 |
CS/INFO
431
Architecture of Web Information Systems
Spring 2006
General
Information |
Schedules
| Lectures: |
Monday and Wednesday - 1:25-2:15 - Hollister 110 |
| Discussion Section: |
Friday - 1:25-2:15 - Hollister 110 |
| Instructor: |
Carl Lagoze, lagoze@cs.cornell.edu
Information Science, 301 College Ave.
255-6046
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/lagoze |
| Instructor's Office Hours: |
Wednesday - 2:30-4:00 or by Appt. |
| Instructor's Assistant: |
Susan Moskwa,
moskwa@cs.cornell.edu
Information Science, 301 College Ave.
255-5925 |
| Teaching Assistants: |
Blazej Kot, bjk45@cornell.edu
301 College Ave.
Information Science, 301 College Ave.
255-4564 |
| TA Office Hours |
Monday - 11:00-12:00 or by Appt. |
Assumed Background
Students are expected to have Java programming expertise and knowledge of
computer systems, data structures, and algorithms commensurate with completion
of CS211. Course Structure and Student
Responsibilities
Lectures
I try to make my lecture style as
interactive as possible. My goal is to engage students in the lecture process
and encourage questions and comments. At times I will spontaneously ask for
input, thinking, and opinions from students in lecture. You should come to
lecture prepared to think about the materials presented and how they relate to
the overall course content and readings, and recognize that your role in lecture is a
reflection of your overall scholarly attitude towards the course.
Readings
The subject of the
course is a dynamic area. Most of the material in the course is the result of
recent research and implementation. Fortunately almost all of
this work is available through papers on the open-source Web. Readings are
assigned for each week's discussion section are listed in the reading schedule.
At a
minimum, students are supposed to read the readings. To provide the
incentive for doing this, I've tried to make the readings sufficiently
interesting and informative. As an extra incentive, students will need to
complete a short set of questions about the readings.
The questions will be
available every Wednesday evening and will be due before the next section
meeting on Friday. The questions will be short, designed to make sure that the assigned papers have been read. These
questions will be graded.
Discussion Section
Beyond just looking at the readings, students are expected to approach each week's readings critically
and understand how they compliment, or perhaps disagree, with lecture content. Are the ideas
sound? What are the alternatives and trade-offs? How well do the ideas fit into
the larger information context? What are the barriers to success: technical,
social, legal, and economic.
Weekly sections are meant to be a forum for discussing these critical reactions,
driven by student participation and NOT by instructor or teaching assistant
presentations. The amount of section participation and the degree to
which it represents critical and content-based thinking is an important criteria
of grading.
Reaction Papers
Reaction papers are another
vehicle for integrating information from readings and lectures. Each paper is a
critical evaluation of two papers, one of which is chosen from assigned readings
and another chosen at the discretion of the student.
Reaction papers are due every three weeks. The tentative reaction paper
due dates are February 10, March 3, March 31, April 21, and May 12 at 11:59PM.
More
details about reaction papers are given on the
readings page.
Programming Projects
Work in the area of
web information systems requires the ability to understand and use protocols,
markup languages, and integrate tools. The course projects provide
students with
the opportunity to gain expertise in these areas. Students will work in groups
of 2. Grades will be awarded based on the final product of the group and each
student's contribution to the work of the group. The
tentative project due dates are April 3 and May 15 at 11:59PM.
Project details are available
on the assignments page.
Books
All required readings are available on the Web. The project assignments
require use of XML and related tools. Sudents don't have to buy any books, because
there are considerable sources of information on the Web. However, a real book
is sometimes a help and here are some suggestions (all available from Amazon):
Final course grades will be based on project assignments, reaction
papers, and scholarly attitude. The last criteria is a combination of
participation, attendance, and conscientiousness (taking the time to complete
the weekly questionnaires is one demonstration of this) . The weightings given to these
components are roughly as follows:
| Project |
40% |
| Reaction Papers |
40% |
| Scholarly attitude |
20% |
An excellent
student, deserving an "A", is one who excels in all three areas
Course E-mail
Students are responsible for keeping track of all course e-email. Every
message sent will have the prefix "CS/INFO 431:" on the subject line. Make
sure that your spam filter is configured to let course e-mail through.
Similarly, all mail to the instructor and TA should have the prefix "CS/INFO
431:" on the subject line. Mail not sent with that prefix may be lost in
spam, endless lists, etc.
Feedback Responsibility
Like any Cornell course, the goal of CS431 is to provide
the context for students to learn about a subject area that the instructor finds
relevant and interesting. Students should expect that the course meets their
expectations, is stimulating, and worthy of their time. I hope to convince many
of you that you might want to engage in future work in this area. It is your
responsibility to tell me if the course fails to meet these expectations - your
feedback is necessary to making this semester successful.
[ CS/INFO 431 Home Page ]
Carl Lagoze (lagoze@cs.cornell.edu)
Last changed: 02/21/2006