looking specifically at the configuration of devices and extracting data, and imaging, different kinds of data from devices as well.
Neil Ismail: Okay, awesome. I’ve got a question here in regards to fee schedules. Is there a fee schedule we can access?
Dr Dennis Desmond: That’s gonna be on the UNESC website, yeah, so just take a look at the UniSC website, usc.u.au, and you’ll be able to find that information out specifically, including government-supported programs such as grants and payment schedules.
Neil Ismail: Okay, awesome. This is, this is a great question. I get asked this all the time on the phones.
Neil Ismail: Is it hard for a person who has not been at uni for the last years?
Dr Dennis Desmond: You know,
Dr Dennis Desmond: academia is such a different critter. It’s such a different beast than, say, working in industry or government.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Much of it is about reading material.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And learning to think critically, and then learning to write, so that it is clear, concise, and to the point.
Dr Dennis Desmond: You will be given all of the tools, all the background information, and the support to help you transition.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Is it difficult? I don’t… you know, I think it just depends on the individual, really, and kind of what your self-discipline is like.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Neil, I mean, what do you think?
Neil Ismail: Yeah, yeah, that’s a great way of looking at it, I think.
Neil Ismail: You know, I was just talking to a current student, actually, who’s in his,
Neil Ismail: I think early s, and he is absolutely loving the cyber…
Neil Ismail: Forensic… Graduate Certificate of Cyber Forensics, and…
Neil Ismail: You know, I don’t think he’s been at uni for, I don’t know, maybe years or something.
Dr Dennis Desmond: there.
Neil Ismail: You know, so,
Neil Ismail: It is all up to the individual, as long as you’re willing to put in the time,
Neil Ismail: And manage your time well.
Neil Ismail: Based on whatever circumstances that you might be currently dealing with.
Neil Ismail: But, if you can dedicate that time, put some time aside.
Neil Ismail: do the to hours per course, then, you know, and also…
Neil Ismail: use the support networks that are out there for you. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to succeed.
Neil Ismail: Yeah.
Neil Ismail: Alright.
Neil Ismail: This is a good question as well.
Neil Ismail: How is cybersecurity as a career going to be impacted with the rapid adoption of AI?
Dr Dennis Desmond: Oh, I love this question.
Dr Dennis Desmond: it is already being impacted. What you’re seeing now is SOC analysts getting support from artificial intelligence to do their behavioral analysis. We’re seeing, like, AI, which is a firewall that has integrated artificial intelligence into behavioral analysis.
Dr Dennis Desmond: We’re seeing artificial intelligent bots, working in the customer support role, as well as assisting with analysis and identification of anomalies within logs. So AI is going to have a huge impact.
Dr Dennis Desmond: But what does that mean? That means we need people who can also study artificial intelligence, who can also study,
Dr Dennis Desmond: these different integrations of different kinds of tools into cybersecurity in the future. If you are not familiar with AI, if you are not familiar with prompt engineering, if you are not familiar with some of the most common tools.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Then you need to start, because things like Copilot, ChatGPT, Grok, Perplexity, and plus all the academic support tools, like Illicit, Consensus, SciSpace, are all being now integrated within the cybersecurity space.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And many of our instructors are already integrating cybersecurity and AI tools into their teaching, so you’ll learn a lot about AI and how it’s being applied directly.
Neil Ismail: Awesome. I can answer this one. So, what is the duration to complete the master’s program?
Neil Ismail: So, full-time, I believe it’s, one and a quarter years.
Neil Ismail: And part-time, it’s two and a quarter years.
Neil Ismail: So that’s how long that would take.
Neil Ismail: Next question.
Neil Ismail: What do we learn in the blockchain module?
Dr Dennis Desmond: everything.
Neil Ismail: You literally…
Dr Dennis Desmond: literally how blockchain works, how it operates, you learn about consensus, you learn about non-repudiation, you learn about Byzantine fault tolerance,
Dr Dennis Desmond: you learn basically all aspects about how blockchain works, different kinds of blockchains, such as proof of work and proof of ownership, things like that. So it’s all theoretical, and then we also introduced some Python scripts and developing blockchains, where if you want to learn how to do your own blockchain coding, you can.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And then, of course, how it relates specifically to cryptocurrency tokens, and with an alternate financial system that’s developing globally now.
Neil Ismail: Great.
Neil Ismail: This is another one that I can… that I can, answer. I’m an anonymous attendee. How does the funding work for paying for courses, and are there government… are they government funded or self-funded, and are there different costs for the graduate courses to the master courses?
Neil Ismail: So yes, of course the Masters…
Neil Ismail: Does cost more, because it is a longer program.
Neil Ismail: There is… I think for a domestic fee-paying student, it’s,
Neil Ismail: let’s see, $but it is Commonwealth supported. There’s Commonwealth-supported placements, which, as long as you’re an Australian citizen or permanent resident, the Masters of Cyber Forensics and… Cybersecurity and Forensics, sorry, will be reduced to $
Neil Ismail: The graduate certificates are much shorter programs, and so they’re much more affordable, of course.
Neil Ismail: And they’re $if you’re a domestic, all-fee-paying student.
Neil Ismail: But they’re Commonwealth-supported placements as well for that, and that reduces it to $I just want to say on that note as well, the Commonwealth-supported placements, they are limited.
Neil Ismail: And they come at a first-come, first-served basis, so whoever applies and gets an offer and accepts, first, they can lock that in.
Neil Ismail: Next question…
Neil Ismail: We just set up a Fortinet network at our MSP at work, and was looking to get a good handle on this, and the certification seems good.
Neil Ismail: Will this give knowledge to be able to take this management internally?
Dr Dennis Desmond: Generally, no, we do not talk about specific, industry products. We leave that up to the company to answer. We’ll talk generally about the structural operations of different kinds of devices.
Dr Dennis Desmond: But a specific Fortinet network, you won’t get specifics about that product. Again, we leave it up to the companies to talk about their specific products and, how they operate.
Neil Ismail: Great.
Neil Ismail: This is the… Final question.
Neil Ismail: Just… just confirming.
Neil Ismail: Can we start with the grad program and later do master’s? If you do…
Neil Ismail: If you do in two modules, grad and then master’s.
Neil Ismail: how the costing works. I believe I can answer that, that’s a pretty straightforward question, and you’ve touched on this already, Dennis.
Neil Ismail: Yes, of course, you could start with, the grad certs first.
Neil Ismail: And by completing, the grad cert, that’ll be, direct credited towards a master’s if you feel like you want to…
Neil Ismail: Continue on with those studies, and you…
Neil Ismail: You know, you fall in love with.
Neil Ismail: With cyber, just like Dennis’s wife did.
Neil Ismail: And you go into the Masters.
Neil Ismail: If you do two modules for grad, then master’s, how does the costing work?
Neil Ismail: I’m not exactly sure what that’s asking there, but you do pay, per course, per trimester. So, if you’re doing two, courses, you pay for two.
Neil Ismail: If you’re doing one… You pay for one course, is that right, Dennis?
Dr Dennis Desmond: Yeah, and again, if you’re not sure about the master’s program, I’d highly encourage you to enroll in one of the grad certs.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Again, it gives you the opportunity to say, you know, do I like school? Can I handle school? Do I like this field? Is this something that I’m interested in pursuing? Because it’s so easy to transition into the master’s program after you’ve done a grad cert that, we have quite a few students that actually go that route, because again, they’re not sure when they first enroll whether or not the master’s is for them.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And then they kind of get hooked and decide, yeah, this is something I want to pursue, and so they go ahead and get into the master’s program.
Neil Ismail: Cool.
Neil Ismail: A couple more, couple more questions just popped through. How often do we need to configure device?
Dr Dennis Desmond: So I’m not sure what that means.
Neil Ismail: Neither do I.
Dr Dennis Desmond: talking about a personally owned device, if you take these courses, I highly recommend either a laptop or a PC.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And again, typically running, Microsoft Office and Windows, is a preference operating system, but we do help you support
Dr Dennis Desmond: If you want to work in a Linux environment as well, and especially in the digital forensics courses, if you want to run a Linux, like Kali Linux, or Red Hat, or one of the other flavors, that’s fine too. We do touch on the different operating systems. Mac is okay, too.
Dr Dennis Desmond: And you can then run a, you know, WinLinux or any other variants as well. There’s certain software applications that, we talk about, such as VMware, that we would encourage a Windows-configured device. But again, if we’re talking about,
Dr Dennis Desmond: configuring specific devices, that’s not necessarily something that, you know, that we would address, within industry.
Dr Dennis Desmond: As far as configuring your initial device, again, that’s… that’s up to you, what you want to do, what you want to install, and how often you want to, install new apps, or change out the operating system, or update it, things like that.
Neil Ismail: Okay, this is the same, individual asking, just extending on that question. Like, for example, do we configure Fortunate device?
Dr Dennis Desmond: So we don’t, again, we don’t talk about industry-specific devices. We do generally talk about firewalls, routers, hubs, switches, how to do networking, how to secure networks, and how to secure the devices on those networks, but we don’t address a specific industry model.
Dr Dennis Desmond: For instance, you know, we don’t talk necessarily about TP-Links or Huaweis or…
Dr Dennis Desmond: any other specific industry item. We talked generically about how you configure those devices. You know, how you lock down unassigned ports, or how you do port forwarding, things like that.
Neil Ismail: Okay, awesome. Well, that’s it for the Q&A session.
Neil Ismail: So, onto the next slide…
Dr Dennis Desmond: Now.
Neil Ismail: If you are considering to apply, what you’re seeing on your screen are the contact details. You can contact an enrolment advisor, such as myself, with that number right there. There’s also, the email address.
Neil Ismail: There’s the link for the online application portal.
Neil Ismail: Now,
Neil Ismail: Yeah, feel free, if you have any questions, actually, to reach out to any of the student engagement advisors. We’re here to help you with any questions that you might have that probably weren’t covered today.
Neil Ismail: And also, where everyone who’s attending today, or who’s registered for today’s webinar, will be receiving a Can youfollow-up email, which will include a recording of this webinar and the links that you’re currently seeing up on the screen.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Thank you, everyone, for attending. I hope to see you in the future, and again, please feel free to ask those questions if you have any burning questions that weren’t answered during the Q&A session. And again, I hope to see all of you in the future.
Neil Ismail: Yeah, well, big thank you to,
Neil Ismail: Dennis, thank you for all that amazing information, and appreciate your time as well, and thank you for all the attendees who took some time off work, potentially, just to make sure that they could attend. Yeah, and I hope to see you all at UniSC. Thank you.
Dr Dennis Desmond: Thanks, Neil, and thanks, Carly, for helping out.
Cyber Security and Forensics
Learn about the pathways available into UniSC’s postgraduate cyber security and forensics degrees, and discover how our programs equip you with real-world, operational experience to accelerate your career.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Hi, everyone! Welcome to today’s information session about our online information and communications technology degrees. I’ll just wait a few moments, I can see there are still some people joining the session.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Okay, great. So thank you for attending today’s session for the online grad cert and master of ICT. My name’s Christina, and I’m a Student Enrollment Advisor with University of the Sunshine Coast, and I’ll be co-hosting today with Rania, who I’ll introduce shortly.
Christina Papamiltiadous: But before we get started, I’ll begin with an acknowledgement of country.
Christina Papamiltiadous: So, the University of Sunshine Coast acknowledges that this webinar and many participants are located on the lands of many custodians of Australia. We recognise their ongoing connection to the land and value their unique contribution to the University and wider Australian society.
Christina Papamiltiadous: We pay our respects to Indigenous elders past, present, and emerging, and extend this respect to any Indigenous participants viewing this webinar today.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Okay, so firstly, I’ll cover some housekeeping items. You’ll notice this session’s being recorded, and we’ll share the recording and a copy of the slides with you afterwards for your reference, so if there is anything you missed, not to worry.
Christina Papamiltiadous: You’ll also notice you’re all on mute, so if you do have a question, pop it in the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen, and we’ll answer these at the end of the session.
Christina Papamiltiadous: So for our agenda today, you’ll meet Associate Professor Rania, we’ll talk a little bit about the University of Sunshine Coast, we’ll discuss the online ICT program, so the Graduate Certificate in Information, Communications Technology, and the Master.
Christina Papamiltiadous: We’ll go over career outcomes upon completion of both these courses.
Christina Papamiltiadous: The entry requirements, what it’s like to study online at University of Sunshine Coast.
Christina Papamiltiadous: We’ll go over some key dates, and then any questions you’ve sent through in our Q&A session, and how to apply for the course.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Over to you, Rania.
Rania Shibl: Thanks, Christina, and thank you everyone for joining today. Yes, I’m… my name is Rania, and I have been at the University of the Sunshine Coast for.
Rania Shibl: a little while now, and I’ve got a number of years of experience teaching technology. I am also currently the Associate Dean for Learning and Teaching for the School of Science, Tech, and Engineering, so I have kind of a wide range of knowledge in a number of areas, in a number of disciplines.
Rania Shibl: And yeah, my background area is databases, and programming and coding.
Rania Shibl: Using a number of different languages. So, I am very passionate about teaching technology and creating an environment where we put your best foot forward, for when you’re looking for, jobs and getting ready there to, enter the career in IT.
Rania Shibl: Thank you.
Rania Shibl: I guess the question’s always been,
Rania Shibl: The, you know, where we’re at with technology and where the,
Rania Shibl: the workforce is at. And one of the things that we all are aware of is AI and the change of jobs and the potential fear of, you know, AI taking our role.
Rania Shibl: or taking our, taking over our roles. But in actual fact, the more AI is getting into the workplaces, the more we’ll need people to be able to leverage and understand
Rania Shibl: how to use it, and how to navigate it. And so you’ll see that there’s a large shortage, and the shortage of IT professionals is only just getting bigger. Many, many years ago, it was, oh, we need
Rania Shibl: you know, we’re short by whereas now we’re short by, you know, millions of people skilled in that area, so…
Rania Shibl: if anything, it’s the time now to learn, or to study within IT, and to be able to,
Rania Shibl: To have that opportunity to change careers, if that’s what you are intending to do.
Rania Shibl: Okay, thanks, Nick.
Rania Shibl: So why the University of the Sunshine Coast? Look, it’s, I personally think that we provide,
Rania Shibl: some advantages, over, other universities. We are number one in Queensland for overall educational experience at the latest Good Universities guide for postgraduate.
Rania Shibl: programs in technology, so that’s a huge achievement, and I think that’s as a result of, our staff, our, academics that are teaching.
Rania Shibl: but also.
Rania Shibl: the fact that we bring in industry into our courses, and we get you industry ready into our courses. We have a -star rating in terms of teaching quality. Our courses are… our classes are small, so we… we don’t just dump you into a class with hundreds of students.
Rania Shibl: We know who you are, and we will bend over backwards to help you through your journey.
Rania Shibl: And one of the biggest things is we have a number of embedded certifications, and what we talk… what we mean by embedded certification is industry-recognized certifications. So you walk away with more than just a degree, but you’ve got verified certifications of your skills.
Rania Shibl: Obviously you’re studying online, so, you know, you are across, Australia.
Rania Shibl: If you do happen to come to Queensland, we have campuses in, you know, a number of different areas, and they’re state-of-the-art and, you know, new… our newest campus at Moreton Bay, but we’ve got campuses across Queensland.
Rania Shibl: Okay, thanks.
Rania Shibl: I mentioned embedded certifications. We are, I’ve just become… a Fortinet academic partner.
Rania Shibl: And so we are looking at embedding, cybersecurity skills in the program. As you’ll see when I talk about the courses next.
Rania Shibl: that we have cybersecurity courses within our ICT program, which is actually a strength of the ICT degree, because you don’t just learn about one thing, you learn about multiple things, and gives you… gives you that overall perspective.
Rania Shibl: We also have Microsoft embedded certs, and you’ve got, as one of them, as an example, you’ve got the Microsoft Security Compliance Identity Fundamentals, but as you’ll see, there are other certifications as well that we embed. And so these are high, highly recognized and valued certifications that you get an opportunity to achieve through our program.
Rania Shibl: So, with the Masters of ICT,
Rania Shibl: as I said, it’s got a number of different, courses, and so when I… when I say courses, that’s a unit, or a subject, or a module, depending on how… what term that you’re used to, but that’s the course within the overall program. The program is the degree, which is the master’s of ICT. So there’s a number of,
Rania Shibl: areas. You’ll learn machine learning, you’ve got databases, and then you’ve got cybersecurity as well. And it’s important that you have, especially if you’re coming in from a career change, to have a number of different courses that you learn.
Rania Shibl: because when you go into the workplace, it’s not going to be necessarily just one area that you focus on. You’ll need that range, or that overall holistic view of technology, and you can’t do one without the other. So you need to understand databases, you need to understand security, so it’s, that knowledge, that you’ll gain throughout.
Rania Shibl: We, constantly update our program. Our program is accredited by ACS, so, it’s… it’s… and it gets re-accredited. We’re very industry connected and have
Rania Shibl: actual academics who are also working in industry, and we bring in projects from industry as well. And as I said, globally recognized industry certs.
Rania Shibl: Next.
Rania Shibl: In terms of career outcomes, now, this is always a hard one, because really, it depends…
Rania Shibl: on where your background is from originally. So if you have… and we’ve had this experience where some of our students have come in, have had a psychology background, and so their path takes them on a different area, right? But the idea is that the knowledge that you’ve gained from your previous experience will impact the way you want to go, okay? And it doesn’t mean that just because you’ve done a master’s now in ICT,
Rania Shibl: That you discount all of that wonderful experience that you’ve gained, no matter what it is.
Rania Shibl: Okay, so that will always inform your career, outcomes. Now, it might not, you know, obviously, if you’re changing careers that completely.
Rania Shibl: But the skills that you’ve learned in your previous, life’s work has not gone to waste. There are transferable skills that you can apply.
Rania Shibl: But in general, the idea behind doing a Master’s of ICT is that you’re working as, you know, a number of different areas, a business analyst, an information security manager, your IT manager or a consultant, so… or along those lines are the potential career outcomes.
Rania Shibl: And as I said, depending on what you’ve done in the past, we’ll…
Rania Shibl: Potentially guide you to where you are.
Rania Shibl: And I think one of those things about IT… Is that no matter what.
Rania Shibl: Space that you’re in, or what field that you’ve come in from.
Rania Shibl: There will always be a need for IT.
Rania Shibl: If you think about any area.
Rania Shibl: you’ll need a business analyst, you’ll need a secured… information security manager, you’ll need an IT manager. There’s always
Rania Shibl: a need.
Rania Shibl: for that, IT person within the
Rania Shibl: An organization or in a field.
Rania Shibl: Thanks, Nick.
Rania Shibl: Okay, so in terms of the curriculum, you can see here, these are the courses. There are courses, and it takes years full-time.
Rania Shibl: And if you have come from…
Rania Shibl: if you’ve had other courses completed, you can get credit for those courses, so if you’ve done something at another university, at the same level, then you can get that credited. You can see there that we have a range of courses. As you can see, the and and are all the cyber
Rania Shibl: focus courses. And, and, then you’ve got your,
Rania Shibl: ICT courses, managing data, data visualization, and databases, so you learn skills there in a very data-focused space. And then you’ve got your programming and your machine learning. So you’ve kind of got three themes here. You’ve got your programming and your AI and ML, you’ve got your data side of things, and then you’ve got your security side of things.
Rania Shibl: And then obviously you’ve got project management and, your evidence-based decision making. So that’s more about that managing, that business management.
Rania Shibl: Those two courses will lead into your industry… your research industry dissertation.
Rania Shibl: and So, the research industry dissertation are credits each, so they’re about a -month worth of, study. And the reason for that is
Rania Shibl: That those courses, you can either choose to go down the track of a research project.
Rania Shibl: Or an industry project. And the two theme… the two streams, sorry, are important, because some people come in and want to go and do further academic study. So they want to do further PhD and go into the academic space.
Rania Shibl: And therefore, if that’s what you want to do, you can do the PSIand Psi
Rania Shibl: as a research-focused project. If, on the other hand, you want to get your hands into the industry, then you do an industry project one and two.
Rania Shibl: Okay? And you can see in blue the different certifications that are embedded. So you can see you’ve got your Fortinet, Certified Fundamentals in Cybersecurity in the first
Rania Shibl: Then you’ve got, as I mentioned, the Microsoft Security Compliance and Identity Certification. We also have the Power Platform Fundamentals,
Rania Shibl: And we’ve got the Microsoft Azure
Rania Shibl: AI fundamentals as well, and the machine learning. And then you’ve got ITS Python, which is the Information Technology Specialist Python certification.
Rania Shibl: And what those mean…
Rania Shibl: by being embedded is they are part of your course, so you do them as one of the assessments. So you don’t have to go and study externally to… to do this. You take it as either Task or Task depending on the course, and if you pass
Rania Shibl: based on the certification’s ask mark, which is %, you then earn that, credential.
Rania Shibl: And so you can still… some people often ask, can I still pass the course if I don’t pass the certification? And yes, you can, because a pass mark is %, so if you still pass… if you still get the marks, you can still pass the course.
Rania Shibl: But the idea is that you get %, and you get the certification. Now, we’ve had, over the past years, over a thousand students
Rania Shibl: SIT certifications, within our programs.
Rania Shibl: And more than, approximately two-thirds of the students actually achieved that certification, in their,
Rania Shibl: In terms of that validation. So, it’s great that these students then will potentially walk away with different certifications along with their master’s degree.
Rania Shibl: Thank you.
Rania Shibl: So, the graduate certificate in ICT, so that is basically a subset of the master’s. So, if you have a look at the courses down on the lower, right-hand corner there, the quadrant, you’ve got ICTICTICTand INF.
Rania Shibl: So, those four courses, if you take those four courses, you can then graduate with a grad cert in ICT. So, some often.
Rania Shibl: the requirements for that, entry requirements for that, are less than the master’s. So to enter the master’s, you must have a Bachelor’s degree.
Rania Shibl: from an accredited university. If you don’t have a bachelor’s degree, and you want to enter the master’s, you can do that via the grad cert. And so, if you’ve got a number of years of experience, but you don’t have any other undergraduate degree, you can come in through the grad cert.
Rania Shibl: And so then you articulate straight away. And what’s great about the grad cert is it also has those courses that have the embedded certifications as well, so you can walk away with those two certs as part of your grad cert if you choose not to.
Rania Shibl: to continue on to the master’s. Most of the time, the people who do the grad cert in ICT
Rania Shibl: articulate into the master’s. So, they do those four courses, and then they just have to do the remaining courses for their master’s degree.
Rania Shibl: So you can complete those in, over… over trimesters, so basically in… in months’ time.
Rania Shibl: And before I hand over to Christine, I just wanted to say that a lot of people come in with a lot of experience. We’ve had so many,
Rania Shibl: students coming in to study who have had years’ experience working in industry, and we… they often say, can I get credit for my, or recognition of prior learning, or… or from their personal or, sorry, professional work experience? And the answer is absolutely. So if you can prove that you have experience in a particular area, often it’s project management.
Rania Shibl: we can then give you credit for those… for those courses within those… within that program. So we’re very much, enabling students to,
Rania Shibl: apply for
Rania Shibl: the tremendous work experience that they’ve already gained. So, just keep that in mind, because it gives you often that head start into the program.
Rania Shibl: Okay, so thank you. I’ll answer questions as, as they come through, but I’ll hand over to Christina.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Thank you, Rania, and yeah, that’s a great point. We get a lot of questions about advanced standing, so…
Christina Papamiltiadous: Yeah, good to know a little bit more about the professional side of that, too. I’ll speak a little bit more about studying online at Sunshine Coast. So, the courses are designed specifically for online learning. There are lots of online resources available to assist you with study, as well as access to teachers, mentors, and support services.
Christina Papamiltiadous: There’s asynchronous learning material available to make things more flexible for those of you who are working full-time or balancing
Christina Papamiltiadous: Other commitments as well.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Rani has touched on this as well, but the assessments are really practical and authentic, so the subjects are designed to give you the skills you need for your career in ICT.
Christina Papamiltiadous: And there will be weekly live online sessions, so they’re a great chance to consolidate your learning. You can get involved in discussion with your peers and your teachers and ask questions. And outside of these sessions, you can study when it’s best for you. So the material’s all provided on Canvas, and you can log in and work through it.
Christina Papamiltiadous: At the time that’s best for you throughout the week, and that suits your schedule.
Christina Papamiltiadous: There’s also -tech support available, so for those of you who might… might be feeling some anxiety around
Christina Papamiltiadous: Navigating new systems, or jumping back into study after some time, there’s support available there as well.
Christina Papamiltiadous: And then on that note… you’ll have… access to…
Christina Papamiltiadous: teachers, mentors, and support the same way our on-campus students would have. So, peers and faculty members, you can access them by phone, live chat, email, and discussion posts, so you can still remain quite connected in the online environment as well.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Some of your other support from enrolment to graduation. So, I’m a student enrollment advisor, so some of you might have already been in touch with myself or one of my colleagues, and we’re…
Christina Papamiltiadous: They’re to help you with your initial questions about programs or your application. It can also assist with questions about tuition, fee help.
Christina Papamiltiadous: technology and transfer processes. And then you’ll have your student support coordinators throughout the duration of your studies, so they’ll help with mentoring you through the program and be your main point of contact. They’re there to assist you with the learning management system and the program materials. They can guide you through
Christina Papamiltiadous: Time management strategies, program planning, and course schedules alongside the academics as well.
Christina Papamiltiadous: I’ll go through some key dates as well. So, we’re currently accepting applications for Trimester which will start on the rd of November.
Christina Papamiltiadous: And applications will close on the th of October. It is good to apply early if you’re hoping to receive a Commonwealth-supported place, as these are distributed first-come, first serve.
Christina Papamiltiadous: But you have up until the th of October to finalize any applications.
Christina Papamiltiadous: And then you’ll also have your online learning orientation week before classes start, so that’ll be on the th of October.
Christina Papamiltiadous: You’ll meet your student support team there, and they’ll cover how to use the system, access support, they’ll go over important resources, and address any last-minute questions and concerns you have as well.
Christina Papamiltiadous: You can then… you can access the course content two weeks before classes start, so you can jump in the system and familiarise yourself with it, go over the content so you can come into class feeling prepared.
Christina Papamiltiadous: You can also see the census date here, which is the th of November.
Christina Papamiltiadous: And then your mid-trimester break, which will be from the th of December until the nd of January, and then Trimester will end on th of February, and your exam period will run from the th to the th.
Christina Papamiltiadous: And then if trimester doesn’t align with your timeline, applications are also open for trimester and we’ve popped some key dates here if you don’t note down in your calendar as well, so all those dates I mentioned before.
Christina Papamiltiadous: With that, we’ll pop through to the Q&A portion of the session.
Christina Papamiltiadous: So… I will… one we’ve gotten from a lot of students, Rania, is about…
Christina Papamiltiadous: coming into the field if you don’t have IT experience. I know that’s something you’ve touched on already, but can you speak a little bit more about how that might work and the support available?
Rania Shibl: Okay, thank you, that’s a great question, and
Rania Shibl: The program is designed for non-cognate entry, so that means you don’t have to have knowledge or background in the area to come into it.
Rania Shibl: As a postgraduate degree, though, there is expectation that you will, you know, take, responsibility to,
Rania Shibl: For your learning, and so there will be often, things that you have to get up to speed with, but the support is always there to guide you through that.
Rania Shibl: It is, at the University of the Sunshine Coast, we have a number of, academic skills workshops and support, that can guide you through that, upskilling should you need that.
Rania Shibl: In terms of, again, like I said, entry, we are aware that students are coming from that, non-cognate background, so materials are often, written for that.
Rania Shibl: assumption that students will be coming in with a lack of that technical background. And so we often provide those extension tasks for people who do come from that background, rather than the other way around. So, yes, absolutely, we cater for, students, with that in mind, so that we can make sure that we are inclusive in our design of
Rania Shibl: the curriculum. But coming back… coming from a non-technical background, I think, like I said, I mentioned that, it’s actually… it’s great to get people from different backgrounds, because you bring a wealth of experience and a different perspective compared to those that come in,
Rania Shibl: from… From the technical background, because it’s… it’s…
Rania Shibl: It enables deeper discussion, and, enables that, meaningful perspective.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Awesome, thank you. And then we’ve got another question, are there exams for each subject as part of the assessment?
Rania Shibl: So, it does… we have a range, that’s a very good question, thank you. We do have a range of different assessments. Some… there are some exams in some courses, and some courses, may not have any. So, it really does depend on the actual course itself.
Rania Shibl: The certification itself is an exam. It’s a proctored exam online, so that is an exam, and it needs to be for us to be able to issue those certifications. So again, it does really depend on,
Rania Shibl: On the course and on the, desired outcomes for that, for that course.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Yeah, okay, and then to follow up on that, how much is project work with others, and how much is individual work?
Rania Shibl: Majority is individual work. There are, built-in, or there, there are group work courses, sorry, group work assessment.
Rania Shibl: embedded throughout the various courses, and… and the reason for that is that, it’s an expectation as professionals in the IT space that you’ll be working with,
Rania Shibl: others in the team, and therefore, it’s a great skill to be able to learn that in a safe environment, and how to manage working with others. But majority is individual work, with some group work spread throughout the courses.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Beautiful, thanks, Rania. And then, what is the process of earning the certifications? Is it built into the coursework, slash, how are we prepared for those exams?
Rania Shibl: Thank you. Yes, absolutely, it’s, embedded within the course, and so if you think about,
Rania Shibl: the… let’s just take one of the courses, for example. The ICTData Visualization, it’s the Power BI, Power Platform, Microsoft’s Power Platform Fundamentals exam.
Rania Shibl: We work through the material for the first two, three weeks, and the first task is the certification exam. So you get all the material, you work through the material with the,
Rania Shibl: The course coordinator, and obviously your own time as well, and then you sit… we arrange for the exam for you to sit,
Rania Shibl: as task number one, for example. And so you get, in terms of that… your question, we prepare that… you’re given sample practice exams, you’re given the material, and we go through all those questions to be able then to sit that exam.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Okay, awesome. And then we have a question about whether there’s support for diverse entry points, and this person said, I’m an experienced professional, but new to ICT.
Rania Shibl: Okay, great question. Yeah, so in terms… if you have a look at the courses, the entry,
Rania Shibl: Just let me look at that question again.
Rania Shibl: entry points. Okay, so you can enter into the program, absolutely. If you want credit.
Rania Shibl: So that means that you don’t… you get credited for a course, so you don’t have to do that course based on your experience. It does depend on your experience. So, an example is that we’ve had someone who’s worked in a business, who’s had lots of project management experience, hasn’t had it in ICT,
Rania Shibl: But, has applied for recognition of prior learning for their project management, and so they have applied for credit for that project management course.
Rania Shibl: And so, yes, it just depends on what you mean by entry points. If you’re looking for credit, as long as you can relay your experience with the learning outcomes of the course, then you can get credit for that course. In terms of entry.
Rania Shibl: even if you’ve had, years experience in a different space other than ICT, absolutely, you’ll be considered for entry.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Beautiful. And then, what does practical experience in the course look like? Do we have access to industry?
Rania Shibl: Okay, so, great question,
Rania Shibl: a lot of our assessments are aligned with industry. We often have case studies that are directly from industry. We have industry coming in and giving presentations to the course, within the courses, and we often have staff that are working in industry. So, for our, forensics course, for example, but it’s not in the ICT
Rania Shibl: program, but in another program, we have, IT actually working, sorry, the academic actually working within IT,
Rania Shibl: Delivering our courses. So we have very much aligned with industry in a number of different ways.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Yeah, awesome. And then I have a comment here, I have no idea about Python, how can I keep up?
Rania Shibl: So we, the Python course is from the beginning, so you learn as if you have never touched Python before, and so you don’t have to worry about,
Rania Shibl: knowing how to code when you first go in. So it’s a step-by-step learning Python. If you are, you know, there’s a lot of resources out there that you can start yourself, if that’s what you want to do before you enter, but there’s no expectation that you should know it in advance.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Wonderful. And then, what kind of academic and student support is available for online students?
Rania Shibl: we’ve got a number of, support. I think, Christina, maybe you can, you can answer that question in terms of the, online.
Rania Shibl: support, but there’s… in general, that you’ve got your academic skills advisors that can support you through a range of different areas. We’ve also got,
Rania Shibl: support for student well-being. We’ve got the student, guild as well, in a number of different areas and support. So you’ve got both an academic, from an academic skills perspective, but you’ve also got the support from a well-being perspective.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Yeah, awesome. And then, to touch on the student support side of that as well, obviously, you’ve got my team, your enrolment advisors who are there to help you out with your application and navigating those systems to get started. So, getting enrolled in your first subjects, getting ready for study.
Christina Papamiltiadous: And then you’ll have a touchpoint with the student support team.
Christina Papamiltiadous: And they’ll help you through
Christina Papamiltiadous: navigating Canvas and, you know, what sort of resources you can use if you don’t know all the resources available,
Christina Papamiltiadous: IT support, they can either assist you or connect you with IT support as well, so you’ll always have a touchpoint, and you have the same sort of touch points as on… on campus students would have, so you’re… you’re very well supported.
Rania Shibl: Yeah, that’s great, Christina, as a point there.
Rania Shibl: You’re considered another campus.
Rania Shibl: So it’s… you’re not left alone, and one of the comp… one of the points that Christine had made earlier is that there’s live classes online. So, you know, often students, you know, choose to attend or not attend. I mean, ideally, you attend so that you make… it’s… it’s…
Rania Shibl: an extra added bonus, extra benefit there when you attend the live workshops.
Rania Shibl: And so, as I said there, it’s… you’re considered another campus, so you’re not left out to your own devices. And so we have that communication, just like you would have that communication with on-campus. So you’ve got the same academic and tutor support as you would any on-campus student.
Rania Shibl: As well.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Yeah, beautiful, absolutely. And then we have a question…
Christina Papamiltiadous: About how many subjects each trimester would someone who’s working full-time be able to reasonably manage?
Rania Shibl: That… it’s… that’s a very personal question, I think it depends on what your stress of your full-time load is, but,
Rania Shibl: In terms of being part-time, it’s two courses or less.
Rania Shibl: I think…
Rania Shibl: the opportunity for you to take on two courses and drop before census week, which is week four, will enable you to see if you can manage it. And if you drop out before census, then you don’t get charged for that course. So it’s a good opportunity for you to say, all right, well, my good intention is I want to take two.
Rania Shibl: And then see how I can handle it.
Christina Papamiltiadous: That’s a great point, because you’ve sort of got the four weeks to see how that stacks up against your other commitments as well. So you can, yeah, start off and see how you go, and then…
Christina Papamiltiadous: In terms of hours per week, it’s about to hours per week per subject, so just thinking about how that will slot into your life and your other commitments too.
Rania Shibl: Yeah, that’s a good point. And also, I guess.
Rania Shibl: if you’ve taken on something, and a life event happens in the middle, or a stress happens in the middle, communication is important. Communicate with your coordinator, and we’re here to guide you. It’s not adding hurdles. We can support you along the way, and we know life throws things at us, so,
Rania Shibl: You just have to communicate with the coordinator, with student support, and, we’ll be able to hopefully guide you through.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Yeah, alright, beautiful. And then, I’ve enrolled previously, but dropped from the program. Will it be difficult to reapply? I’ll move through to this screen, so you have all the contact details and the link to the application portal, but the short answer is no, you can pop back in, pop in your preference.
Christina Papamiltiadous: That won’t be a problem at all, and if you need any assistance with the process, you can get in touch with myself or one of my colleagues, we can help you through it.
Christina Papamiltiadous: And then, is it easy to get a Commonwealth-supported place? So, essentially, we have those spots currently available for Trimester and Trimester They’re first come, first serve, so it is good to apply early, but
Christina Papamiltiadous: They are currently there, so you could, if you’re applying soon, you’ll… Very likely get a spot.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Do you have anything to add to that, Rania?
Rania Shibl: No, I don’t think so. I don’t,
Rania Shibl: I think, as you said, that they’re currently available.
Rania Shibl: And as you said, they’re, haven’t been filled, so yes, apply early, and then you can choose to, yeah, see how you go.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Beautiful. And something else I wanted to check in about, I’ve had a few students asking about what they can expect in those live sessions, like, will it be lecture format? Will it be more interactive?
Rania Shibl: Yeah, great, again, great question. It is very much a, interactive session.
Rania Shibl: UniSC has, moved to asynchronous learning materials, so what that means is all your, kind of, lecture materials are all online, accessible at any time, and during the live workshops, it’s more of that interaction, working on a case study, working on new Python skills, etc. So, it’s that interactive workshop.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Yeah, awesome. So a bit of an opportunity to ask questions and get stuck into it.
Christina Papamiltiadous: And then, do I use the same student account details, like login, or will I get a new one from a previous student? You will retain the same information, you’ll keep your student number.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Yes.
Christina Papamiltiadous: And if you… if you’ve misplaced that, or you need any help, again, just reach out to us. So with that, I might go through…
Christina Papamiltiadous: the information on the screen at the moment for how to apply to these courses, so the link is here, and there are some instructions too. This slide will be sent through to you as well, but if you have any questions at all, you can reach out to our team.
Christina Papamiltiadous: on but you can email that email address there.
Christina Papamiltiadous: Yeah, so that will conclude our session for today. I’d like to extend a big thank you to you, Rania. It’s been such a pleasure to co-host alongside you, and thank you so much, everyone, for your attendance today. I hope you found the session informative, and you have a great day.
Rania Shibl: Thank you, everyone.
Rania Shibl: Thanks, Christina.
Information Communication Technology
Meet the program coordinator for UniSC’s online postgraduate ICT programs, Associate Professor Rania Shibl. Hear firsthand how our programs can equip you with practical skills in programming, data and cyber security.
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Information is correct at the time of recording. Changes after the time of the recording may impact the accuracy of the material within the webinar. For the most up-to-date information, please visit https://studyitonline.usc.edu.au/ or connect with us in one of the following ways: +61 7 5345 6342 or studyitonline@usc.edu.au.