CSCI 105(F) Understanding the Web: Technologies and Techniques

This course will enable students to understand the technology that underlies the World Wide Web and provide them with the skills needed to effectively use this new medium. The course introduces techniques for creating hypermedia documents on the web. Students will learn the basics of HTML, the formatting language used to author World Wide Web documents, and a subset of Java, a language that can be used to add interactive elements to web pages. The technology that makes the Web possible is developing as rapidly as its use is growing. New facilities from frames to VRML are introduced frequently. The HTML "standard" is evolving in several directions simultaneously as vendors introduce competing extensions. Accordingly, rather than simply learning how to use the Web as it is today, we will also examine the fundamental technologies that make the Web possible. These include digital encoding techniques, computer network organization, communication protocols and encryption systems. This material will leave students prepared to understand future possibilities for and obstacles to the development of the Internet. This course will emphasize hands-on laboratory experience. In the labs, students will develop their own hypermedia documents. They will also experiment with and expand upon Java programs. This course does not assume any programming experience, but assumes that the student is comfortable working with a computer.
Evaluation will be based on project work and exams. This course is not open to students who have successfully completed a Computer Science course numbered 136 or above. Enrollment limited to 72.

Hour: MURTAGH