Syllabus: BADM 354: Management of Data Communications
Term: Spring 2008
Location: 136 Armory
Time: MW Class 11:30 pm - 12:50 pm
Final: TBA
Credits: 3.0
Instructor: John Burke
Email:
Mailbox: 350 Wohlers Hall
Office Hours: By appointment
Text: Network+, by Robert J. Shimonski, ISBN:1-931836-42-6
This text is one of the more popular textbooks for networking, and is available online for roughly $25.00 to $30.00, and $16.00 for the electronic version!
How to contact: If you need to contact me, email is by far the easiest way. I usually check my email several times a day, and should respond to you within 24 hours. During vacation or weekend hours, responses may take longer.
As a TA I am often forced to juggle many responsibilities, and I may not be able to meet with you at your convenience. Please do not take this personally, and understand that I will do my best to accommodate you, unfortunately this may not always be possible.
Please see me if you are having a problem with some aspect of the course, but also keep in mind that our meetings are not only a time to address problems. I'd be happy to talk with you about your areas of special interest. I enjoy teaching and I enjoy talking with you. If you have questions or just want to explore an idea, email me. However, this does not mean I will do your homework for you, or hold your hand while you complete an assignment.
Finally, when you try to conduct business with me in the moments before class starts, I sometimes feel harried and can't give your question or issue the attention it deserves. It's much better if you make an appointment to discuss your concern or to send me an email.
Introduction:
Management of Data Communications. This is a standard course taken by most computer professionals at one time or another in their career, usually at an undergraduate level, but often at the graduate level as well. As such, not only will it hopefully help you understand networking, but it should also serve as a link to many people you will come into contact with over the coming years. In particular, people who will interview you for jobs!
Because this class is about computer systems, some of the course will be based on teamwork while using computers. Therefore you must take responsibility for interacting with your classmates and me and for willingly using computers. Computers are meant to help you. Consider them as part of your team. However, sometimes team members don’t always work well together, so be prepared for an occasional glitch, or problem. These problems are meant to be part of the learning experience, and won’t affect your grade very much or at all so long as it was not due to your leaving everything to the last minute. Assignments will be short and frequent to help prevent such a situation.
Goals of the Course:
A principal objective of this course is to improve your knowledge of networking. By the end of the course hopefully you will understand both the logical and physical parts of a network.
For those of you who wish to pursue a career in networking, this course can serve as a stepping-stone to the Network+ and CCNA exams. That is, if you study hard for this course, you should be prepared to start studying for the Network+ and CCNA exams. These are difficult exams, but well worth your time.
Finally, you will be exposed to much of the jargon and background material used by computer professionals. Do you know the difference between Ethernet and Token Ring? Do you know what Cisco does? Why would a company choose to use a router, a switch or a Gateway?
More succinctly, these can be broken down into the following three goals. Hopefully you will:
· Learn the popular logical and physical parts of a network
· Be prepared to start studying for the Network+ or CCNA exams.
· Learn some of the jargon of computer professionals
·
Topics are designed to be brief, to involve students, and to be useful for avoiding the comment: "How could you have gone to college and not know ___?!"
Teaching Method:
This course is primarily a lecture course, presented in module form, supplemented with discussion. I have purposely broken the material in short segments to facilitate its absorption. During a typical class period, I will begin with general business, and then will present two (approximately 30 minute) segments of material broken up by a "topic of the day" or some other activity.
To break up my lectures and keep us all alert, I may call on you for your ideas on a subject during class. This is not to punish you. It is to find out what you think, what your experiences have been, and to gauge how well I am doing based on your understanding of the material. Do not take it personally, and keep in mind that you will be asked questions on the job.
It is important to practice responding to questions both intelligently and professionally, even if the only answer you can give is “I don’t know”. In fact, because the field of Information Systems is so vast, you will often not know the exactly correct answer to a given question, and the same applies to me. I may defer an answer to one of your questions to another class depending on its relevance to our current topic, the relevance to the current course, and my knowledge of the specific topic you bring up. “I’ll get back to you” is a very common and usually safe answer in the computer field, but not on our quizzes and tests.
Expectations:
You can expect me to:
· Plan the course AND alter that plan as needed. I believe the best curriculum comes from the student. That means that we will take advantage of unforeseen events that capture our interest, and then juggle the class topics as necessary.
· Give you feedback – both written and oral. I take the assignments in this class seriously, and have made giving feedback a top priority.
· Bring my expertise into the classroom. This includes formal study, professional experience and development, and stories from real life. I believe that we can learn through stories. (You, too, are encouraged to bring stories to class to stimulate discussion.)
· Be patient when you are struggling with ideas. To me, the struggle reveals that learning is taking place.
· Provide clarity when the struggle gets too strong.
· Be open about options. I think it’s great when students bring ideas of how to form a class session or perhaps request a topic.
· Treat you, as adult learners, with respect.
Here is what I expect from you:
· Participation in class, which includes, showing up, speaking up and listening.
· Effort to make this class your own. In other words, what will you do to foster your learning?
· Completion of assignments – including the reading.
· College-level quality writing: legible and proofread. Assignments should be typed. If there are a significant number of errors or if it is difficult to read, the assignment will be returned to you prior to grading for changes. In most cases, your assignment will then be late and docked points.
· Honesty. Cheating and plagiarism are unacceptable as per the university code of conduct.
· Courage. Courage to challenge what you read or hear (even from me). Courage to talk with me if there are concerns – before they become burdensome.
It is especially important that you listen to students, whose opinions differ from you own, and challenging the opinions while remaining respectful of the individuals who hold them. You are expected to be attentive during class, ask questions if you do not understand something, and participate in class discussions. You are also expected to listen respectfully to other students and me when we are speaking.
Work:
Reading:
Is required and should be done before class as assigned.
Tests:
There will be multiple quizzes during the semester (you will be able to drop 1). They will be short and based on the assigned reading and “Assigned Topics”. The questions are designed to test that you have read and understood the material. They will be multiple choice/true false/fill in the blank type questions, with an occasional longer essay or problem thrown in.
There will be an in class Mid-term and a Final given during finals week at the assigned time. The questions will be similar to those on the quizzes, with some longer essay/problem solving questions. These longer questions will be to test that you can use the tools that you have studied to solve relatively simple problems.
Assigned Topics:
20% of your grade will be based on Assigned Topics. There will be 5 such assignments. Each will be on a networking subject that is on the Network+ exam. You will create a study guide for that topic that will prepare other students for the Network+ exam. Each topic can be finished in three pages maximum, and more likely in much less.
Behavior and Professionalism:
An important part of the class involves group work and class time. Unprofessional and/or disruptive behavior will not be tolerated, either within your group or during class. This should not be a problem for 99.99% of students, but any such behavior will be dealt with severely. Any behavior deemed inappropriate, at my discretion, will result in a minimum reduction in the student’s final grade by one letter grade for each incident regardless of how the student does in other parts of the class. It may also result in further action by the College/University discipline committee:
Inappropriate behavior includes, but is not limited to, cheating, bullying, plagiarizing, being disrespectful to other members of the class etc. Should a major disagreement occur with me or another student, the general rule is to take it up outside of class.
Evaluation: Weight: Goal:
Quizzes 20% Jargon and Analysis
Midterm 20% Jargon and Analysis
Final 30% Jargon and Analysis
Assigned Topics 20% Jargon and Critical Thinking
Instructor’s evaluation 10%