Page 1 of 6
Big Data Basics
INFS 5095
2018
Student's Assignment Guide
(Internal and External/Online)
Assignment 2
Management Proposal
Big Data Capabilities
50%
3000 words
Due: Sunday, 25 November 2018, 10.00pm
Late assignments: 10% per day deducted
Last updated: XXXXXXXXXX
Develop a proposal for management of a nominated organisation to
implement Big Data capabilities
Include a high-level architecture and recommendations of which Big Data
technologies and methodologies should be introduced and why.
Page 2 of 6
About this Assignment
This assignment is giving you practice in
inging together the knowledge you have acquired in this
course, applying it to a business need and being able to communicate that. Imagine that you are
presenting your proposal to the senior management team of your chosen organisation. Assume that
the audience know little about big data, but they want to make better use of their data which is why
you have been invited to submit a proposal.
However, the assignment is not just a sales pitch – you must demonstrate that you know what you
are talking about, back up your arguments with evidence, communicate new concepts and
demonstrate to the audience that you would be worth engaging.
You are being assessed on demonstrating your understanding and applying it, not just finding and
presenting information of ‘experts’. This assignment requires you to work things out yourself as well
as making use of research.
Note: You are recommending what would need to be done, not actually doing it – ie. you don’t have
to build any big data capacity or do big data analysis.
Nominated Organisations
Choose one of these:
• Bunnings Hardware
• McDonald’s
• Salvation Army
Or choose your own, but check with the lecturer first. If you choose your own select an organisation
you’re personally interested in.
Please do not contact the organisation.
Business priority
Identify a key business priority of your chosen organisation - this shows the audience you
understand their needs. You can use their strategic plan or annual report to identify this. Some
priorities will be issues or threats the organisation is facing, some will be opportunities or initiatives
they are pursuing. Big data is useful in both situations – specially to discover opportunities and
issues the organisation isn’t cu
ently aware of.
The business priority should be significant enough to impact the organisation as a whole – to justify
why the organisation should invest in big data now and in an ongoing basis. Otherwise the risk is
your proposal would be seen as a once off solution to an existing opportunity or problem. See the
Microsoft resources around the questions ‘Is big data the right solution?’ and ‘Determining analytical
goals‘ here: Planning a big data solution https:
msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/li
ary/dn749858.aspx
Examples of business priorities can be found in the ‘Big Data Fundamentals’ topics.
Also assume that the chosen organisation has no big data capability cu
ently. So, don’t research
what they do actually have in place.
Big data approach
Outline the steps you would use to implement the big data capability. See the ‘Big data analytics
approach’ in the ‘Big Data Analytics - Overview and Challenges’ presentation and the ‘Big Data
Initiatives - Implementation and Case Studies’ topics (including discussions in the recordings). Keep
https:
msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/li
ary/dn749858.aspx
Page 3 of 6
in mind the iterative and discovery nature of big data, plus that it can be an expensive undertaking
equiring many different skill sets.
Information and sources
Outline the information and information sources that would be needed to deliver on the big data
solution. They can be described in general terms such as ‘customer sentiment from social media’.
Also explain the categories of data (see ‘Big Data Analytics - Overview and Challenges’).
Big data technologies
Provide
ief explanations of the technologies required to deliver the big data capability and an
example of each one technology (eg: processing of streaming data – Apache Spark). The technology
choices will depend on the data types of your information.
If you wish, use the Gartner Hype Cycles to recommend particular types of technologies, but don’t
focus on a specific tool or vendor (much like the first assignment). See the ‘Big Data Technologies –
Techniques’ presentations.
High Level Architecture – your proposal should include a diagram of a high level architecture
showing the different technologies and how they fit together.
Big data visualisation examples
Provide two examples (screen shots) of big data visualisations to give the audience an indication of
what you would be providing them (or if you had built a prototype). Explain the visualisations. If you
wish, build your own visualisation and include that as one of the screenshots. The more relevant to
the business priority and organisation the better. The visualisations should be clearly based on big
data, not small data.
Big data adoption challenges and governance
Finally include recommendations for how to address the challenges of big data adoption and big
data analytics. See the ‘Big Data Fundamentals - Benefits, Challenges, Management and Skills’ and
‘Big Data Technologies - Information Quality and Data Governance’ and ‘Big Data Analytics -
Overview and Challenges‘ topics for ideas. The recommendations should also include
ecommendations for governance, dealing with quality and uncertainty.
Marking criteria
The assignment will be marked on how well you cover each of the points:
Area
Weighting
Justification for big data being the solution to the business priority 10%
Big data approach 20%
Information and sources 10%
Big data technologies 15%
Big data visualisation examples 10%
Big data adoption challenges and governance 15%
Page 4 of 6
Area
Weighting
Referencing
• Co
ect referencing as per UniSA guidelines
• Quality of references
• How recent references are
5%
Use of formal business or academic language 5%
Co
ect grammar and spelling 5%
Layout and professional presentation 5%
Keeping within the word limit 0.5 deducted for each
100 words ove
under
allowance
Late marks 10% per day
For each of these you will be given a rating of ‘Excellent’, ‘Good’, ‘Fair’, ‘Poor’ or ‘None’ (if the
section is missing). As a guide, if all ratings are ‘Excellent’ you would receive a High Distinction for
the assignment (between 85-100%) or if all ratings are ‘Good’ you would receive a Credit (between
65-74%).
The more you can back up your suggestions with research, examples, etc the higher mark you will
eceive.
Feedback
One on one individual feedback sessions are available (either face to face or over the phone) to
eceived specific and detailed feedback. These sessions are 10 minutes long.
Presentation/structure
The structure should be in a logical format that flows well. As a minimum include a title page and
section headings. The title page is separate to the assignment cover page.
A sample template for the assignment is available on the course website. You don’t have to use this
template, you can come up with your own structure. For instance, the sample template includes a
Table of Contents and Executive Summary, you can leave these out if you want. Note: An Executive
Summary is different to an Introduction.
Since this is proposal for a business audience, it should be presented in a professional format making
it easy to read. The use of diagrams and graphs, particularly to show figures will earn more marks –
visualisations such as infographics are growing in popularity as a way to explain complex concepts
and interactions, but also to see key patterns and relationships – remember the saying “a picture is a
1000 words”. An efficient layout is also important but don’t spend too much time on making it look
good and not enough time on the content.
Using bullet points are OK occasionally but you'll need sentences for each point (ie. just a bullet
point list with no explanation isn’t suitable).
Page 5 of 6
Word limit
3000 words +/- 10% XXXXXXXXXX – 3300 words)
Marks will be deducted if the assignment is too short or too long. Keeping to a word limit requires a
focus on what the reader most needs to know.
These are included in the word count:
• The 'body' of the assignment:
• Headings
• Direct quotes (you will gain more marks by writing using your own words than using lots
of direct quotes)
• Summary/Executive Summary (if you chose to include one)
• Diagram headings and captions
These are excluded:
• Title page
• Table of contents
• References
• Footnotes
• Text within diagrams
Referencing
Referencing is important for assignments to: (a) expand your knowledge of the assignment topic and
(b) provide evidence to the claims you make and (c) demonstrate you know what you are talking
about to make a convincing proposal and (d) provide other examples or case studies
The general rule is if you are using information or data that is not of your own creation then you
need to acknowledge it. Not only is this for academic integrity but to add weight to your
ecommendations – to show they are just not opinions and that decision makers who use your
ecommendations would less at risk of a failed project.
This includes the screenshots, data you use and points taken from the presentations.
How many references?
That depends on how many points you are making. Generally, more is better because you have used
more sources to understand the topic and reinforce your points.
A minimum of 5 references is required. Just adding as many references as possible without using
them in the assignment won't earn maximum marks.
If you plagiarise (ie. copy from references and don't include it in quotes or include a reference) you
will be penalised – students have fail assignments for doing this!
We want your understanding on the topic, not copied words from experts – this only demonstrates
that you can research well, not apply your learning.
Reference quality
The type (quality) of references makes a difference and this is considered in the marks as well. Feel
free to use the readers and links from the lectures and Course Outline.
Page 6 of 6
Avoid marketing/vendor sites and general websites - the quality