Lecture 1: Computer Networks Overview

Computer Networks Overview

The lecturer (and tutor)

Phil Scott. I will normally be in my office during working hours. My office phone number is 5444 7277. See also, electronic mail.

Textbooks and references

In particular, how come there's no text book? What should we do in relation to buying a book? Are there other sources of information for this subject?

Assessment

Comes in two parts:

The Exam
Assignments. In particular, watch for the first assignment.

Internet Assisted Mode

This subject is offered in this mode in first semester only. It means that you can study Computer Networks from home in a "kind of" distance education environment. All subject material (including tutorial solutions) will be available on the Web, and students can dial in to the campus or connect to the Web pages via their own local Internet Service Provider.

Students taking the unit in this mode normally attend the campus for a number of Saturday afternoon meetings through the semester. At these sessions, we generally work through the tutorial sheets and discuss the subject material. It's regarded as the student's own responsibility to read and understand the lecture material on the Web.

Conventional Classroom Offering

For those students who are resident at or near the Bendigo campus, the subject is also being offered in conventional classroom mode.
Issues which are relevant to this mode of delivery are:

When are the lectures?: Wednesday at 9am and Friday at 11am.
Can the lecture times be changed?: No. Absolutely not. Well, maybe...
What happens with tutes?: You have to choose one tute to follow the Wednesday lecture (Group A tutes), and one for the Friday lecture (Group B tutes). Tutes always follow the lecture. This is a bit weird in 2000, because it means that the four tutes on Tuesday cover the material in the preceding Friday lecture. You can now register for tutorials in this unit using our new On-line Tute Registration System. Please use this facility, and report any problems which you may have with it. You need to your LTU login name and student number for authentication using this system, but NOT your LTU password.

Support Services

Electronic mail. This should be your preferred method of contacting your lecturer, whose mail address is: P.Scott@latrobe.edu.au Early in the semester (but not yet), I will expect you to communicate with me using email to confirm that my mail alias for this subject is up-to-date. Note that you should always use a subject line of the form:
```
Subject: [BITCNE] rest of subject line
```
if you want to ensure that I read your mail.
Note: later in the semester I will be distributing a guide to electronic submission of assignments. The email address for assignment submission is different from your lecturer's normal email address. Do not attempt to send ordinary email to the assignment submission address.
Newsgroup: latrobe.bendigo.comp.dcom - not so important as the subject Web page, but still useful for its interactivity.
The World Wide Web (WWW). This is the important one. All students should be able to use Netscape, Internet Explorer, Opera, iCab (an excellent Mac-only browser), lynx or whatever other browser you might prefer to access the BITCNE home page. The home page may found at:

http://ironbark.bendigo.latrobe.edu.au/subjects/bitcne/

The Subject Area

Computer Networks are the biggest Big New Thing for decades. They are now of central importance to all of Information Technology. With the recent explosive growth of the Internet, they are rapidly becoming of crucial importance to all of modern society. It is absolutely certain that you will need to know about networks and network technology to survive in the IT workplace.

This subject aims to give a solid overview of the technologies and philosophies that are needed to understand how computer networks are built, and can be used. It also examines, in part, why some apparently illogical things are the way they are, and how human foibles can affect technology.

One crucial aspect of the subject is that it will not shy away from discussion of the "P" word (politics) where this is necessary to understand the technology.

This lecture is also available in PostScript format. There is no tutorial for this lecture.
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