CRICOS Course Code: 097893M
ǂ New international students cannot study this diploma online in 2023. New domestic students can study this diploma online in 2023.
The Diploma of Communication offers a wide range of unit choices that give you a lot of flexibility when you’re entering the second year of a relevant Deakin University degree. Areas of study include advertising, communications, journalism, digital media, public relations and more.
Employment and career options upon completing your Bachelor degree:
On completion of this Diploma you can pathway into the following degrees at Deakin University:
Majors: Public Relations Studies, Strategic Advertising, Social Media, Media and Communication
Majors: Advertising, Digital Media, Journalism, Public Relations
For further details about Diploma of Communication units, unit availability and trimester structures, please download the course and unit outline.
Students are required to complete and pass 8 units (1 credit point each) and 1 compulsory module (zero credit points). You should choose your units based on the major you plan to take at Deakin University.
Academic Integrity is a compulsory 0 credit point module. The module's learning and assessment activities provide students with guidance on what constitutes academic integrity. It will allow students to develop knowledge, skills and good practice principles to avoid plagiarism and collusion and thereby maintain academic integrity.
This module consists of approximately 3 hours of online learning experiences delivered through Moodle.
There are no classroom or scheduled learning activities. Students undertake independent learning activities at their own pace.
Assessment: 100% (Individual Quiz) – Online multiple-choice questions
This unit explores communication theory through practice, using dynamic and creative participatory learning activities to discover how communication theory ‘plays’ out in everyday life. Students examine the motivation for and consequences of communication in their daily life, exploring how we communicate changing social norms and use agency to reproduce and redefine things like ‘friends’, ‘work’ and what are ‘acceptable’ modern communication practices. The unit brings communication theory to life by drawing on a range of learning materials –reading text, newspapers, television, web-based resources and film in order to examine how individuals participate in social construction, the process of meaning making and the building of social capital. A key element of this unit is the use of the students’ own imagination to drive participatory learning; teaching materials are responsive and interactive, students will be encouraged to interact with the weekly topic and ‘learn by doing’.
Assessment: 30% interpretation of online digital objects; 30% interactive presentation; 40% digital workbook
Around the world, people and communities are confronted with large and complex problems of global scale or origin. How can we respond to challenges like climate change, the erosion of democracy, increasing inequality, or contested identities? This unit introduces you to the knowledge and skills needed to make a difference in an increasingly complex world. Take the future into your own hands and build your agency in addressing some of the world’s most pressing problems. Explore the key features of a global challenge. Investigate several of the most difficult challenges that confront us today. Discover approaches to addressing the big problems humanity faces. By the end of this unit, students will understand some of the world's biggest problems, and be better positioned to respond to these problems in their everyday lives, by identifying and proposing ways to activate their local communities.
Assessment: 25% briefing paper; 30% project proposal; 45% grassroots campaign
This unit will introduce students to the theory and practice of contemporary advertising by exploring the industry’s history and rapidly changing nature in the digital era. The social, ethical and regulatory contexts of advertising are established to encourage students to become reflective future producers or consumers of advertising messages. The strategic imperatives of advertising and notions of effectiveness are examined to build students’ abilities to solve communication problems that are commonly faced by private, public and non-for-profit sector clients.
Assessment: 30% Quizzes (individual); 30% Group Presentation; 40% Research and Planning Report (individual)
Students will explore the nexus of creativity and strategy that is fundamental to successful brand communication. They will examine the nature of creativity in the communication industry and practitioner approaches to the creative process. The advertising messages produced by international brands will be analysed to help students prepare for global mobility as future practitioners. Students will be introduced to the key creative roles within communication companies and build the research, planning and ideation skills required of contemporary practitioners.
Assessment: 20% Advertising Challenge Tasks; 40% Essay; 40% Written Project
The unit provides an introduction to the field of public relations. Students learn about what public relations people do, and how they do it. Topics include planning, media relations, employee relations, community relations, international public relations, ethics and public relations law.
Assessment: 20% Quizzes; 30% Essay; 50% Planning Project
This unit sits at the nexus of theory and practice to help you understand the role of strategic communication in organisational contexts. Put simply, strategic communication refers to the ability to develop and disseminate messages that achieve specific and measurable objectives. Whether that objective is to inform, change opinion or adapt behaviour, successful strategic communication revolves around people.
Assessment: 20% online quizzes; 40% group planning and writing project; 40% portfolio
This unit is an introduction to the practice and theory of multimedia journalism. It sets the social, professional and legal context for journalism practice, and introduces students to the convention of news writing and reporting stories. Students will also focus on combining text with photos and audio clips to produce news stories; critically examining their own production processes, and learn to report multimedia news stories to a deadline.
Assessment: 20% research file; 40% news story for print media; 40% multimedia news story
This unit in the practice and theory of multimedia journalism focuses on news reporting processes. It outlines professional, social and legal factors that impact on reporting of local, regional an national news. The unit introduces students to key news beats, including reporting stories about politics, business, sport and local newsworthy events and issues. Students will build contacts in their preferred news beat/s and engage with social media tools to report and produce their news stories. They will also gain skills in reporting a news story (to a deadline) for broadcast and online media platforms.
Assessment: 20% social media for reporting; 40% photojournalism assignment; 40% video based assignment
This unit enables students to explore and experience present day digital media culture in critical and creative ways. The unit is built on multi-platformed content, delivery and assessment, providing a user-friendly engagement with social media that facilitates practical, hands-on work in micro-blogging, blogging and podcasting. Creating and sharing different forms of media content, students learn how to communicate across different online platforms as part of a highly interactive community. Highlighting the benefits of media-making for personal and professional use, the unit allows students to develop their portfolios and discover how to use social media to strategically build a dynamic online identity.
Assessment: 20% Portfolio Exercise; 40% Portfolio Output 1; 40% % Portfolio Output 2
This unit enables students to critically and creatively engage with present day digital media culture, with a particular emphasis on making videos. Highlighting the crucial importance of creating audio-visual content for different purposes and audiences, the unit guides students through various video-making practices and strategies. Emphasising the benefits of making videos in a wide range of industry settings, the unit allows students to develop their portfolios and learn how to use video to strategically build a dynamic online identity.
Assessment: 20% Video Exercise 1; 30% Video Exercise 2; 50% % Video Project with Critical Reflection
ADA102 Designing 3D Environments Students will explore aspects of animation design through the creation of virtual objects and animated environments in this introductory 3D computer animation unit. Consideration will be given to how these elements can express a meaningful visual experience as students consider form, visual identity, aesthetics, and layout. Students gain a solid understanding of 3D techniques in modelling, texturing, animation, lighting, composition and rendering.
Assessment 1 - Object design & 3D model 50%
Assessment 2 - Environment design 50%
This unit will investigate 'design thinking' as a strategic methodology and problem solving process. Taking a multi-discipline, interdisciplinary approach, students will be required to use 'design thinking' as a problem solving process. 'Design thinking' methods will require students to adopt a human-centered approach to innovation that draws on their skills to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements of business and society as a whole. Students will work individually and in workshop teams, the final assessments will be a combination of research and practice outcomes. Students will use 'Design thinking' methods to address a 'wicked problem'.
Assessment 1 - Research Essay 30%
Assessment 2 - Collaborative Workshop 30%
Assessment 3 - Final Report of Process 40%
The unit will introduce key aspects of the history and development of film, its language, style and genres, through a survey of seminal works and influential movements and genres. This includes: Early Cinema, German Expressionism, Surrealism, Film Noir, Experimental film, French New Wave, Hong Kong Cinema, American and Italian Westerns, and Horror cinema.
Assessment 1 - A presentation task 40%
Assignment 2 – Online quiz 2 parts/sessions 20%
Assignment 3 – Final essay 40%
In this unit students explore the making of animation through a range of techniques, methods and approaches for a variety of animation practices. Students will study established principles of 2D animation (Timing, Squash and Stretch, Staging, etc.) and story-telling, learn under-camera techniques (time-lapse and stop-motion), and develop basic project management skills to take an idea from storyboard to animated short film. The unit allows students to focus on specific interests, such as experimental non-narrative, or character and storybased animation.
Assignment 1 – Animation Exercises 25%
Assessment 2 - Storyboard Project 30%
Assessment 3 - Short Film Project 45%
This unit introduces students to the tools necessary to create digital and physical interfaces for human interaction. This is achieved through a combination of practical skills and research exploring interaction design, prototyping and creative thinking. Students will be introduced to vector graphic and 3D design software, following an idea from sketch to functional prototype. Practical and research projects will require students to: understand user interface, create a graphic user interface (GUI), build basic shapes in 3D, and prepare an object for rapid prototyping (3D printing).
Assessment 1 - Practical Project TBC
Assessment 2 - Research Presentation TBC
Assessment 3 - Practical TBC
This unit introduces ideas and processes associated with digital photography. The construction and manipulation of photographic images is creatively and critically explored through a variety of conceptual frameworks. Workflow techniques include the fundamentals of using Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras, color management, RAW image processing, scanning, photo compositing in Photoshop, and the production of exhibition quality prints. Assignments and lectures provide students with an overview the medium’s history and contemporary issues.
Assessment 1 - Capture and interpret 60%
Assessment 2 - Montage 40%
Typography is an essential component to communication and this unit explores the theory and application of forms and structures of typography including the anatomy and applications of type and font families across print, digital and web applications. This unit will address and engage with the impact and implications of selecting and applying typography to a variety of design scenarios in historical and a multifaceted contemporary setting. This unit introduces and reinforces industry standard typography practices for both print and screen based environments. Student creative thinking ideation and project strategies for design briefs are developed to enable the advancement of information technology skills, design thinking and design construction methods. This unit engages self-directed learning in conjunction with a focus on attention to discipline specific scholarly research, conceptual analysis, and global industry practice.
Research Case study (Individual) 30%
Research Proposal (Individual) 30%
Project Presentation (Individual) 40%
On-campus
On-campus classes run between 9am and 7pm on weekdays. Most units run as 2 x 2-hour classes each week. You can also expect between 4-6 hours of private study per unit, per week.
Online
Online study is only available to domestic students. Recorded content, classroom notes, readings, activities and assessments are available online, to be accessed at any time. An optional one hour live online session is held each week for every unit, and you are strongly encouraged to attend.
DFACT is an online showcase of creative work from students of Deakin College in the Diplomas of Design, Film/TV/Animation, and Communication.
Weighted average mark (WAM) required for transfer, by campus:
| Trimester Intake | Melbourne Burwood | Geelong Waurn Ponds | Cloud | Maximum Credits | |
A310 Bachelor of Arts (B, WP, C) Major sequences: | T1 T2 T3 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 8 |
A318 Bachelor of Communication Major sequences: | T1 T2 T3 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 8 |
Cloud (Online) option is not available to international students
T1 (Trimester 1 entry); T2 (Trimester 2 entry); T3 (Trimester 3 entry)
* See Diploma to Degree transfer criteria (Domestic students / International students).
International students must be able to demonstrate English language proficiency before being admitted to this course.
View the transfer requirements for the Diploma of Communication below.