Unit AS 1
Approaches to Systems Development
- SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT APPROACHES
- DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING
- IMPLEMENTATION AND SYSTEM SECURITY
- PROGRAMMING
CCEA A-Level Digital Technology, memorised fast.
Long notes are boring. Brain-hack the whole 2650 specification with active recall and actually remember it.
- Spec 2650
- 15 topics
- 172 subtopics
CCEA A-Level Digital Technology 2650
Systems Analysis and Development Approaches
Topic overviewThe software crisis and the need for systems developmentUser needs, time and costRoles in a systems development teamThe purpose of analysisFact-finding techniquesFunctional and non-functional requirementsData flow diagramsThe waterfall modelRapid application development and AgileResources, constraints and risks in a software projectProject management, Gantt charts and critical path analysisVersion management
Design, Development and Testing
Topic overviewThe purpose of systems designStoryboarding the user interfacePrototyping the interface and the data modelThe development stage: turning a design into working codeWhy testing runs throughout developmentLevels of testing: unit and integrationSystem testingAcceptance testingAlpha and beta testingThe purpose and components of a test planTypes of test data
Implementation and System Security
Topic overviewThe purpose of system implementationDirect and parallel changeoverPilot and phased changeoverUser documentationTechnical documentationData conversionThe purpose of system maintenanceCorrective, adaptive and perfective maintenanceArchiving dataBackup and recoveryFull, differential and incremental backupsDisaster recovery plans
Programming
Topic overviewThe purpose of a computer programThe integrated development environmentTranslation: compilers, interpreters and assemblersThe stages of compilation and linkingAlgorithms, pseudocode and syntaxVariables, constants and data typesSequence and selectionIteration: count-controlled and condition-controlled loopsFlowcharts and algorithm representationObjects, classes and methodsInheritance and evaluating the object-oriented approach
Data, Information and Data Representation
Topic overviewBits, bytes and units of storageHow many values a given number of bits can holdConverting decimal to binaryConverting binary to decimalTwo's complement and negative numbersCharacter sets: ASCII and UnicodeData, information and knowledgeFactors affecting the quality of informationValidation: range, type, length and presence checksValidation: format checks and lookup checksCheck digits and the Modulus 11 methodBatch totals, verification and the limits of checking
Computer Architecture and Processing Systems
Topic overviewThe processor, the clock and the registersThe fetch-execute cycleBuses, input and output controllers and portsMain memory: RAM, ROM and addressingCache memory and the memory hierarchyFactors that affect processing speedThe need for secondary storageMagnetic, optical and flash storage mediaChoosing secondary storage for common applicationsBatch, real-time and transaction processingAutomatic teller machines and point of sale terminalsSmartphones: input, output and processing
System Software, Application Software and the User Interface
Topic overviewUser interfaces: WIMP, command line and forms dialogueChoosing and evaluating a user interfaceInputting text, sound and videoThe purpose of an operating systemHow an operating system manages memory and processesTypes of operating systemUtility programsThe need for data compression, lossless and lossyZipping and archive filesCommon data file formatsApplication software: generic and special purposeObtaining and delivering software
Web Technology and Multimedia
Topic overviewThe internet, the World Wide Web and web standardsURLs, HTTP and the request-response cycleDomain names, DNS and IP addressesWeb browsers, search engines, cache and cookiesWeb servers, hosting, ISPs and file transferIntranets and how an organisation uses oneCreating web pages with HTMLHTML tags for text, lists, images and linksStyling pages with CSSMultimedia assets in a web pageClient-side and server-side processingSecurity over the internet: encryption, HTTPS and certificates
Networks
Topic overviewNetwork scope: LAN, MAN and WANNetwork hardware and connection devicesIP addresses and MAC addressesPeer-to-peer and server-based networksBus, star and ring topologiesThe need for communication protocolsThe OSI seven-layer modelTCP/IP, Ethernet and media access methodsWi-Fi, Bluetooth, VoIP and RFIDBandwidth and broadbandTransmission media: metal cable, fibre optic and wirelessDetecting and correcting transmission errors
Databases
Topic overviewThe relational database and its main featuresLogical and physical data modelsEntities, attributes and keysEntity-relationship modellingNormalisation to third normal formThe data dictionaryStructured Query Language: creating and changing dataStructured Query Language: retrieving dataQuery By Example and alternatives to SQLDatabase security, integrity and recovery
Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems and Robotics
Topic overviewWhat artificial intelligence meansThe Turing test and machine intelligenceNeural network modellingThe structure of an expert systemThe knowledge base and the inference engineShells, heuristics, fuzzy logic and the knowledge engineerExpert systems in medicine, fault diagnosis and insuranceNatural language processingVoice recognition technologyEvaluating natural language and voice recognition systemsThe technology of roboticsRobotics in commercial situations
Mobile Technology, Data Mining and Cloud Computing
Topic overviewCells, masts and frequency reuseHandoff between cellsThe base station controller, the mobile switching centre and the PSTNWhat data mining isGathering and storing data for miningProcessing and analysing large volumes of dataBig data in health, finance and retailData mining and the privacy of the individualWhat cloud computing isVirtualisation, hosted instances, hosted solutions and clusteringCloud services: storage, email, software and backupEvaluating cloud computing for business
Individual, Social and Legal Considerations
Topic overviewThe Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK GDPRThe data protection principles and the rights of the data subjectThe Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988The Computer Misuse Act 1990Data protection duties of an organisationHow the legislation affects employees and the publicThe ethics of automated decision makingOnline censorshipMonitoring of personal behaviourThe ethics of artificial intelligence and of personal information
The Development Project: Analysis and Design
Topic overviewScheduling the project with a Gantt chartInternal and external constraints on the solutionDetailing user requirements as inputs, processes and outputsPrioritising requirements as essential and non-essentialData flow diagrams at level 0 and level 1Specifying hardware and software requirementsThe overall system designProcess descriptions and algorithmsUser interface design and validationData modelling and normalisation for the solutionDesigning the queries and reportsDeveloping a comprehensive test plan
The Development Project: Build, Testing and Evaluation
Topic overviewChoosing software to develop the solutionBuilding the solutionTest data and the types of testingCarrying out and recording the testingDocumenting a strategy for system implementationEvaluating the solution against the user requirementsIdentifying extensions to the systemThe electronic user guideBringing the system into use and supporting itDocumentation for the completed system
What CCEA A-Level Digital Technology covers
CCEA A-Level Digital Technology (subject code 2650, qualification number 601/8488/7) is the Northern Ireland board's specification, first taught from September 2016. It is four units. AS 1 follows a system from the reasons for developing it through analysis, design, testing and implementation, and adds programming and system security. AS 2 covers the fundamentals: how data is represented, what a computer is made of, the software that runs on it, and web technology. A2 1 turns to information systems — networks, relational databases, and the applications of digital technology from artificial intelligence to cloud computing — together with the legal and ethical questions they raise. A2 2 is a coursework portfolio in which a student analyses, designs, builds, tests and evaluates an application for a named client.
CCEA GCE Digital Technology, subject code 2650, qualification number 601/8488/7 (A level), first teaching September 2016. Read the CCEA specification ↗
How it is assessed
Unit AS 2
Fundamentals of Digital Technology
- DATA, INFORMATION AND DATA REPRESENTATION
- COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE AND PROCESSING SYSTEMS
- SYSTEM SOFTWARE, APPLICATION SOFTWARE AND THE USER INTERFACE
- WEB TECHNOLOGY AND MULTIMEDIA
Unit A2 1
Information Systems
- NETWORKS
- DATABASES
- ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, EXPERT SYSTEMS AND ROBOTICS
- MOBILE TECHNOLOGY, DATA MINING AND CLOUD COMPUTING
- INDIVIDUAL, SOCIAL AND LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS
Unit A2 2
Application Development (Case Study)
- THE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
- THE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT: BUILD, TESTING AND EVALUATION
The full specification
15 topics, 172 subtopics. Open any topic to see what is inside it.
01Systems Analysis and Development Approaches12 subtopicsOpen topic
- The software crisis and the need for systems development
- User needs, time and cost
- Roles in a systems development team
- The purpose of analysis
- Fact-finding techniques
- Functional and non-functional requirements
- Data flow diagrams
- The waterfall model
- Rapid application development and Agile
- Resources, constraints and risks in a software project
- Project management, Gantt charts and critical path analysis
- Version management
02Design, Development and Testing11 subtopicsOpen topic
- The purpose of systems design
- Storyboarding the user interface
- Prototyping the interface and the data model
- The development stage: turning a design into working code
- Why testing runs throughout development
- Levels of testing: unit and integration
- System testing
- Acceptance testing
- Alpha and beta testing
- The purpose and components of a test plan
- Types of test data
03Implementation and System Security12 subtopicsOpen topic
- The purpose of system implementation
- Direct and parallel changeover
- Pilot and phased changeover
- User documentation
- Technical documentation
- Data conversion
- The purpose of system maintenance
- Corrective, adaptive and perfective maintenance
- Archiving data
- Backup and recovery
- Full, differential and incremental backups
- Disaster recovery plans
04Programming11 subtopicsOpen topic
- The purpose of a computer program
- The integrated development environment
- Translation: compilers, interpreters and assemblers
- The stages of compilation and linking
- Algorithms, pseudocode and syntax
- Variables, constants and data types
- Sequence and selection
- Iteration: count-controlled and condition-controlled loops
- Flowcharts and algorithm representation
- Objects, classes and methods
- Inheritance and evaluating the object-oriented approach
05Data, Information and Data Representation12 subtopicsOpen topic
- Bits, bytes and units of storage
- How many values a given number of bits can hold
- Converting decimal to binary
- Converting binary to decimal
- Two's complement and negative numbers
- Character sets: ASCII and Unicode
- Data, information and knowledge
- Factors affecting the quality of information
- Validation: range, type, length and presence checks
- Validation: format checks and lookup checks
- Check digits and the Modulus 11 method
- Batch totals, verification and the limits of checking
06Computer Architecture and Processing Systems12 subtopicsOpen topic
- The processor, the clock and the registers
- The fetch-execute cycle
- Buses, input and output controllers and ports
- Main memory: RAM, ROM and addressing
- Cache memory and the memory hierarchy
- Factors that affect processing speed
- The need for secondary storage
- Magnetic, optical and flash storage media
- Choosing secondary storage for common applications
- Batch, real-time and transaction processing
- Automatic teller machines and point of sale terminals
- Smartphones: input, output and processing
07System Software, Application Software and the User Interface12 subtopicsOpen topic
- User interfaces: WIMP, command line and forms dialogue
- Choosing and evaluating a user interface
- Inputting text, sound and video
- The purpose of an operating system
- How an operating system manages memory and processes
- Types of operating system
- Utility programs
- The need for data compression, lossless and lossy
- Zipping and archive files
- Common data file formats
- Application software: generic and special purpose
- Obtaining and delivering software
08Web Technology and Multimedia12 subtopicsOpen topic
- The internet, the World Wide Web and web standards
- URLs, HTTP and the request-response cycle
- Domain names, DNS and IP addresses
- Web browsers, search engines, cache and cookies
- Web servers, hosting, ISPs and file transfer
- Intranets and how an organisation uses one
- Creating web pages with HTML
- HTML tags for text, lists, images and links
- Styling pages with CSS
- Multimedia assets in a web page
- Client-side and server-side processing
- Security over the internet: encryption, HTTPS and certificates
09Networks12 subtopicsOpen topic
- Network scope: LAN, MAN and WAN
- Network hardware and connection devices
- IP addresses and MAC addresses
- Peer-to-peer and server-based networks
- Bus, star and ring topologies
- The need for communication protocols
- The OSI seven-layer model
- TCP/IP, Ethernet and media access methods
- Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, VoIP and RFID
- Bandwidth and broadband
- Transmission media: metal cable, fibre optic and wireless
- Detecting and correcting transmission errors
10Databases10 subtopicsOpen topic
- The relational database and its main features
- Logical and physical data models
- Entities, attributes and keys
- Entity-relationship modelling
- Normalisation to third normal form
- The data dictionary
- Structured Query Language: creating and changing data
- Structured Query Language: retrieving data
- Query By Example and alternatives to SQL
- Database security, integrity and recovery
11Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems and Robotics12 subtopicsOpen topic
- What artificial intelligence means
- The Turing test and machine intelligence
- Neural network modelling
- The structure of an expert system
- The knowledge base and the inference engine
- Shells, heuristics, fuzzy logic and the knowledge engineer
- Expert systems in medicine, fault diagnosis and insurance
- Natural language processing
- Voice recognition technology
- Evaluating natural language and voice recognition systems
- The technology of robotics
- Robotics in commercial situations
12Mobile Technology, Data Mining and Cloud Computing12 subtopicsOpen topic
- Cells, masts and frequency reuse
- Handoff between cells
- The base station controller, the mobile switching centre and the PSTN
- What data mining is
- Gathering and storing data for mining
- Processing and analysing large volumes of data
- Big data in health, finance and retail
- Data mining and the privacy of the individual
- What cloud computing is
- Virtualisation, hosted instances, hosted solutions and clustering
- Cloud services: storage, email, software and backup
- Evaluating cloud computing for business
13Individual, Social and Legal Considerations10 subtopicsOpen topic
- The Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK GDPR
- The data protection principles and the rights of the data subject
- The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
- The Computer Misuse Act 1990
- Data protection duties of an organisation
- How the legislation affects employees and the public
- The ethics of automated decision making
- Online censorship
- Monitoring of personal behaviour
- The ethics of artificial intelligence and of personal information
14The Development Project: Analysis and Design12 subtopicsOpen topic
- Scheduling the project with a Gantt chart
- Internal and external constraints on the solution
- Detailing user requirements as inputs, processes and outputs
- Prioritising requirements as essential and non-essential
- Data flow diagrams at level 0 and level 1
- Specifying hardware and software requirements
- The overall system design
- Process descriptions and algorithms
- User interface design and validation
- Data modelling and normalisation for the solution
- Designing the queries and reports
- Developing a comprehensive test plan
15The Development Project: Build, Testing and Evaluation10 subtopicsOpen topic
- Choosing software to develop the solution
- Building the solution
- Test data and the types of testing
- Carrying out and recording the testing
- Documenting a strategy for system implementation
- Evaluating the solution against the user requirements
- Identifying extensions to the system
- The electronic user guide
- Bringing the system into use and supporting it
- Documentation for the completed system
How you work through it
Pick the mode that fits the time you have.
Try three questions
No account needed. Answer from memory first.
Your recallNot started
Key term
Explain why poorly written software stays expensive long after it is delivered.
Key term
Why is time the dominant factor for a system tied to an external date?
Key term
Explain why involving users throughout development saves money overall.
Spaced Repetition Schedule
How reviews are timed
Levo will automatically distribute all of your progress into a spaced repetition calendar. Once you’ve answered, it’s scheduled for you on the next day in the spaced repetition schedule. Over time, the gaps between your recall get bigger, from a day to three years, reinforcing memorisation over a long period of time.
Interval sequence
- 1 day
- 3 days
- 7 days
- 14 days
- 30 days
- 60 days
- 4 months
- 8 months
- 1 year
- 2 years
- 3 years
What is inside Levo
Six ways to work the same material
Digital Technology revision questions
Common questions about revising CCEA A-Level Digital Technology. Tap any to open it.
How do you memorise CCEA A-Level Digital Technology?
By testing yourself, not rereading. Active recall, pulling each answer from memory then checking it, builds far stronger memory than highlighting notes. Levo runs the method for you across all 15 Digital Technology topics and brings each one back on a spaced schedule so it stays memorised.
What is the fastest way to revise Digital Technology for CCEA?
Skip the long notes and go straight to retrieval. Levo turns the 2650 specification into short questions you drill with rapid recall, cram whole papers in one sitting, and a readiness score tells you exactly what is left to learn.
What topics are on CCEA A-Level Digital Technology (2650)?
There are 15 topics, split across 172 subtopics, from Systems Analysis and Development Approaches, Design, Development and Testing, Implementation and System Security and more. Every topic is listed above, and each one opens to the subtopics inside it.
What do you get inside Levo for Digital Technology?
Six ways to work the same material. The 3-step method for learning a set, Cram for sorting a whole paper into what you know and what you do not, Blank Blitz for making key facts automatic, Build It for assembling full-mark answers, Test It for catching misconceptions, and Brain Breaks between sessions. A readiness score tracks how much of the subject you have memorised.
Is active recall better than rereading your notes for Digital Technology?
Consistently, yes. Rereading feels productive but fades quickly. Retrieving an answer from memory, the way Levo tests you, is what actually forms durable memory, and it shows you honestly what you do and do not know.
Does Levo cover the whole CCEA Digital Technology specification?
Every topic on the 2650 specification is covered, written from the published subject content. The full list is above, and each topic opens to its subtopics so you can see exactly what is there before you subscribe.
How can you encourage your teenager to revise?
Make it short, structured and low-pressure. Levo gives a clear daily plan, quick sessions rather than marathon ones, streaks that reward showing up, and an honest readiness score, so revision feels like progress instead of a chore. Parents can add an account and follow along.
Can you revise Digital Technology the night before an exam?
Yes. Cram mode is built for exactly that: fly through a whole paper, sort every topic into red, amber and green, then drill just the reds and ambers you do not know yet. It is the honest version of a last-minute session.
Every question in Digital Technology, on a schedule.
Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.
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