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Welcome to CS180!

Untangling the Web: : How the Internet Works

CS180 Syllabus Fall 2008

Who and When:

Times/Places:

Lecture:       3:30-1:50 Tues/Thur in GIFRD 332
Recitation:       see Ramweb for details
Instructor: Liz Boese
218 University Services Center
Office Hours: 
Monday:   2:30-4:00pm
Tuesday:  1:45-3pm
Wednesday: 9-10am
Thursday: 2-3pm
or by appt, or door open

Course Description:

The World Wide Web, and the Internet upon which it rests, is the backbone of electronic human communication. It fundamentally alters our daily lives, changing the nature of business, education, entertainment and community. This course, The Way the Web Works, is a survey of the many technologies upon which the Web depends. It also examines broader human implications of the Web.

The material covered in this course may be divided into six parts:

  1. History of the Web: set the Internet into a historical context.
  2. Essentials of networking: clients, servers, packets, routing, domain names and addressing.
  3. Essentials of hypermedia: basic HTML, using styles, layout, imagery, video, interaction.
  4. Web structure: types of sites, search engines, collaborative content generation.
  5. Internet appliances: Web 2.0 Appliances such as Twitter, FaceBook and Google Earth.
  6. Life on the web: the human aspects of veracity, security, privacy and community.
The information presented will be in both lecture and lab format. Lectures will cover new topics and discussions and labs will give students a chance for hands-on experience with the technologies.

Prerequisites:
Familiarity with computers
Credits & Grading Options:
3 credit hours
Textbooks:
Web 101 3rd edition from Addison Wesley
Additional readings drawn from the Web

Grading:

The course requires demonstration of a student's grasp of the concepts, as follows:

Quizzes 15 %   RamCT online Quizzes:   (open-note, open-book, open-Internet)
There will be no make-ups on missed quizzes. (You have 1 week to do each)
Participation   5 %     Class participation via lecture or discussion board.
Midterm 1 15 %   Midterm 1:
Midterm 2 15 %   Midterm 2:
Project 25 %   Project: Develop web site using HTML, WordPress
Final Exam 25 %   Comprehensive


Tentative Course Outline:

Week 1-2: 	Reading: 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.9, 1.10, 1.11 and Above and Beyond green section
		Prior Art.  
		Information R/Evolution
		Internet history, domain names, client/server, browsers and add-ons, TCP/IP

Week 3-4: 	Reading: 10.1, 10.2, 10.4, 10.5, 11.2
		HTML, image maps, forms, CGI

Week 5: 	Reading: 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.5, 9.6, 9.7, 9.8, 9.11
		The human side of Web page design.  The Webby Awards, 
		introduction to what good Web designers considered fundamental.
		copyrights, publishing, image file formats, color

Week 6: 	Reading: Chapter 6
		Software on the Internet

Week 7: 	Reading: 
		Media on the web.  Using imagery, video, audio and animation.  
		Provide a survey of what tools accomplish what tasks.  Use Adobe Flash as a case study.
		Recit: Web exploration and analysis

Week 8: 	WordPress, making money on your websites with AdSense

Week 9: 	Reading: Chapter 7
		E-commerce

Week 10: 	Reading: Chapter 4
		What is "Web 2.0".  Technology including AJAX, PHP, ASP, etc.  
		Examples of Web 2.0 Appliances, Digg, Twitter, FaceBook, Blogging, Wikis, iTunes.
		

Week 11:	Reading: Chapter 5
	 	What do search engines do and how do they do it. Who owns what, 
		intellectual property issues on the Web. 
		Ex:  Vivisimo, Switchboard, PriceGrabber, Froogle

Week 12: 	Reading: Chapter 2 and 8
		Security, encryption, packet sniffing, viruses, worms and phishing.
		Privacy, who gets to know what.  Cookies, data mining, 
		intentional and accidental examples of surveillance. 

Week 13: 	Web community.  Virtual presence, social networks and vanishing boundaries.
		IRC and chat rooms, Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, MUDs

Week 14: 
	 	Future directions for the Web. 

Week 15: 	Presentations of your project

The assignment of letter grades will be made as follows:

Letter Grade Point Range
A 90-100%
B 80-89.9%
C 70-79.9%
D 60-69.9%
F below 60%

NOTE: We will NOT cut higher than these points (but reserve the perogative to cut lower).

The instructor reserves the right to affect a student's grade by up to 1 or 2% in either direction.

Late and Makeup Policy

Midterm and Finals: Make-up exams are only given for extraordinary circumstances (e.g., illness, death of family member). Students must consult with the instructor as soon as possible, preferably before the start of the exam. Course examination dates are listed in the syllabus; be aware of them and plan accordingly.

Quizzes: No make-ups will be given for missed quizzes. You have a week to do each one online with open-book, open-note. You may take each one an unlimited number of times, with your highest score as your final score. These are to be done individually.

Project: Project phases are submitted online (see project for exact details on how to submit). Anything submitted within 24 hours late of the due date and time is -20% of the worth of that phase, and within 72 hours is -50% of the worth of that phase.

Important Dates:

Course Examination Dates: (Tentative - see RamCT Discussion board for updates)

  • TUESDAY Oct 7 -- Midterm 1 in Class
  • TUESDAY Nov 11 -- Midterm 2 in Class
  • TUESDAY Dec 16 3:40-4:40pm Final Exam

  • All exams are given/taken in the same room as the lecture sections.

Professional Conduct

All students are expected to conduct themselves professionally. We (the instructors and GTAs) assume you are familiar with the policies in the student information sheet http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~info/student-info for the department. Additionally, you are computing professionals, albeit perhaps just starting. You should be familiar with the code of conduct for the primary professional society, ACM. You can read the ACM Code of Conduct http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~howe/acm-code.html

You MAY discuss assignments but the work you turn in must be your own.
You have crossed the line if you start comparing someone else's work to your own (or vice versa).
You have crossed the line if you cannot explain/understand the work you submit

We work to maintain an environment supportive of learning in the classroom and laboratory. Towards that end, we require that you be courteous to and respectful of your fellow participants (i.e., classmates, instructors, GTAs and any tutors). In particular:

  • Please turn off the ring on your cell phone. If you are expecting an emergency call, sit near the door and slide out discretely to take it.
  • If you plan to use a laptop during class, please sit at the back of the classroom and turn off any sound from the machine. The tap-tap of the keyboard and the images showing on a screen can be distracting to those sitting around you. Also, be aware if you IM during class, that giggles, snorts or other reactions to what you are reading can be heard by the class and instructors and may be completely inappropriate with what is going on in the classroom.
  • Laptops must be shut during in-class exams

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