The implementation of competition to promote team working and thinking skills in computer network course

Abstract

Computer Network course is a continuation from the theoretical Network Communication. This course is a 'lab-heavy' course that requires students to be adept in the different configurations of different networking devices, mainly routers and switches. Future network administrators must also be able to work in a team and think critically to manage and troubleshoot networking problems. Teamwork and thinking skills are two soft skills required and assessed in this course. Previous implementation and assessment of these two soft skills within the course were boring and ineffectual. Competition was introduced into class activities to promote and assess these skills, and it developed into the competition in discussion within this paper. This paper presents a study on the implementation of competition; namely NetXplorace, to promote and assess team working and thinking skills to students of the Computer Network course in School of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. It will discuss the purpose and objective behind the program, the planning and implementation of the program, along with the outcome of this endeavor. Through NetXplorace, both soft skills were successfully implemented.