(Latest Revision -- 02/05/2007)

Course Description
for Communication Networks: CS 3000

TERM: Spring 2007

CLASS CODES:

20418 CS 3000 001 Communication Networks Lec 3.0 MW 12:20-13:18: P-102, (Demergasso-Bava Hall)
20419 CS 3002 001 Communication Networks Lab 0.0 F 12:20-13:18: P-102, (Demergasso-Bava Hall)

INSTRUCTOR: John Sarraillé, Professor of Computer Science

OFFICE: P-286, (Demergasso-Bava Hall), Cal State Stanislaus

OFFICE HOURS: Mon-Wed-Fri 11:15-12:15 or by appointment
(Office hours commence on Wednesday, Feb 14, 2007 and end on Wednesday May 23, 2007.
There are no regular office hours on tuesdays, thursdays or holidays.)

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 (see below) 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 file download/transfer utilities (ftp and sftp), electronic mail (e-mail), the world wide web, message & chat service, IP telephone, electronic bulletin boards (Usenet), and logging in to remote computers (ssh, telnet & rlogin). For the more technically minded there are such things as arp, whois, ping, netstat, traceroute, dig, nslookup, WAIS, DNS, LDAP, and (of course) HTML.

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

REQUIRED TEXTS:
  1. Computer Networks and Internets (Bk/CD-ROM), 4/e, by Douglas E. Comer & Ralph E. Droms, published by Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-143351-2. 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:

REQUIRED EQUIPMENT:

You need an account on the Computer Science Department Sun Ultra's. Let me know if don't have one. You can submit an online form, or just tell me sometime.

NETWORK AVAILABILITY OF COURSE MATERIALS:

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

http://www.cs.csustan.edu/~john/Classes/CS3000/

Also, numerous learning aids are available here:

http://www.netbook.cs.purdue.edu/index.htm

at the textbook's web site. Much or all of that material is contained on the CD that comes with the book.

BASIC SCHEDULE INFO:

Class meets MWF from 12:20-13:18 in P-102.

You must sign up separately for CS 3000 (lecture) and CS 3002 (lab). Each class session is a mixture of lab and lecture activities. 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 three hours per week of in-class time, expect to spend about six to nine 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, three 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.