Instructor Information

Scott Owen
E-mail: owens@gaia.ecs.csus.edu
Course URL: http://gaia.ecs.csus.edu/~owens/csc8s/
Office hours: by appointment

Textbook

Perry, Schneider: New Perspectives on The Internet
Course Technology, 2000
ISBN 0-619-01938-7

Catalog Description

CSC 008S. Self-Paced Exploring the Internet. Covers the same material as CSC 008, Exploring the Internet. Lectures are however, provided by electronic means, in addition to meetings for orientation, laboratory demonstrations, and tests. Provides a user's view of local, state, national, and international computer networks. Software tools to access and retrieve information from around the world include World Wide Web software tools, and much more. Included also are basic elements of communication protocols, trends and future of the information superhighway, and an overview of how the CSUS computer network fits in the larger picture. Graded Credit/No Credit. 2 units.

Course Goals:

• Understand and be able to use the computing network in the School of Engineering and Computer Science at CSUS
• Solve assignments using client software for e-mail, telnet, ftp and the Web, and be able to find and retrieve information on the Internet using various resources and search engines
• Be able to use list servers, Usenet readers and other sources of "bulletin board" style information
• Learn and use various methods of online chat to enhance your online communication
• Become familiar with local Internet service and information providers
• Be able to download and decompress archives and executable programs
• Discuss recent trends in the news, and consider emerging technologies related to the Internet
• Understand the underlying communication protocols and physical infrastructure of the Internet
• Develop your own home page
• Search for, and present to your classmates, information you find on the Internet, related to a topic of your choice.

Adds, Drops & Incompletes:

The last day to add or drop the course without instructor approval is the University census date, 2/8/2002. No adds will be approved after this date. Enrolled students that have not attended an organizational meeting, or contacted the instructor or the Computer Science department by the third week may be summarily dropped before the census date. A good faith effort will be made by the instructor to determine if any enrolled (but unaccounted for) students are still planning on completing the course, but ultimate responsibility still lies with the student.

Incomplete grades are seldom granted in this course. You are expected to manage your schedule, and complete the work before the end of the semester. Incompletes will be given only to students who have a passing grade at the time that an overwhelming and uncontrollable problem, which is entirely out of their control, causes them to discontinue the course.

Course Mailing List:

There is an electronic mailing list for this course. All students are required to subscribe to this list for the duration of the semester. The list is used to facilitate communication among the members of the class, and is a way for the instructor to send announcements and assignments to the class. The name of the list is csc8s. To add your name to the list send an e-mail message to majordomo@hera.ecs.csus.edu. In the message area type, subscribe csc8s. You do not need a subject. Be sure to send the message using plain text, and from the e-mail account you most often use to read your e-mail. (More information will be provided in the first class assignment.)

Grading:

Computer Science 8s is the self-paced version of Computer Science 8, Exploring the Internet. This course is designed specifically for those that already have some experience using the Internet, and are able to browse the World Wide Web and communicate via e-mail. It is important that the student be able to do those two things at the very least, as they are the method of delivery for most of this course.

This is a credit / no credit course. It is subject to certain rules outlined in the CSUS catalog. Among them:

This course does not assign a letter grade, and is not calculated into your GPA. You may not take this course for credit if you have previously taken CSc 8. See the CSUS catalog for more details about CR/NC courses.

There are no lectures in this course. All material is from the text and from assignments posted on the class website at http://gaia.ecs.csus.edu/~owens/csc8s/. The student is expected to read the appropriate material and turn in the assigned labs. This way, you will avoid spending large amounts of time toward the end of the semester trying to get everything in. We can't stress that point enough in this class: don't wait until the end to turn everything in!

This is a self-paced course, so you may turn assignments in at any point until the end of the semester. However, assignments will only receive perfect scores if they are submitted in the week following their assignment, by Wednesday at midnight. If an assignment is turned in after midnight on the Wednesday it's due, 5 points will be taken off the assignment's score. For example, an assignment assigned on February 4 will receive full points if turned in by midnight on February 13, but 5 points less if turned in any later.

A semester term paper will be presented on your class web page, based on a topic of your choice researched solely from online sources. In addition, you will make a report to your classmates regarding your project via the class mailing list.

There will be a midterm and a final, both similar to the tests taken by the on-campus sections of CSc 8. Both exams will be administered via the class webpage. Unfortunately, exams are not self-paced. Please note the exam times and due dates.

Award of credit for the course is based solely on earning 70% or more of the possible points in the course. The point breakdown is as follows:

12 lab assignments: 330 points (Labs 1, 2 & 3 are 20 points each and labs 4 through 12 are 30 points each)
Research project: 50 points
Midterm exam: 100 points
Final exam: 150 points
Total points possible: 630

Assignments:

All assignments must have your full name and last 4 digits of your student ID (SSN). I will return any assignments without a name and number to the party that sent me the message. I will grade assignments only once, so please complete the entire assignment before sending the answers.

All labs are to be e-mailed to me, or dropped off in the Computer Science department on the third floor of RVR. E-mail submissions may be submitted in plain text or as an attachment. (Feel free to use any text editor you like. I will let you know if I have a problem viewing your assignment.) Please send your answers with the corresponding question numbers and/or letters. If you include the questions with the answers, put your answers in bold.

Schedule: