Qualification details
Title
New Zealand Diploma in Information Systems (Level 6) with strands in Business
Analysis, User Experience, IT Project Management, Information Systems
Innovation
Version
1
Qualification type
Diploma
Level
6
Credits
120
NZSCED
020399
Information Technology > Information Systems > Information Systems
not elsewhere classified
Qualification developer
Institute of IT Professionals New Zealand (IITP) and NZQA National
Qualifications Services
Next review
2019
Approval date
April 2015
Strategic purpose statement
The purpose of this qualification is to provide Aotearoa New Zealand
with people who have attained a range of specialist professional and
technical Information Systems (IS) skills. It will prepare people for
employment in an intermediate level IS role in a range of
organisational contexts, or for further study.
The qualification provides an opportunity for people wanting to
broaden their skills and knowledge in IS, which may include people
already working in the IT sector, as well as others wishing to enter it.
Graduates will be capable of operating both independently and as
part of a team.
Businesses, organisations and communities will benefit from having
IT professionals who are experienced and qualified in specific
contexts within IS.
This qualification is stranded in order to recognise the specific
technical and theoretical skills and knowledge required to specialise in
one of the following areas of IS practice.
Outcome
Statement
Graduate profile
Qualification Reference 2603
© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2015

Business Analysis strand, which focuses on business analysis
and managing software development processes.

User Experience strand, which focuses on human computer
interaction (HCI).

IT Project Management strand, which focuses on the tools and
techniques used in IT project management.

Information Systems Innovation strand, which focuses on
innovation to address organisational needs and opportunities.
Graduates will be able to:
Technical skills

Apply in-depth skills in investigation, analysis, and review of
business logic and processes to support information systems
design.
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
Analyse, select and implement business intelligence tools and
methods to provide strategic advantage to an organisation.

Apply software engineering tools and approaches to the design,
development, operation and maintenance of software systems.

Apply in-depth skills in human computer interaction and user
interface design to improve the usability, effectiveness and
acceptance of organisational information systems.

Apply skills in database modelling and advanced reporting to
create systems that meet organisational requirements.
Core skills

Behave with integrity as a responsible Information Technology
professional, to contribute positively to society.

Apply communication, information design, personal and
interpersonal skills, clearly and professionally to enhance working
effectiveness, efficiency, and quality outcomes in an
organisational environment.

Apply project management tools and techniques to an IT related
project, to analyse and solve problems.
Strands
Graduates of the Business Analysis strand will also be able to:
 Integrate and apply business analysis skills to develop
specifications for information systems to meet organisation
requirements.
 Manage software development processes to deliver quality
systems on time and within budget.
Graduates of the User Experience strand will also be able to:
 Explore, evaluate and apply interactive technologies and user
experience skills to develop effective, responsive systems for an
organisation.
Graduates of the IT Project Management strand will also be able to:
 Analyse and evaluate a variety of IT project management tools
and techniques to inform project planning and control to meet
organisational requirements.
 Integrate and apply IT project management skills to plan and
deliver quality project outcomes that meet organisational
requirements.
Graduates of the Information Systems Innovation strand will also be
able to:
 Design and deliver innovative Information Systems solutions for
an organisation.
Education pathway
The qualification provides a pathway to a specialist IS degree
qualification and may also equip learners to attempt optional industry
certifications at the appropriate level and area of specialty.
This qualification provides an education pathway from the New
Zealand Diploma in Information Systems (Level 5) [Ref: 2597].
Employment pathway
Qualification Reference 2603
© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2015
Graduates of this diploma will have the skills and knowledge to work
in a range of IS roles specific to the strand selected.
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Graduates of the Business Analysis strand will have the skills and
knowledge to work in roles such as entry-level business analysts,
systems analysts or process mapper.
Graduates of the User Experience strand will have the skills and
knowledge to work in roles in teams such as user
experience/interface design, user testing, front-end development and
HCI support or development.
Graduates of the IT Project Management strand will have the skills
and knowledge to work in roles such as support for IT project
managers or as IT project administrators.
Graduates of the Information Systems Innovation strand will have the
skills and knowledge to work in roles such as IS analyst, designer or
administrator.
Qualification specifications
Qualification award
This qualification may be awarded by any education
organisation with an approved programme towards this
qualification accredited under section 250 of the Education Act
1989.
The graduate will be awarded the qualification by the education
organisation when the accredited and approved programme has
been successfully completed.
The formal document certifying the award of this qualification will
display the full qualification title, date of award, the NZQF logo
and may also include the name and/or logo of the qualification
developer or programme owner or other awarding education
organisation.
Evidence requirements for assuring
consistency
New Zealand qualifications can be obtained through different
programmes, pathways, and education organisations. The
process of ‘assuring national consistency of graduate outcomes’
will be coordinated by NZQA, with a focus on comparing
graduates from different programmes and education
organisations in relation to the qualification graduate outcomes.
All programme owners and education organisations arranging
training or delivering approved programmes leading to the
qualification must engage with arrangements for assuring
consistency, including participating in the relevant consistency
review event and covering actual and reasonable related costs.
Detailed information regarding arrangements for managing
consistency will be published and updated via the NZQA website.
For more information, please visit:
http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/providers-partners/consistency-ofgraduate-outcomes/
Evidence for consistency
Each education organisation is responsible for preparing a
summary self-assessment report which uses evidence to
demonstrate how well its graduates meet the graduate profile
outcomes at the appropriate threshold. Each education
organisation decides what specific evidence it will provide.
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© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2015
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The core evidence requirements for assuring consistency must
include:

Effective internal and external moderation systems and
processes, including results relating to graduate outcomes.
This may also include evidence of meeting requirements for
external industry certifications and associated consistency
demands where appropriate
e.g. Certified/Authorised Partner Program (such as Microsoft,
CompTIA, etc)

Results of end-user surveys and actions taken or proposed
from feedback. This includes consultation with graduates
and employers to obtain destination information and enduser feedback specifically assessing the graduates against
the graduate profile (e.g. employment, progression, further
study)

Samples of assessment materials and learners
assessments/work (e.g. portfolios of work)

Relevant External Evaluation and Review (EER) data,
including programme/qualification completion data and
course results

Comparison of the application of credit transfer and
recognition of prior learning arrangements to graduate
outcomes and/or qualifications

Documenting any action taken to improve quality and
consistency of assessment.
The core evidence requirements for assuring consistency may
include:
Credit transfer and recognition of
prior learning arrangements

Consultation with graduates and employers to obtain
destination information and end-user feedback (e.g.
employment, progression, further study)

Evidence of any benchmarking activities.

Consideration of internal quality assurance processes and
external reviews, including relevant feedback from
programme developers (i.e. may include reviewing,
comparing, and evaluating the assessment process, tools
and evidence contributing judgements made by a range of
assessors against the same graduate outcomes; evidence
of appropriate skills and knowledge of staff in relation to the
teaching and assessment)
Education providers must have policies and procedures in place
for managing credit transfer, and assessing recognition of prior
learning and recognition of current competency. These policies
and procedures, and information about associated fees, must be
available to the learner prior to enrolment.
Information on and evidence of the application of the credit
transfer and recognition of prior learning arrangements by
accredited providers must be made available for benchmarking
as part of the evidence requirements for assuring consistency.
Qualification Reference 2603
© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2015
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Minimum standard of achievement
and standards for grade
endorsements
The minimum standard of achievement required for the award
of the qualification will be the achievement of all the graduate
outcomes in the graduate profile.
There are no grade endorsements for this qualification.
Entry requirements (including
prerequisites to meet regulatory body
or legislative requirements)
Learners enrolling are recommended to hold the New Zealand
Diploma in Information Systems (Level 5) [Ref: 2597], or
equivalent knowledge, skills and experience.
International students must have an appropriate level of English
proficiency for the level at which they intend to study. Details of
English language entry requirements are contained in the NZQF
Programme Approval and Accreditation Rules 2013 (Appendix 2).
E.g. IELTS Academic score of 6, with no band score lower than
5.5; or the New Zealand Certificate in English Language
(Academic) (Level 5) [Ref: 1884].
Qualification conditions
Overarching conditions relating to the qualification
Conditions for programme
structure
This qualification includes the common core of Level 6 skills and builds on
the generalist Information Systems skills developed at Level 5, or
equivalent relevant experience.
Professional practice must be an integral part of the curriculum and
delivery. It is expected that all programmes have professionalism both
purposefully taught and integrated with technical content. Here,
professional practice includes the 'soft skills' of communication, team work,
interpersonal skills, and ethical principles.
Programmes must reflect industry best practice and maintain currency with
amendments to, and replacements of, relevant legislation, regulations,
Australia/New Zealand standards (AS/NZS), and security responsibilities.
Conditions for programme
context

Current legislation and regulations can be accessed at
http://legislation.govt.nz

Current AS/NZS standards can be accessed at http://standards.co.nz

The Information Technology Code of Practice - Guidelines of good and
acceptable practice for IT professionals and organisations operating in
New Zealand can be accessed at http://iitp.nz/about/ethics, as can the
Code of Professional Conduct.
Programme design, delivery, and assessment, where applicable, will be
conducted in and for the context of real or realistic organisations and/or
settings; and be relevant to current and/or emerging practice.
Programmes leading to the award of this qualification must identify the
context, and must justify the allocation of credits to graduate profile
outcomes within the programme, in light of the requirements of the
selected strand and conditions.
The graduate’s capabilities must clearly align with the definition of a Level
6 graduate on the NZQF. See the NZQF level descriptors for further
information. All programmes are to be developed with Level 6 descriptors
in mind – specialised technical knowledge and skills in a field of work,
applied in specialised/strategic contexts.
Consideration should be given to bicultural, multicultural, and gender
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© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2015
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issues when designing programmes, in relation to encouraging a greater
diversity within the professional IT workforce.
Programmes may be developed based on Māori principles and values, and
are intended to enable Wānanga to meet obligations under the Education
Act (1989, section 162(4)(b)(iv)).
Other conditions
It is envisaged that the assessment for this qualification will involve a
capstone assessment with the chosen strand dictating the focus. This
could be a case study or real client interaction project.
All outcomes include some embedded lower level learning.
Some programme content could also be aligned with industry certifications.
There is a preference for including open and vendor neutral standards,
protocols and technologies where possible.
Glossary:

Agile: development methodologies/framework that promote iterative
development throughout the lifecycle of the project, encouraging
frequent inspection and adaptation.

Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) – used to guide the
improvement process across a project

Database Management System (DBMS) – a program (or suite of
programs) that enables users to create, store, modify, access and
extract data from a data repository, commonly referred to as a
database. The DBMS has many features including multi-user
access/updates, control of data redundancy, maintenance of data
security and integrity, audit trails, and transaction processing.

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) – interfaces between people
(users) and computers

Information Architecture: is a component of enterprise architecture that
deals with the information component when describing the structure of
an enterprise. In web development; it includes organising and
labelling websites, intranets, online communities and software to
support usability and findability, factoring in user experience issues of
information design.

Information Systems (IS) – a complementary collection of hardware
and software that people and organisations use to collect, filter,
process, create and distribute data, with the aim of supporting
operations, management and decision making

Information Technology (IT) – the common term for the entire
spectrum of technologies for information processing and related to
computing technology, such as networking, hardware, software, the
internet or the people that work these technologies

PESTLE – acronym for Political, Economic, Socio-cultural,
Technological, Legal and Environmental – a framework used to scan
the organisation’s external macro-environment.

Responsive design – aimed at providing an optimal viewing
experience with easy reading and navigation across multiple device
form-factors (e.g. PC, tablet, smartphone)

Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) codes that define
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© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2015
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information technology skills have been used below in specific
conditions relating to the graduate profile, 9 and 10. For further
information see http://www.sfia-online.org/.
BPRE – Business process improvement
BPTS – Business process testing
CIPM – Change implementation planning and management
BURM – Business risk management

Social computing: Creating socio technical systems that shape our
environment, considering the collaborative and interactive nature of
online behaviour; the intersection of social behaviour and
computational systems

Structured programming: a procedural programming method which
limits programming constructs to sequence, choice, and iteration, thus
avoiding use of the (harmful) ‘goto’ construct.

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) – a
structured planning method or framework for analysis

User Interface (UI) – everything designed into an information device
with which a human may interact
Specific conditions relating to the Graduate profile
Qualification outcomes
Conditions
Technical skills (50 credits – plus 40 credits for selected strand)
1
2
Apply in-depth skills in
investigation, analysis,
and review of business
logic and processes to
support information
systems design.
Programmes must include:
Credits 10

Analyse, select and
implement business
intelligence tools and
methods to provide
strategic advantage to
an organisation.
Programmes must include:





Organisational theory, behaviour and culture, including negotiation and
persuasion skills;
Strategies for design and implementation of enterprise solutions,
including solution assessment and validation;
Strategic management/ alignments and planning;
Problem solving approaches, systems thinking, systems analysis and
evaluation using techniques such as PESTLE, SWOT.
Advanced techniques and modelling for exploring and interpreting data
(including social computing) using statistics;
Collaborative databases, data warehousing, data mining.
Credits 10
3
Apply software
engineering tools and
approaches to the
design, development,
operation and
maintenance of
software systems.
Programmes must include:




Qualification Reference 2603
© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2015
Software engineering paradigms (Agile and Structured) and tools
applied to unfamiliar or complex problems; analysis of alternative
solutions;
Modelling and design techniques, including a user centred design
approach;
Converting business requirements into technical specifications;
Quality assurance process;
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4
Credits 15

Apply in-depth skills in
human computer
interaction and user
interface design to
improve the usability,
effectiveness and
acceptance of
organisational
information systems.
Programmes must include:




Operations including configuration, management, deployment and
maintenance of applications.
User interface design, including responsive design, style guides;
Relation of HCI, user experience (Ux) and interaction design to user
interface design;
Content strategy, visual design including design principles and
aesthetics for interaction;
Prototyping; accessibility; comprehensive usability and user
experience testing.
Credits 10
5
Apply skills in database
modelling and
advanced reporting to
create systems that
meet organisational
requirements.
Programmes must include:



Data modelling & structures, concepts and skills; including
normalisation techniques;
Complex queries and reporting;
Advanced database design, including consideration of relational and
object-oriented approaches.
Credits 5
Core skills (30 credits)
6
7
8
Behave with integrity
as a responsible
Information
Technology
professional, to
contribute positively to
society.
Credits 10
Programmes must include:
Apply communication,
information design,
personal and
interpersonal skills,
clearly and
professionally to
enhance working
effectiveness,
efficiency, and quality
outcomes in an
organisational
environment.
Credits 10
Programmes must include:
Apply project
management tools and
techniques to an IT
related project, to
analyse and solve
problems.
Programmes must include:

Application of professional and ethical practice, including
sustainability, equity, social and contemporary cultural issues, relevant
to an IT organisational environment (e.g. Treaty of Waitangi and
accessibility issues);

Organisational implications of managing and complying with legal and
regulatory requirements (e.g. health and safety, contract management,
licensing privacy); observing security responsibilities and industry
codes of practices, and codes of conduct (e.g. IITP) relevant to an
organisational environment.

Information representation design for multiple situations e.g. data
visualisation; technical writing - help documents, user instructions,
specifications;

Personal and interpersonal skills including customer service,
leadership, teamwork, negotiating, self-management, social and
multicultural awareness, relationship and conflict management.

Critical thinking, business logic, organisational processes, innovation
and enterprise skills;

Project planning, management and control – cost, risk, quality,
stakeholder, change, configuration, contracts, and maintenance
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© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2015
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Credits 10
management.
Business Analysis Strand
9
Integrate and apply
business analysis skills
to develop
specifications for
information systems to
meet organisation
requirements.
Credits 30
Programmes must include:





10
Manage software
development
processes to deliver
quality systems on time
and within budget.
Credits10
Holistic approach, including technical and professional practices;
Business IS alignment, preparing and presenting a financial case;
Business modelling, business analysis process model; Business
process improvement (BPRE), business process testing (BPTS), and
software improvement processes (e.g. CMMI);
Investigation techniques, gathering, managing, modelling, and
specifying requirements;
Future proofing
Programmes must include:




Change implementation, planning and management (CIPM) – change
agent;
Business risk management (BURM);
Stakeholder relationship management;
Requirements management – scope.
User Experience Strand
11
Explore, evaluate and
apply interactive
technologies and user
experience skills to
develop effective,
responsive systems for
an organisation.
Credits 40
Programmes must include:






Holistic approach, including technical and professional practices,
frameworks and techniques;
Values based design, social implications of design, design principles
for interaction, interactivity (design beyond the screen), including
sound, and tactile considerations;
Human Computer Interaction (HCI), psychology of behaviour
Advanced research methods such as ethnographic approaches and
cultural probes
Usability – information architecture, ergonomic design,
user experience research and analysis;
Prototyping, comprehensive usability and user experience testing.
IT Project Management Strand
12
Analyse and evaluate a
variety of IT project
management tools and
techniques to inform
project planning and
control to meet
organisational
requirements.
Programmes must include:


Tools and techniques such as critical path, function point analysis,
collaborative tools, repositories, risk analysis, proprietary
methodologies and tools, business improvement process management
(including a variety of approaches such as CMMI);
Business risk and continuity management.
Credits 20
13
Integrate and apply IT
project management
skills to plan and
deliver quality project
outcomes that meet
organisational
Programmes must include:



Qualification Reference 2603
© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2015
An holistic approach, including technical and professional practices;
Planning, execution, monitoring and deployment in an organisational
setting;
Leadership and team management, including conflict resolution,
stakeholder and supplier relationship management;
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requirements.

Credits 20

Advanced understanding of legal and ethical considerations for IT
project management;
Portfolio management.
Information Systems Innovation Strand
14
Design and deliver
innovative Information
Systems solutions for
an organisation.
Credits 40
Programmes must include:
 Creativity, entrepreneurship, exploiting emerging technology;
 Requirements analysis and feasibility study;
 Systems analysis, modelling and design;
 System implementation, training, and test plans;
 Business process improvement and change agent role;
 Holistic approach, including technical and professional practices.
Qualification Reference 2603
© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2015
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