The Exam Plan

Question 1: Application Protocols
Lecture 4:
Basic Applications (Telnet and FTP)
Lecture 5:
Applications #2 (Electronic Mail)
Lecture 6:
Applications #3 (HTTP and the Web)
Question 2: Network Protocols
Lecture 3:
The TCP Protocol
Lecture 8:
Introduction to IP
Lecture 9:
Domain Name System
Question 3: Network Technology
Lecture 10:
Point to Point Data Links
Lecture 11:
Multiaccess Networks
Lecture 12:
Telecommunications Services #1
Lecture 13:
Telecommunications Services #2
Question 4: Network Management
Lecture 14:
ASN.1 and BER Intro
Lecture 15:
Network Management #1
Lecture 16:
Network Management #2
Question 5: Security
Lecture 17:
Firewalls and Network Security
Lecture 18:
Encryption #1
Lecture 19:
Encryption #2
Question 6: Electronic Commerce
Lecture 20:
Electronic Commerce basics and EDI
Lecture 21:
FORMs and CGI programming
Lecture 22:
Web Commerce


More Information

The following lectures are not explicitly examined:
Lecture 1: Computer Networks Overview
Lecture 2: A Network Architecture Example
Lecture 7: The Programming Interface (sockets, etc)


Exam Hints

There will be three kinds of questions on the exam:

  1. Questions taken from last year's exam, perhaps with some slight modifications to remove ambiguity or to change the emphasis. At a guess, these would add up to about 50 marks. This means you could almost pass the exam just by studying last year's paper.
  2. Questions derived from the tutorials, often with the wording changed slightly to ensure a single correct answer. Questions in this category have not necessarily appeared on exams before. These total about 40 marks this year. This means that if you know the answers to all the tute questions, and you study old exam papers, you could do very well.
  3. Brand new questions, taken from the lecture notes, and requiring deeper understanding and appreciation of the discipline to answer fully. In many cases these are developed from tute questions, or older exam papers, but are worded quite differently. These make up the remainder of the paper - about 30 marks, or 25% of the total.


If You Enjoyed It

Finally, the advertising.

If you enjoyed this subject, you should investigate: (delivered by Phil Scott):

BITDCO: Data Communications
Data Communications covers the technical aspects of Computer Networks in much more detail. It actually overlaps slightly with BITCNE: Computer Networks, because of
  1. The nature of the subject area. The Network (IP) and Transport (TCP/UDP) layers are covered in both, but in more detail in BITDCO.
  2. A large proportion of students take only one of BITCNE and BITDCO, and it's important that they don't miss these important topics.
BITDCO: Data Communications is only offered in second semester.

Finally, if you're sure you've failed (:-( you can probably re-enrol in BITCNE in second semester - I'm not sure who will be teaching it this year, probably me as well.


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