HSC Information and Digital Technology (VET) flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

PCBU

Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking. Under harmonised WHS law this duty holder must ensure health and safety of workers and others so far as is reasonably practicable.

Hierarchy of control

Ranked risk controls from most to least effective: eliminate, substitute, engineering controls, administrative controls, then personal protective equipment as the last resort.

AS/NZS 3760

Australian and New Zealand standard for in-service safety inspection and testing of electrical equipment, commonly called test and tag, setting inspection intervals by environment.

E-waste

Discarded electronic equipment such as computers, monitors and batteries. It must go to accredited recyclers because it contains hazardous materials and recoverable metals.

Service level agreement

A contract between a service provider and a customer defining expected service, including response time, resolution time, availability targets and remedies for missed targets.

Active listening

A communication technique using paraphrasing, summarising and clarifying questions to confirm the speaker's meaning before responding or taking action.

Escalation

Referring an issue to a higher authority or specialist team when it exceeds the technician's skill, authority or SLA timeframe, with a written handover of actions taken.

Ticket prioritisation

Ranking support requests by impact on users or business and by urgency. High impact plus high urgency yields the highest priority for response.

NVMe

A storage protocol for solid-state drives communicating over PCIe rather than SATA, delivering much higher throughput and lower latency than SATA drives.

RAID 5

A storage configuration striping data with distributed parity across at least three disks, providing speed gains and tolerance of one disk failure without data loss.

Device driver

Software that lets the operating system communicate with a specific hardware device, translating generic commands into instructions the device's controller understands.

3-2-1 backup rule

A backup strategy keeping three copies of data, on two different media types, with one copy stored offsite to survive local disaster or ransomware.

APIPA address

An automatic private address in the 169.254.0.0/16 range, assigned when a host cannot reach a DHCP server, indicating a connectivity or configuration fault.

DHCP

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. It automatically leases IP addresses, subnet masks, default gateways and DNS server addresses to devices joining a network.

Multi-factor authentication

Authentication requiring two or more different factor types, such as a password plus a one-time code, making credential theft alone insufficient for access.

Phishing

A social engineering attack using deceptive messages that impersonate a trusted party to trick recipients into revealing credentials or installing malware.

Lossy compression

A data reduction method that permanently discards some original detail, as in JPEG or MP3, achieving smaller files at the cost of quality.

Data validation

Rules applied at data entry to check that input is acceptable, such as type, range, format or presence checks, preventing invalid data entering a system.

Creative Commons

A set of standard public licences allowing creators to permit reuse under conditions such as attribution, share-alike, non-commercial use or no derivatives.

Vector graphic

An image built from mathematical paths and shapes rather than pixels, so it can be scaled to any size without loss of quality.

Troubleshooting sequence

A structured method: identify the problem, theorise probable cause, test the theory, plan action, implement or escalate, verify functionality, then document the outcome.

Divide and conquer

A diagnostic technique that isolates whether a fault lies in hardware, operating system, application or network by testing boundaries with known-good substitutes.

Knowledge base

A stored collection of documented problems and their verified solutions, used by support staff to resolve recurring issues faster and consistently.

Change one variable

A troubleshooting rule requiring a single alteration before retesting, so the effect of each change can be attributed to a specific cause.

Australian Privacy Principles

Thirteen principles in the Privacy Act 1988 governing collection, use, disclosure, security and access to personal information by APP entities.

Notifiable Data Breaches

An Australian scheme requiring entities to notify affected individuals and the OAIC of eligible data breaches likely to cause serious harm.

Copyright

Automatic legal protection for original expression such as software code, text and images, generally lasting 70 years after the author's death in Australia.

Employability skills

Transferable capabilities valued across jobs: communication, teamwork, problem solving, initiative, planning, self-management, learning and technology use.

Managed service provider

A company delivering ongoing IT services such as monitoring, patching and support to client organisations under contract, often billed per user per month.

Product stewardship

A scheme making manufacturers and importers responsible for the environmental impact of products across their lifecycle, including take-back and recycling of e-waste.

Plain English

Writing or speaking that avoids unnecessary jargon and acronyms so the audience understands the message on a first reading or hearing.

Least privilege

A security principle granting users only the access rights needed to perform their role, limiting damage if an account is compromised or misused.