Syllabus (Tentative)
Contact information
Instructor: Aijuan Dong
Office: Hodson 254
Office Telephone: 301.696.3884
Email address: dong@hood.edu Please give all messages pertaining to this class a subject line which begins with "IT 581".
Office hours: before and after class, drop by, or by appointment.
Course Descriptions
This class will be taught in a "hybrid" fashion, which means a combination of traditional face-to-face classroom meetings with online learning. General information about hybrid course information can be found here(draft). The Instructor will provide an orientation on the first scheduled on campus day of class(July 6th).
This course covers the technologies and issues associated with developing World Wide Web information sites. Topics include authoring techniques, site conception, site structure and navigational design, graphics and multimedia issues, server-side and client-side programming options, portability and maintenance issues, and security.
Learning Outcomes
Upon satisfactory completion of this course, the students will be able to:
- Understand the basic concepts and principles of the World Wide Web and distributed documents.
- Be proficient in using HTML and CSS.
- Be familiar with some basic web application development tools.
- Be able to develop web applications using a systematic design method.
- Understand current issues in the development of web technologies and applications.
- Be able to evaluate a web site with regards to accessibility and maintainability.
Prerequisites:
- A minimum of B- in IT 514, or permission of the instructor.
- You must be familiar and comfortable with using general computer software applications.
- You should be able to plan and write a short report in standard English.
- Patience--developing computer applications requires lots of patience and can easily suck up lots of your time.
- Curiosity--You need to like problem solving; be unafraid to make mistakes, but willing to learn from them; and be willing to try new things.
Textbook
This course will not rely on any one specific textbook. We will use a variety of books and other resources. The most economical way to obtain access to the books is to subscribe to Safari Books Online. Safari Books Online offers online access to thousands of professional books (and some training videos), primarily on technical subjects.
Main recommended (not required) books for the semester [indicates how the book will be referred to]:
- HTML5: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by Matthew MacDonald. O'Reilly Publishers Missing Manual series. A beginning introduction to HTML5. [HTML5]
- CSS3: The Missing Manual, Third Edition by David Sawyer McFarland. A beginning introduction to CSS. [CSS3]
- Learning Web Design , 4th Edition by Jennifer Niederst Robbins. O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2012, ISBN-13: 978-1-4493-1927-4. [LWD]
Additional online course references will be indicated in the class topic outlines and notes.
Course Components and Evaluation
Labs and Projects: Roughly, 2 projects(including final project), and 10-15 labs are planned. Additional assignments/labs can be arranged if deemed necessary during the semester. Check the instruction of each assignment/lab for due date. Submit an electronic copy of your completed assignment/lab through the assignment link on Blackboard on or prior to the due time on the due date.
Online Participations: There might be online discussions on various topics. Details and requirments will be provided for each discussion topic.
Grading: At the end of the term, I will compute final grades based on assignments, labs, exam performance, and class attendances and participation. The grading will be relative or "on the curve", i.e., the performance of a student relative to the class will be important.
Labs 60 percent Projects 30 percent Class participation 10 percent
Course letter grades will be assigned according to the following scales:
Score Letter Grade 90.0 - 100.0 A 87.5 - 89.9 A- 85.0 - 87.4 B+ 80.0 - 84.9 B 77.5 - 79.9 B- 75.0 - 77.4 C+ 70.0 - 74.9 C 67.5 - 69.9 C- 65.0 - 67.4 D+ 60.0 - 64.9 D 57.5 - 59.9 D- less than 57.5 F
Course Policies
Make-up Work and Late Homework Assignments:
- In-class labs/projects that are due at the end of class sessions will not be accepted late, but no penalty on submissions within 24 hours. You should complete and submit them promptly.
- outside-class work (except lab 01 and lab 02), including labs/projects that are not due at the end of class session, late submissions will be penalized 10% of the possible score for each day past due.
- Partially completed labs and assignments may receive partial credit.
- Work that has not been turned in will receive a grade of zero.
- Students who add the course during the drop-add period will not be penalized for late work that was assigned before they joined the class.
Missed classes. You are responsible for all work covered or handed out in class. If you miss a class, find out what you miss.
Prepare for class. Read over the assigned lesson notes, examples, and lab exercise notes before class. Refer back to them as you work on assignments. If you are not prepared, you may have difficulty completing the lab exercises in the class time allotted.
Allow sufficient out-of-class time. The usual rough estimate of out-of-class time required is that each 50 minute class "hour" requires two hours or more of reading, homework, and other out-of-class work, so you should plan for at least 6-8 hours per week for outside-of-class time for this course.
Acknowledge sources. On the Web, it is generally acceptable to imitate and use ideas from another site; it is not acceptable to take big chunks of source code or the pages from others. You must properly cite any sources you use; the citations must indicate clearly and specifically which elements were used.
Your individual assignment work must be your own. You may not copy another student's individual assignment code (or allow yours to be copied) or otherwise use portions of another student's individual assignment code in your own individual work. You may ask someone to review your written work for English spelling and syntax errors.
Except for viewing published html pages through the browser, you may not look at the contents of another student's files or directories, even if the files are world readable. FTP and shell commands are logged and the logs are reviewed for security purposes. Reading another student's homework files is considered cheating and will be dealt with appropriately.
You should not provide an index to your individual homework on your published pages.
You may use and adapt any part of the class examples from lectures and notes and from the assigned textbooks.
Netiquette: During online discussion, Be polite and respectful to fellow online participants by avoiding 1) obscene language; 2) all-caps type, which is perceived as shouting; 3) repeating the same sentence continuously; and 4) "flaming" others with emotional or angry messages.
Acceptable Use Policies You must adhere to the Acceptable Use Policies for wyrd.hood.edu.
What You Need: Essential Tools
The labs should have everything ready to use. When you work on your own computer, you may need to install some additional programs. Most of the following programs are all free. You can download them from the indicated sites to install your own computer.
A Web Browser with integrated error reporting
- Mozilla Firefox is a free and feature-full browser that can be downloaded from mozilla.com. It can be enhanced with add-on extensions. Firefox is installed in the labs. All class examples will be developed using Firefox.
- The Web Developer Toolbar Firefox add-on is especially valuable for this course.
- Google Chrome is fast and free. You can download it from https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/.
A text or programming editor:
This is not the same as a word processor such as Microsoft Word. A word processor puts a lot of extra information about formatting in the document. A text editor just saves the characters that you typed.
You can use Windows Notepad, but there are better alternatives.
- Crimson Editor (http://www.crimsoneditor.com/), a professional text editor for Windows, with tabbed multiple documents, syntax highlighting, and more. Free. It is installed in the labs.
- EditPad (http://www.jgsoft.com/) Lite for Windows with tabbed multiple documents,. It shows line numbers and lets you find and replace across multiple documents. It is installed in the labs. There is also a Pro version with more features, including syntax highlighting. The Pro version is not free, but has a 30-day demo.
- Other editors include Noteepad++, JEdit, TextWrangler, VI, or EMACS.
File transfer Utility
When you publish your documents on the web, you need to transfer them to a web server, a computer that is identified on the Internet, such as wyrd.hood.edu. For this you need a special program called a File Transfer Program, or FTP utility. You can download and use either putty or SSH or any other similar program of your choice.
If you are working off campus, you must use a Secure FTP, or SFTP, program. The SSH Secure Client is installed in the labs. It provides both remote login and FTP capabilities
Some other tools which may be useful
- Raster graphics - GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/downloads/) Free equivalent of Adobe Photoshop
- Vector graphics - Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/download/) Free equivalent of Corel Draw/Adobe Illustrator
Scheduling
Lectures: MW 06:00PM-09:10PM at HT 113
Laboratory: HT 113 (The Windows lab)
see the Weekly Topics page for a complete list of topics and labs/projects.
Speicical Notes
- The instructor reserves the right to change any aspect of the syllabus with at least one week advance notice.
- Class announcements supersede what we have in this syllabus.
- Any grade dispute should be within one week after a grade is posted.
Acknowledgement: This syllabus and the materials used for this course is largely based on Dr. Chang's previous teaching.