Course Overview &Exploring the Internet

Week 1

LBSC 690

Information Technology

Basic Basics• Course information (including these slides) are at:

http://www.clis.umd.edu/ academics

Summer session II

690

• Apply for a (wam) email account immediately

• Lab Sunday, 3-5 PM, HBK 2018 (OWL Lab)

Agenda

• Why study information technology?

• Course description and syllabus

• Seven uses of the Internet

• Computing at UMCP

Why Study Information Technology• Doing a better job in your profession

Help clients

Develop new services

• Affecting the social impact of these technologieseducation and the web

digital libraries

ecommerce and the web

• Fun

Course Goals

• Learn to use common software tools

• Solve practical problems

• Evaluate the role of information technology

• Develop a personal plan for further study

• Understand computers and networks (building a better “mental model” of how information technology works).

(go browse course web pages)

Instructional Staff• Dr. Robert (Bob) Allen, prof

– http://glue.umd.edu/~rba/– Office hours

– Tue 2-3PM, 4121E &– by appointment

– interests include digital libraries, digital video

• Jane Acheson, TA– from 690 to CLIS Web master– Patient, friendly, sincere– Has been through this course before (unlike professor)

Instructional Approach

• Readings– Provide background and detail

• Class sessions– Provide conceptual structure

• Electronic online provided in class

• Slides and videotapes available

• Homework, lab sessions, project– Provide hands-on experience

Adapting 690 for the Summer

• Everything is compressed, need to use time wisely !!!!!

• See Norman Davis in CLIS OWL lab for wam account

• First assignment is due THIS Friday

• Note schedule -- some sessions are in the aITs teaching theater (CSS1410)

• 2 quizzes and a final (no midterm)

Course Organization(modified for summer 1999)

• Master the tools relatively early– Internet, word processors, spreadsheets, databases,

programming, multimedia– 2 readings and one homework each class session

• Apply the tools towards the end– Group work, library automation, educational

computing, social issues, digital libraries– 2 readings each week and the term project

Some Other Good Things to Do

• Consider aITs courses for background

• Work ahead

• Ask questions about readings

• Give us feedback

• Think about a project soon

• Ask for accelerated work if you can handle it (we’re looking to GRAs, web designers, researchers, etc.)

Course Materials

• Textbook– Oakman, The Computer Triangle 2nd edition

• Supplemental readings – Course packet available from IDSC

• Daily access to a networked computer!

• A few 3.5 inch floppy disks

Grading(summer 1999)

• Short Quizzes 15% (2 quizzes averaged)

• Final 30% • Term Project 35% (25% project, 10% document)

• Homework 20% (all 5 will count)

Fall 96 LBSC 690 GradesFinal Score (Excess 75)

0

5

10

15

20

25

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

Rank (higher better)

Sco

re-7

5

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

Observations on Grading

• Exam scores are very important– The final is worth up to 7 homeworks– Moral: Use the homework to learn the material

• Little things can make a B into an A– less than 1 point typically separates B+ and A-

The Fine Print• Group work is encouraged on homework

– But you must personally write what you turn in

• Deadlines are firm and sharp– Allowances for individual circumstances are

included in the grading computation

• Academic integrity is a serious matter– No group work during the exams!– Don’t discuss exam until the completion deadline is

past

Breaks

• 10 minute break after the first hour

• 5 minute break after the second hour

• No sodas or food in class the teaching theater

Seven Uses of the Internet(summer 1999 version)

• Telnet

• Email

• Finger

• Web (HTML/HTTP)

• File Transfer Program (FTP), downloading

• Newsgroups

• Talk, IRC

Describing Internet Applications

• Who participates?– Person-person, person-machine, machine-machine

• How many participants? (one other, many)

• Directionality? (one-way, two-way)

• Authentication? (authenticated, unauthenticated)

• When? (synchronous, asynchronous)

Networking Concepts• Understand the basic service as much as

possible

• Networked vs. Stand-alone

• Clients and servers

• UNIX versus PC/MAC

• (more in 2nd class session)

Telnet• Two way, computer-person, authenticated

• Gives you a login on another computer– Use telnet to read your email from wam.umd.edu

• Terminal emulation (VT-100) protocol allows only text– The pine email program is designed for VT-100– X Windows extension adds graphics

• WAM X-terminals available in CSS 4352

• Usage: from “run window”

Electronic Mail (email)

• Person-person, one-one, asynchronous

• Pine on WAM is easy to use– Eurdora is ok if you always use the same

computer

• Mailing lists provide one-many capability– 690 mailing list is lbsc690@glue.umd.edu

• Anyone can send to that list

Email Addresses

• userid@machine+domain– (e.g., oard@glue.umd.edu)

• Machine names are like postal addresses– Most general part is at the end (.edu, .com, …)– Most specific part is at the beginning (glue, …)

• Your userid (login name) is widely known. Protect your password

Finger (find user name and activity from login)

• Find a name given an email address– finger rba@glue.umd.edu

• other “white pages” services

Web Pages• One way, computer-person, unauthenticated

• Uniform Resource Locators (URL)– Protocol http: (HyperText Transfer Protocol)– Machine/Domain //www.clis.umd.edu– Port (implicit port 80)– Path /academics/courses/sum99/690/– File (implicit index.html)

Finding Web Pages

• Bookmarks– Useful if you have been there before

• Access by category – (e.g., http://www.yahoo.com)

• Limited to things processed by hand

• Access by content - search engines– (e.g., http://www.altavista.com)

– Broad coverage, but lots more trash

– No really good search engines yet

File Transfer Program (FTP)• Two way, computer-computer, authenticated

• Used to move files between machines– Better than carrying a floppy disk around– Use FTP to send class notes from here to home

• ftp raven.umd.edu

• Unauthenticated version – Userid “anonymous” provides public access– Web browsers provide one-way anonymous FTP

• Usage: Command line

• Basis for much downloading, like mp3

(USENET) News• Person-person, many-many, asynchronous

• Similar to a large set of mailing lists– Hierarchical organization

• Most general appears first (comp., soc., …)

• Most specific appears last (rec.aviation.military)

– Organized by site rather than by individual• No need to “sign up” for a newsgroup

• Reading news - – www.deja.com– pine (wam mail reader)

Talk/IRC

• Synchronous, authenticated

• Talk - connect to one other person

• IRC - connect to many other people

Computing at UCMP• Open Labs (IBM, Mac, Unix)

– HBK 2101 (open lab), HBK 2108 (CLIS only)– PG2 and HBK Basement: 24 hr WAM labs

• Need an aITs “pay for print” account

• Dial-in access (Unix only)– College Park (301)209-0700 (3hr)/864-2087(15min)– Baltimore (410)962-88865(3hr)/962-8867(15min)

• WAM userid and password required

Homework• Preliminaries (ungraded)

– WAM account, print account, email forwarding

• Email (use “pine” which is the wam mail interface)

• Listserve/Majordomo

• World-Wide Web

• USENET News

• FTP