6523 Syllabus
CSc 6523
Summer, 2024
Topics in Networking
3 Credits
Instructor:Tom Bennet
Office:302 MCC
Phone:601-925-3815
Email:bennet@mc.edu
Text:ACM Digital Library
Web Page:https://sandbox.mc.edu/~bennet/cs6523b/syl.html

A study of computer networking theory and application. Prerequisites: CSc 5423 or 423.

Instruction in this course is primarily through class discussion, problem-solving, and library research. During this Summer session, discussion will be primarily via electronic means, rather than face-to-face. Students will be assigned to read specific classic and current papers, and to research topics in the library. Specific papers and topics will vary from semester to semester.

After completing this course with a passing grade, students will understand the history of the ideas behind computer networking, how they have developed, the alternative approaches used, and what changes are currently taking place. Students will be able to read and understand the current networking research literature.

Students will be graded using exams and quizzes, written research papers, and class discussion.

Evaluation

Students will be graded on the following activities:
ActivityPoints
Discussion Participation100
Article Summaries50
Quiz Questions120
Paper or Project200
TOTAL470
Grades
PointsPercentGrade
42347090%100%A
37642280%89%B
32937570%79%C
28232860%69%D
028150%59%F
Articles will be discussed using an electronic bulletin board. The instructor will write some a summary of each article (or a group of articles), and the class should respond with comments to discuss the material. At some point, students will be assigned certain articles for which they will be responsible to write the initial summary. Points will be given for assigned summaries, and to all students for general discussion posting.

There will also be several quizzes of short-answer questions which will be sent directly to the instructor.

The term project may be a library research paper, or present the results of the student's own work. The topic must be approved by the instructor. A research paper must be at least eight pages single-spaced, using reasonable fonts and margins. It must have at least 15 references. A programming project should be accompanied by a short paper (one page is usually sufficient) describing what it does and how to run it. A project which does not involve original programming, experimentation or measurement will not be awarded no more than 180 points.

The last day to drop this course is Monday, July 8, 2024.

ACM Digital Library

Students must have access to the ACM Digital Library. To access the text of articles from this library, you must join the ACM and buy the digital portal. For students, this costs $42, which is less than the cost of a printed textbook in many classes. Here is the student membership application. (Choose the membership plus digitial library, unless you a particularly want the CACM on paper.) The subscriptions are for a year, so you may not need to buy this for each grad course.