CSC 8560 Computer Networks

Tuesday evenings 6:15 - 8:45pm Mendel  154

Professor: 
Dr. Lillian N. Cassel 
161 Mendel Hall 
+1 610 519 - 7341
Office hours:  Most days 10 am to 6 pm. 
Call if you want to be sure I am there and free.
Villanova University Academic Integrity Policy and Procedures
Schedule Texts  Wiki Page   Perl Tutorial

Grading  Web pages created by class members Snow closing number on KYW Radio is 524


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Week Date Topic Reading/Slides Assignment
1 1/13 Course introduction; overview of computer networks; The OSI seven-layer model;  introduction to the Internet and the World Wide Web HTML documents and simple forms  First Class notes
Web search exercise. (Due next week)
Your own web page (Due next week)
A portfolio page (may be incorporated into your web page assignment or separate)
2 1/20 HTML forms processing. CGI programming.  Fundamentals of networked applications.  Cassel/Austing 
Chapter 1
Cassel/Austing 
Chapter 2
Class notes
Begin Web based scheduler
Web page and search exercise due
3 1/27  Introduction to the Networks Laboratory and installation and configuration of an Apache Web Server. 
Class meets in G43 Mendel Science Center.
Apache documentation Application #1: discussion of requirements, suggestions of projects. 
By next week, put together a description of your project. 
This application must run on more than one computer.  You may use Web tools and other support packages, but you must develop an original application.  The project description will be carefully reviewed and must be approved.  Be prepared to present your plan and show why it is a good learning experience.  This is a course in computer networking.  You must demonstrate understanding of computer networking concepts in this project.  A web application built with web development tools and focusing on presenting a product will not be acceptable as a project.  There are many web-based applications that will be acceptable. 
4 2/3
 Abstract Syntax Notation The Application Layer and
Common Services: ACSE, ROSE, RTSE, CCR 
 Needs of remote execution 
  Class Notes:(will be revised before class) 
ASN.1 and Common Services
Cassel/Austing 
Chapter 3 
Cassel/Austing   Chapter 4
ASN.1 Reference
Web form exercise due
Application #1 description due 
List team members, project goals, deliverables
5 2/10 Client Server Computing
Java Client and Java Server
 Email
 Cassel/Austing Chapter 5  
6 2/17 File transfer
Directory Services,
 Cassel & Austing 
Chapter 7 and 8
 
7 2/24  Presentations of Web resources     

Revised Times

We do not have enough time with this many students in the class to allow the time originally intended. We will have to make the presentations short, but the interaction is still important. Be sure to review the submissions to the resources page before class and be prepared to comment on which ones you find most interesting. Each student will have 3 minutes to present one web resource you have submitted through the resource page.  There will then be about 2 minutes for follow on comments by others who have reviewed that submission.  Other students may also comment on the resource and the topic as presented.  If the resource has not been reviewed, the presenter may have a little longer to talk about it, but there will still be required interaction by the rest of the class and time must be allowed.
Each presentation should address the following: 
* An overall description of what the resource is.
* What is its relationship to the networking course?
* Summarize what information the resource provides. 
* Comment on the quality of the resource and its presentation.
* Give examples of who might want to use that resource and why.

Prepare a PowerPoint presentation or a Web based presentation or some other medium.  Store it in your portfolio and use it in giving your talk. 

Break 3/2      
8 3/9   EncryptionCompression, Cassel, Austing Chapters 9, 10  Application #1 due 
Begin second application or research paper 
(Possible extension of first application or paper related to it. Otherwise, new project)
This project must include some network related topic.  You might experiment with the throughput of an application, for example.  You might evaluate the effects of using TCP vs UDP or compare performance over a LAN to performance over a WAN, for example. 
9 3/16 Transport

 Cassel, Austing Chapter 10, 11  
10 3/23
Begin Network Layer, including NAT, routing 
 Chapter 12  
11 3/30
 Network Layer 
  
12 4/6  Data Link Layer  Chapter 13  
13 4/13  Complete Data Link Layer
See demonstrations
Connecting LANs
   
14 4/20 Firewalls and final review;
15 4/27
Conference style presentation of projects
Attendance and active participation by all students at all sessions required 
Abstracts of presentations will be available at least one week ahead of time.  There will be demonstrations of the working projects, and questions, suggestions from the audience
16 5/4
Conference style presentation of projects continues
Attendance and active participation by all students at all sessions required 
Abstracts of presentations will be available at least one week ahead of time.  There will be demonstrations of the working projects, and questions, suggestions from the audience

Basic expectations of the Web page assignment:

The purpose of this assignment is to have you demonstrate that you can create a suitable web page for some use.  It may be a personal page or it may be a page dedicated to a topic of interest to you.  If you have created a page for an organization or a cause and want to use that, it is ok.  You must be able to discuss the choices you made in your design and implementation and clearly show that you are the author of the page.
The page you submit for this purpose must include at least the following characteristics: If you have considerable experience in making web pages and have a well-designed page that does not include some one or more of those characteristics, you must say that you chose not to do those things and give a reason for your design choice.

Make your goals clear and be sure the page is organized to present some kind of information well.
There is lots of room for creativity and imagination in this assignment.  These guides are given to describe a base expectation.  Go on from there in any way that seems appropriate for you.
 

Web pages created by class members:

 
Ioannis Amperidis
Sunil Atluri
Ramya Balakumar
Vandana Bhardwaj
Tejo Brundavana
Geetha Chittireddy Brian Jorgage
Sean Keough
Satish Kesiboyana
Brian Lynch
Jeffrey McGowan
Peter Michel
Michael Milner
Pratheeba Murugesan
Deepthi Reddy
Stuart Saltzman
Karunakar Thallapureddy
William Thau
Revanth Thoutireddy
Zhenhong Zhao

Text

Cassel, Lillian N. and Richard H. Austing.  Computer Networks and Open Systems An Application Development Perspective.  Jones & Bartless Publisher.  2000 ISBN 0-7637-1122-5

(This book was specifically developed for this course and a similar course for upper division undergraduates.  The authors will be grateful for your help in identifying any errors that may have found their way into the published version.)

You will need regular access to the class web page. You will need access to a computer system where you can prepare web materials and make them accessible to the rest of the class. You will also need to be able to write programs that use network resources and allow others in the class to have access to your programs. You will have an account on the department computers for this purpose. You may use other computers as long as the access requirements are met.

Access to G43 (The Networks Lab) will be available when you need it. The room is restricted to students in networking courses.  You will be given wildcard access.  Please do not allow others into the room.    The reason for this restriction is to allow adequate computing resources to support the networking courses and to give us freedom to do some experimenting that would not be appropriate for a general purpose laboratory.  Please respect the rules and do not give access to others.
 
 























Grading
Your performance will be assessed based on regular, active participation in and contribution to the class discussions; some homework assignments such as the Web page creation, a project that you will design and implement; several class presentations of varying length. I prefer not to have examinations unless it seems necessary for the integrity of the course. An important component of class participation is finding related material for this course on the Web and submitting the links to be added to the class page.  You will be required to provide a written review of at least two such pages submitted by others.

Here is a starting point for a grading plan:
Grades available are A, B, C and F, with + / - options on the A, B, C grades.

1.  Do everything that is required for the course (submit every assignment on time, complete and correct), attend every class and participate actively.
        ===> B
2.  Do less than what is required, grade goes down.  The amount depends on how much is neglected.
3.  Do more than what is required, the grade goes up.  Again, the amount of increase depends on the degree of excellence of the work.

        Examples of extra effort (others are possible):

  1. More web pages than required
  2. More reviews than required
  3. Contribute to the class beyond being present and participating.  For example, initiate discussions, followup on questions that come up and report back later, etc.
  4. Do more than the basic requirement in each project.  For example, include additional functionality that enhances the project.  Please note, extra features do not count if the basic requirements are not met. Including features that reflect your understanding of theory aspects of the course is another example of a strong project that would earn credit beyond the basic score.   If you do a paper as one of the projects, you could have an exceptional list of references, push against the upper limit of paper length, do a particularly good exposition or analysis of your topic.

 
 
Dr. Lillian N. Cassel

(610) 519-7341
lillian.cassel@villanova.edu