The official source of this page has moved to gulf. You will be transported there in about 10 seconds (I hope).

University of Victoria, Department of Computer Science

CS485/CS586 S01, January-April 1996
-Topics in Systems: Advanced Webology -

[Content] | [PreReqs] | [Projects] | [Notes] | [Links]

Course Content

This is a course covering advanced topics concerning the WWW. The course will have limited enrollment and be run seminar style, with all participants making at least one presentation. The initial presentations will be made by the instructors. Successive presentations will be made by the students and outside speakers.

Prerequisites

The pre-requisites are CS 320 and permission of the instructor(s). Class size is limited to 20.

*** We have now selected and notified the 20 students that made it into the course, as well as the others that didn't. If you didn't get notified, one way or the other, please contact one of us. Sorry, but we couldn't accept everybody. We hope to offer the course again soon. ***

Text

There is no formal text for the course. There will be a variety of readings and handouts and a small library of WWW books and source material will be made available to students in the course.

Grading

Each student will undertake a substantial project, make a seminar presentation, and be expected to participate in all seminar sessions. Your grade is based on the quality of your project and presentation.

Room and times

The course will run TWF from 9:30-10:30 (I-block). Note: We will not meet in ELW B220 as originally announced. Instead our classroom is Elliott 165. This room has an ethernet connection and we will use this to hook up a laptop to the internet.

Instructors

Michael Levy and Frank Ruskey

About the instructors

Michael Levy is a long-time net afficiondo. He runs an e-zine on magic on the WWW and recently finished a sabbatical at Softwords, one of Victoria's internet providers.

Frank Ruskey is a relative, but keen, net newcomer. He is in the process of developing an object server, a mathematical tool that provides the user with lists of combinatorial objects.

Potential topics

Web browsers: SGML, HTML and parsing. Forgiving parsers. Error recovery strategies.
Copyright and legal issues on the net.
The HTTP Protocol and its variants.
Advanced Stateless Protocols. Alternatives to the Server-Client model.
Internet applications and programming languages.
Creating and using forms, and the ins and outs of PERL.
Using sound and movies.
Java and Internet Applets. Advantages, Risks.
What are the future developments on the web?
Graphic rendering: bandwidth vs. quality.
What is electronic money and how does on-line betting work?
Security issues on the WWW.
RSA Public-Key encryption, sHTTP, SSL and other secure-transfer protocols.

Invited Speakers

We will invite a number of people with specialized knowledge or interesting Web applications to speak to the class. Possibilities include representatives of BC Telecom and Cable companies, Internet Providers, Designers, a Lawyer, some of our own technical staff.

Initial lecture schedule

Introduction to the internet.
SGML and HTML.
An overview of TCP/IP with emphasis on HTTP.
Forms, PERL, and CGI.
More Forms, PERL, and CGI.
Java and more Java.

Potential projects

Course Materials:

A small collection of books and other material will be kept in the department reading room ELW ???. You may obtain a key from a computer science to get into the room during regular hours. Please don't remove this material from the room.

Accounts and Things:

You should all have an account on csc.uvic.ca. Put your course page(s) in a directory named .www. Java is available on the machine valdes.uvic.ca which accesses your gulf directory. We will maintain a list of your home pages.

Messages:

Setting up web pages on gulf.