(Latest Revision -- 10/10/00)

Course Description
for Communication Networks: CS 3000

TERM: Winter 2001

CLASS CODES:

10025 CS 3000 001 Communication Networks Lec 3.0 Tu-Wed-Thur 09:00-11:00

10026 CS 3002 001 Communication Networks Lab 0.0 Tu-Wed-Thur 11:01-12:00

INSTRUCTOR: John Sarraille, Professor of Computer Science

OFFICE: P-286, Professional Schools Building, Cal State Stanislaus

OFFICE HOURS: Tu-Wed-Thur 12:30-2:30; or by appointment

E-MAIL: john@ishi.csustan.edu

HOMEPAGE: http://www.cs.csustan.edu/~john/jsHomepage.html

PREREQUISITES:

You have to be adequately prepared for taking this course, CS 3000. Check with me if you have not passed Computer Programming II (CS 2500), or the equivalent.

COURSE COVERAGE & OBJECTIVES:

Networking is something you learn in layers. We are going to read most of the Comer book in order to learn networking starting from the lowest level and proceeding upwards. We'll be concentrating on how the Internet works, but the lessons will apply more generally.

In parallel, we will work on making sure that everyone in the class has exposure to some basic networking applications. Some of the ones popular with general audiences are electronic mail (e-mail), the world wide web, Internet electronic bulletin boards (Usenet), IRC's, file transfer utilities (FTP), and logging into remote computers (telnet and rlogin). For the more technically minded there are such things as arp, whois, ping, netstat, traceroute, nslookup, WAIS, and even HTML.

We also want to make sure that everybody gets some hands on exposure to networking.

RELATION TO COGS 3100:

Unfortunately, an error in the 1999-2001 Catalog states that CS 3000 is the "same as" COGS 3100. This is not true. CS 3000 and COGS 3100 are two completely separate and different courses. CS 3000 is a course on networking primarily for computer science majors. It counts as an elective in the CSU Stanislaus Computer Science Major. COGS 3100 is for non-majors. CSU Stanislaus Computer Science students cannot count it as an elective.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

  1. Computer Networks and Internets (Bk/CD-ROM), 2/e, by Douglas E. Comer & Ralph E. Droms, published by Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-083617-6. http://www.netbook.cs.purdue.edu/index.htm

  2. You are required to have a good comprehensive unix reference book. Buy one of the books listed below, or something equivalent:


    I asked the bookstore to stock UNIX in a Nutshell: System V Edition, 3rd Edition.
REQUIRED EQUIPMENT:

You need an account on the Computer Science Department Sun Ultra's. Let me know if don't have one.

NETWORK AVAILABILITY OF COURSE MATERIALS:

Course documents, assignments, supplements, and so on will be available in the class web space:

http://shalim.csustan.edu/~john/Classes/CS3000_CommunicationNets/

Also, the CD-ROM that comes with the Comer text book is available on line here:

http://axiscd.csustan.edu/cd/Communication_Nets/

BASIC SCHEDULE INFO:

Class meets Tu-Wed-Thur 09:00-12:00 in P-101.

You must sign up separately for CS 3000 (lecture) and CS 3002 (lab). Each class session is a mixture of lab and lecture activities. Class will always begin in P-101 at 9:00. When we need to, we will go to P-288 for hands-on computer work.

I expect you to attend all classes and to keep current with everything that's happening.

In addition to your nine hours of in-class time, expect to spend twenty-five to thirty-five hours per week doing work related to CS 3000. I base this estimate on the assumption that in a normal fifteen-week semester a college student works a total of three to four hours per week for every unit carried.

TESTS & GRADING:

Your course grade depends on four components: homework assignments, three quizzes on the material in Comer, four article reviews, and a course project.

Normally, your course grade will be computed by giving equal weight to your homework average, quiz average, reviews average, and project grade. The exception is that you have to get a passing score in all four categories to pass the course.