LAIKIPIA UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

(A CONSTITUENT COLLEGE OF EGERTON UNIVERSITY)

FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS & BUSINESS STUDIES

CURRICULUM FOR CERTIFICATE COURSE IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

MAY 2010

1.0 INTRODUCTION Certificate in Information and Communication Technology (CICT) is a course intended to provide students with computer operation skills and to an extent upgrade mathematical skills. It incorporates Office Automation Systems, Internet and Basic Mathematics. These course units help the student to cope with day to day computing activities and also act as a bridge to the Diploma in Information and Communication Technology (DICT). This course is intended to produce competencies and skills that would enable the graduate use the computer effectively. 2.0 JUSTIFICATION The course is meant to be a bridging course to DICT and a professional terminal course in its own right for computer operators. It therefore covers general applications software, Internet and Basic Mathematics with a lot of emphasis on practical. The course unit in Keyboard Skills is meant to equip the students with typing skills which are lacking in the current market. The program is therefore intended for students who do not have qualifications to enable them join the Diploma directly but want a career in ICT. Non-computing students will also benefit much from the programme after which they will be expected to competently operate computers. 3.0 PROGRAM AIMS AND OBJECTIVES The course is intended to produce personnel who are able: i) To utilize computer application packages to perform tasks ii) To perform basic computer operations. iii) To progress academically to higher levels of education into relevant courses. 4.0 ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS To be eligible for admission into the Certificate in ICT, a candidate must satisfy one of the following minimum requirements:

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A mean grade of C- (MINUS) in KCSE or Division III in KCE or an equivalent qualification recognized by the University Senate. 5.0 LOADING AND DURATION OF STUDY 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 The course shall extend over a minimum period of four (4) months and a maximum period of eight (8) months. The course comprises of one (1) semester consisting seven (7) units. The course shall be done through course work, examinations and practicals. Students will take and pass all the 23 Credit Factors (CF).

6.0 COURSE CODING The course code starts with the abbreviation, CICT which stands for Certificate in Information and Communication Technology followed by three digits classifying the course. 6.1 6.2 The first two digits (00) denote that the course is certificate. The third digit denotes the sequence of course units.

7.0 EXAMINATIONS Examinations will be conducted as per Egerton University Rules and Regulations. CICT 007, Keyboard Skills, shall be graded on a scale of pass/fail and shall not contribute to the overall grade but must be passed for award of the certificate. 8.0 SCHEDULE OF COURSE UNITS Year I Semester I Unit Code CICT 001 CICT 002 CICT 003 CICT 004 CICT 005 CICT 006 CICT 007 Unit Title Introduction to Computer and Operating Systems Word Processing Spreadsheets and Presentations Database Management Systems Internet and World Wide Web Basic Mathematics Keyboard Skills Total L 45 15 15 30 30 60 15 210 P 30 60 60 30 30 0 60 270 C.F 4.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 4.0 3.0 23.0

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9.0 COURSE DESCRIPTION CICT 001 Introduction to Computer and Operating Systems 45/30/4.0 C.F Introduction to computers: Generation of computers, types, classification. Basic components: Keyboard, System unit and monitor, categories of hardware devices: input and output devices. System unit: central processing unit, registers, hard disk, floppy drives, data bus, motherboard, card slots, cards, memory. Software: operating systems: overview, logging in and exiting, comparison between the operating systems. Windows OS: bootup process, windows basics. Application software: types, operations. File: file names, file extensions and directory. Trouble shooting: disk, floppy disk, and hard disk errors. configuring hardware devices. Viruses. Troubleshooting. CICT 002 Word Processing 15/60/3.0 C.F

Word Processing: Word processing concepts; Document creation; Document editing; Document formatting; Word processing utilities; Mail merging; Creation of Tables; Objects; Document printing Macros CICT 003 Spreadsheets and Presentations 15/60/3.0 C.F

Spreadsheets: Spreadsheet concepts; Worksheet creation; Worksheet editing; Worksheet formatting; Cells referencing; Formulae and Functions; Charts and graphs; Printing a worksheet; Utilities; Macros. Presentation: Presentation concepts; Layout; Creating slides; Editing and Formatting slides; Slide shows; Printing techniques CICT 004 Database Management Systems 30/30/3.0 C.F

Database Management Systems: Database concepts; Creating database objects; Linking database objects. CICT 005 Internet and World Wide Web 30/30/3.0 C.F Introduction and history of the Internet. Internet role. Internet services. Internet tools: e-mail, ftp, newsreader, telnet, SLIP, PPP, www, Search engines, Gopher. Internet browsers: Netscape, Lynx, Microsoft Internet Explorer. Impacts of internet to society. World Wide Web: definition. We pages, website, web portal. Hypertext, multimedia, interactive pages. IP Page 4 of 5

addresses and domain names, URLs, e-mail, e-Mail management, advantages of e-mail, email protocols: SMTP, MIME, POP. Security issues: Password schemes, firewalls, Encryption. CICT 006 Basic Mathematics 60/0/4.0 C.F Number Systems, Logarithms and Indices; Trigonometry; Dot products, matrix algebra(2x2) Set Theory; Permutations and combinations, functions, data presentation, Arithmetic mean, mode, variance, bar charts. CICT 007 Keyboard Skills 15/60/3.0 C.F

This is a practical subject aimed at equipping the trainee with typing skills. The course unit should be taught using a suitable typing tutor to produce a level of 40 words per minute. It is to be graded on a pass/fail scale. 10.0 STAFF LIST S/N 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 11.0 NAME Kihara, P. Owili, P. Omondi, E. O. Ndoro, F Rotich, S. Odhiambo, I. Mutisya, E.M. Mariga, G. QUALIFICATION BSc, MSc BSc, MSc Dip.Electronics,Bsc Elec. Eng Bed (Sc) Msc (CBIS) Bsc Comp Science Bsc Comp Science Bsc(Electronics), CCNA Bsc(Mathematics& Computer Science)

INFRASTRUCTURE REQUIREMENT i. One (1) equipped ICT laboratory.

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