Computer Networks Overview
- The lecturer
- Phil Scott. I will normally be in my office during working
hours. My office phone number is 5444 7277.
See also, electronic mail
- The tutor
- Phil Scott and Ross Brown will be sharing the tutorials.
A tutorial
selection sheet will appear near my (Phil's) office this week.
- The subject
- This subject is special in 1997, because it can be taken
as an "Internet-offered" subject, or
in a conventional lecture
and tutorial mode.
- 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, what's this first assignment?
Internet Offering
This subject is one of three being offered in "Internet" mode.
This means that you can study Computer Networks from home in
a kind of distance education environment. All subject material 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.
The difference between
this Internet mode and traditional distance education is that of
interactivity. We will be using various techniques to
allow on-line discussion, attempting to simulate the environment
of the traditional tutorial. Because this is the first time we
have tried this mode, and because the subject concerns the
actual technology being used, we should try lots of different
approaches as the semester unfolds.
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?
- Monday at 2pm and Friday at 9am.
- Can the lecture times be changed?
- No.
- What happens with tutes?
- You have to choose one tute to follow the Monday lecture, and
one for the Friday lecture.
- How do public holidays affect this subject in 1997?
- Badly. This semester we have two Monday public holidays
(Labour Day and Queen's Birthday), and two Friday public holidays
(Good Friday and Anzac Day). This means we lose four lectures,
meaning only 22 lectures are available. As a result, the subject
will be pretty tightly constrained for time.
Support Services
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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Phil Scott