Best Practice in the Workplace (Item 1 guidance from my forum)

Marks breakdown

The learning outcome for this submission is "Describe and discuss applicable standards and best practice for the student's workplace"
You need to pick several examples from the categories listed below (page 4):

·  Professional Bodies

·  Standard Setting Bodies

·  Hardware and Software Manufacturers

·  Previous Employers

·  Other Organisations

You have to write aminimumof1250 words.

You need to write about each example making sure to include the following aspects:

·  Describethe chosen standards (or best practice) and theirintended purpose.
This is worth 15% of the report.

·  You must alsoexplicitlyevaluatewhy those standards may be useful in a particular type of ICT workplace.
This is worth 10% of the report.

You are asked to "Conduct research into published standards, and examples of best practice,that you feel could be appropriate for adoption in an ICT workplace" - you are not talking about what your place of work has - merely what it could have. Therefore some of the standards (or best practice) may already be in use - that doesn't matter - as you are considering what is out there.

Remember that "afurther 5% will be allocated based on the professionalism of the report". That is as straightforward as it sounds.

"A further 10% will be allocated if your chosen standards (categories) are drawn from a variety of sources" - you need to ensure that your selection includes a variety of sources. So clearly there has to be more than one. Also they should not all be of the same category e.g. all professional bodies or all standard setting bodies. You could have a professional body, quality standard and a hardware standard.

I would expect between 3 and 5 standards/best practice discussed in your report (any more than this you will find it hard to do the mark scheme justice). For example if you worked (or wanted to work) in web design/programming you could select:

·  BCS(Professional Body discussing its codes of conduct, special interest groups, journals, etc)

·  W3C(Standard Body for web - plenty to discuss here)

·  Sun(Java best practice, certification)

·  MySQL(Database best practice, certification)

Notice that here I have a mix of standards and best practice (W3C is a standard setting body with many web standards I could look at).

Finally - review the mark scheme on page 5 - that's what I will be marking by!

To give you an example...

Suppose you chose a software manufacturer like Microsoft and were considering its professional certification (let's say for this example as a Microsoft Certified Application Developed - MCAD)....

Describe the chosen standard and its indented purpose- What is the standard/best practice for? Who is behind it? What type of person is it aimed at? What does it contain (give examples of the content)? Adherence to (or completion of) the standard/best practice enables a person/company to do what that they could not do before?

Explicitly evaluate why those standards may be useful in a particular ICT workplace (preferably your own)- how useful is this standard/best practice? - Is it comprehensive? Is it valuable to you or your company? Is it missing something?

I would classify the different categories as follows:

·  professional bodies- can be either standard setting or best practice (but most likely best practice)

·  standard setting bodies- standards

·  h/w and s/w manufacturers- can be either standard setting or best practice

·  previous employers- best practice

·  other workplaces- best practice

You need to make sure that you choose ones from both types - best practice and standards.

Professional Bodies(for example):
ACM(Association of Computer Machinery - US)
BCS(British Computer Society)
IEEE(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
IOSM(Institute of Service Management)
ITA(Information Technology Alliance)
ITP(Institute of Telecommunication Professionals)
Standard Setting Bodies(for example)
BSI(British Standards Institute)
IiP(Investors in people)
ISO(International Standards Organisation)
ITIL(IT Infrastructure Library - more of a best practice than a standard)
ITU(International Telecommunications Union)
OFCOM(Office of Communications)
W3C(World Wide Web Consortium)
Hardware and software manufacturers(for example):
CheckPoint
CISCO(this is a standards page),certification
CITRIX- there is CITRIX examinations
HP
Meridian
Microsoft(this is the best practice page),certification
Nokia
Nortel(best practice)
Oracle
Solaris
Sun
Previous employers
May or may not be applicable
Other workplaces
Depends on what type of job you do and how easy it is to access this information

Professional Bodies - codes of conduct
Here is agood linkon codes of conduct to give you some understanding as to their usefulness.
ACM -link to code of conduct and ethics
BCS-link to codes of conduct and codes of best practice
IEEE-link to code of ethics and professional practice
ITA-code of conduct
ITP-professional development
Professional Bodies - professional membership status
BCS-membership levels
IEEE-membership levels
IOSM-membership levels
ITP-membership levels
Reasons to join a professional body
Recognition- Professional membership
Sharing/upgrading knowledge and best practice- Special interest groups, training, conferences, seminars and meetings, codes of conduct/practice
Career development- career advice, planning and guidance
Discountson courses and publications