D798 Emerging Computing Systems, catalog number ICSC 6201, is the four CU graduate course in the WGU School of Technology exploring cutting edge technologies and the trends driving the future of computing. The obvious difficulty is that the subject moves faster than any reading list, and the way through it is to write about the constraints that shape the field rather than about whichever technology is currently prominent.
Constraints outlive products
Emerging technology writing dates badly when it is organised around products and ages well when it is organised around limits. The limits in computing are relatively stable: the energy cost of moving data, the gap between processor and memory speed, the physical bounds on transistor scaling, the latency imposed by distance, the difficulty of coordinating distributed state, and the economics of specialised hardware against general purpose hardware.
Almost every emerging system is a response to one of those. Specialised accelerators exist because general processors handle certain workloads inefficiently. Edge computing exists because latency and bandwidth make round trips expensive. Novel memory technologies exist because the storage hierarchy has a painful gap in it. Analysing a technology as an answer to a named constraint, rather than as an exciting development, produces a submission that is both more durable and more scoreable.
The second scored theme is calibrated judgment. A graduate submission is expected to distinguish demonstrated from projected, laboratory from deployed, and general advantage from narrow advantage. Repeating a supplier's claim without qualification is the fastest way to lose credibility in this course, and identifying what a technology is genuinely not good at is one of the quickest ways to gain it.
Turning scored aspects into a section plan
Scoring detail sits in your Course of Study rather than the catalog. Count the aspects and use them as headings in the rubric's own language. Each is judged independently against a three point scale and each needs a 2, so an enthusiastic technology survey cannot compensate for a thin evaluation of maturity or risk.
At four competency units this course usually expects more depth than the three CU courses around it. Plan for a longer piece rather than a wider one, because breadth without analysis is the characteristic failure here.
The word budget, worked. Assume seven scored aspects and around 2,400 words. Reserve 180 words for an opening naming the technology and the constraint it addresses, and 140 for a close. That leaves near 2,080, about 295 per aspect. Then take 70 words from each of two descriptive aspects and give 140 to the maturity assessment aspect and the same to the implications aspect. Description of how something works is available from any source; assessment of where it actually stands is the scarce contribution.
A structure that fits an emerging technology analysis
Where your directions specify a structure, follow it. Where they do not, this ordering supports the analysis the aspects look for.
| Section | What belongs in it | How it gets read |
|---|---|---|
| Constraint | The limit in current computing that motivates this technology | Frames the whole analysis and keeps it durable |
| Mechanism | How the technology addresses the limit, at a technical level | Should go beyond what a press summary would say |
| Maturity | Laboratory, prototype, limited deployment or production, with evidence | The judgment that separates graduate analysis from enthusiasm |
| Where it wins | The specific workloads or conditions where it is genuinely better | Narrow advantages stated precisely are more credible than broad ones |
| Where it does not | What it is worse at, and what it still cannot do | Often the strongest section in the submission |
| Adoption barriers | Cost, tooling, skills, standards, ecosystem and inertia | Technical superiority rarely decides adoption on its own |
| Implications | What an organisation should do now, and what would change that | Turns analysis into a position |
Give the incumbent technology a fair hearing. Established systems benefit from decades of optimisation, tooling and expertise, and an analysis that ignores that advantage overstates its case in a way an evaluator will notice.
Evidence craft on a moving subject
Sourcing is the hardest part of this course, because most accessible writing is either promotional or speculative.
- Prefer peer reviewed and independently measured sources to vendor material, and label vendor claims when you use them.
- Date every claim, since a statement about capability is only true as of a moment.
- Distinguish demonstrated results from projected roadmaps explicitly in the writing.
- Report the conditions of any published benchmark, because favourable conditions are the usual explanation for a surprising number.
- Look for the negative result. Published limitations and failed replications are more informative than another success announcement.
- Use APA throughout with access dates, and prefer primary sources over articles describing them.
Name what would have to change for your assessment to be wrong. A stated condition, such as a cost threshold or a tooling maturity level, converts an opinion into a testable position, and it is exactly the calibration a graduate rubric rewards.
What separates Competent from a submission sent back
Aspects score independently, and returns here concentrate on maturity and evidence quality.
- The analysis is organised around a constraint rather than around a product.
- Maturity is assessed with evidence rather than asserted.
- Vendor claims are labelled as such and independently corroborated where possible.
- The limitations section is as substantial as the advantages section.
- Adoption barriers cover economics and ecosystem, not only technical fit.
Performance assessment work at WGU can be revised and resubmitted with no grade penalty, so a return costs calendar rather than standing. Terms run six months at a flat rate, and a four competency unit course carries more weight than the others around it, which makes planning its scope early worthwhile.
Six mistakes that cost time in D798
- Breadth without depth. Six technologies covered superficially answers fewer aspects than one covered properly.
- Repeating supplier claims. Unqualified vendor figures undermine everything else in the submission.
- Confusing announcement with availability. A demonstration is not a product and a product is not an ecosystem.
- Ignoring the incumbent. Existing systems have compounding advantages that any honest comparison has to weigh.
- Prediction without conditions. A forecast with no stated trigger cannot be evaluated and reads as speculation.
- No implications section. A graduate analysis is expected to end in a position rather than a summary.
Assessing maturity without a crystal ball
The maturity judgment is the hardest part of D798 and the most rewarded, and it can be made systematically rather than by instinct.
Ask first whether the result has been reproduced by someone with no stake in it. A single laboratory demonstration is a data point; an independent replication is evidence. Then ask about conditions: what was the workload, the scale, the input, and how far is that from the conditions where the technology would actually be used. Impressive results under carefully chosen conditions are the normal state of early technology and saying so is not cynicism.
Next, look at the supporting ecosystem, because it usually decides timelines more than the core technology does. Are there tools, libraries, standards, documentation and people who know how to use it? A technically superior approach with no tooling routinely loses for a decade to an inferior one that developers can already work with, and that pattern is well documented enough to cite.
Then follow the economics. What does it cost per unit of useful work, including the parts nobody advertises, such as integration, retraining staff and the cost of running two systems in parallel during a transition. Technologies that require an organisation to abandon working infrastructure face a barrier unrelated to their merit.
Finally, state your assessment as a conditional. Rather than predicting adoption in a given year, write that adoption becomes likely once a stated cost falls below a stated threshold, or once tooling reaches a stated level, and name what you would watch to know. That formulation is defensible, it is genuinely useful to a reader, and it demonstrates precisely the calibrated judgment the aspects are trying to measure.
How support works on this course
Send the rubric from your Course of Study and the task directions. What comes back is aspect mapped: an analysis organised around constraints, a maturity assessment built on evidence, balanced treatment of advantages and limits, adoption barriers covering economics and ecosystem, and implications stated as conditionals. Plus a walkthrough so the position is yours to argue.
At four competency units D798 is one of the heavier courses in the graduate sequence. Terms are six months at a flat rate, so choosing a focused topic early is what keeps it manageable.
Questions students ask about D798
Is D798 the same course as ICSC 6201?
How do I choose a topic that will not be outdated?
Can you write the analysis for me?
Where D798 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 1 current WGU program. Open a program page for the complete standard path and term positions. The live Degree Plan remains authoritative after transfer credit, substitutions, and mentor planning.
The assessments, one by one
The public catalog does not publish this course's PA/OA identity or task count. WGU Tutors publishes at most one PA manual per course and only from a WGU-controlled public rubric. Until that source exists, PA help begins from the student's real Course of Study and OA support remains preparation only.