Course Overview

This course is a hands-on introduction to technology systems for use in information environments. The course will cover four main topics:

• hardware;
• operating systems;
• networking;
• issues in implementation and managing.

For each topic, we will review the terminology, discuss the advantages/disadvantages of different options, and gain hands-on experience with the technology.  The course will include both lecture and lab time.  The course also includes a service learning component that provides students the opportunity to design, develop, and install a community technology center for an underserved population. At the end of the semester, students will be better prepared to both perform day-to-day hands-on administration of a networked information system and to manage those who are performing such day-to-day administration.

While students are expected to have basic computer competencies per the GSLIS admissions requirements, the goal of the course to provide practical detailed knowledge of the technology for all levels of competency.

The overall objective of the course is to both provide a clear conceptual understanding of the computer hardware, operating systems, and networks that make up networked information systems and also to prepare students to take a lead as information technology managers. To this end, the course is structured to provide students with:

1. skills that enable them to design systems that will not only serve today's needs but setup an infrastructure for tomorrow's needs by anticipating tomorrow's technologies;
2. insights into the strengths and weaknesses of computers and networks as tools used to meet the needs of "the community" in which they find themselves;
3. skills that allow them to effectively assess and manage the "total cost of ownership" by looking at the planning, implemention, and maintainance phases of different network information systems models;
4. a basic working knowledge of computer hardware, operating systems, and networks through hands-on training.

It is important to note that while this course contains a considerable amount of practical, hands-on learning, it is not a "trade" course on the topic. An underlying assumption on the part of the instructor is that while technology is constantly changing, the underlying concepts of it's implementation and use are fairly constant. By learning the underlying concepts, students will be better prepared to help design networked systems that not only work well today, but also develop systems that can be easily adapted for the needs and technologies of tomorrow. The primary objective is to provide a conceptual understanding of the topics on hand through concrete hands-on examples of implementation.

Each week a new concept will be covered during the various phases of the class. After a review of the previous week's concept, including addressing any unresolved or unclear concepts, the week's lecture period will provide an introductory look at the week's assigned concept. Then, during week's 1-7, the lab will provide a concrete, hands-on experience meant to illustrate the current concept. (During week's 8-15, the lab periods will be directed towards preparing the final project community technology center.) The assigned readings for each week are meant to provide additional conceptual knowledge as well as a more detailed understanding of today's implemented technology.

A $25 fee is part of the course to recover the costs for lab equipment and the travel that is part of the course. This fee is charged directly to the student as part of the overall tuition and fee schedule.

Readings should be completed by the end of the week on which they are assigned as listed in the class schedule.  Primary texts will be referenced on the class schedule.  Choosing the primary texts has been a very difficult process. Not everyone learns in similar ways, and so not everyone finds the same text useful. This semester I am offering an option for the hardware related book. Listed below are 4 options, one of which is an online-only text. Students may choose any one of the four options to use as the primary text for hardware. Both networking texts are required.

Primary texts for the course are:

Hardware:

• Ron Gilster (2001) PC Hardware: A Beginner's Guide, Berkeley, CA: Osborne/McGraw-Hill, ISBN: 0072129905
  or
  
• Thompson & Thompson (2002) PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition, O'Reilly, ISBN: 0-59600-353-6
  or
  
• Keogh (2002) Essential Guide to Computer Hardware, Prentice Hall, ISBN: 0-13-062013-0
  or
  
• Charles M. Kozierok (2001) The PC Guide Online

Networking:

• Bruce Hallberg (2003) Networking: A Beginner's Guide, 3rd edition, Berkeley, CA: Osborne/McGraw-Hill, ISBN: 0-07-222563-7
• Douglas E. Comer (2000) The Internet Book: Everything You Need To Know About Computer Networking And How the Internet Works, 3rd edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, ISBN: 0-13-030852-8

Additional online materials will be used from time to time and can be found on the class schedule. These additional materials are optional and are meant to provide additional detail to those who are particularly interested in a given topic.

A primary objective of the course is to provide hands-on experience with the technology systems used in information environments as a way of illustrating the underlying concepts that enable these systems to function. Therefore, students will meet 2 hours weekly for hand-on lab sessions.  Students sign up for one of two lab sessions when they sign up for the class.  It is expected that students will meet at their assigned times for each lab session found on the class schedule.  Unless otherwise noted, labs will be held in the workshop in the basement of 510 E. Daniel.

As mentioned above, the goal of the course is to develop a conceptual knowledge of the various topics. To this end, step-by-step instructions are not provided during lab periods. Instead, the instructor will step students through the lab exercises while pointing out various conceptual issues when appropriate.

Service Learning Project Overview

In cooperation with the East St. Louis Action Research Project (ESLARP) lab groups will be divided into working groups to setup a community technology center (CTC) at one of several different community sites in East St. Louis. ESLARP is a community assistance and development project. Work is done in collaboration with other campus units and with East St. Louis neighborhood groups. NOTE: since there will likely be 5-8 working groups this semester, it is likely there will be some groups that will work with community organizations in other cities. Currently sites in Kankakee are being reviewed. To the extent possible, student input is used for assignments to sites.

Regardless of location, the work performed by students represents both action research and service learning directed towards meeting the immediate and long-term needs of some of the area's most distressed communities. Students are available as a resource to serve those in the community who working on the front lines to address the needs of the community.

Team Action Project session

For final projects to succeed, a significant team effort is required during each phase of the project. As a result, prior to the first trip to East St. Louis each group will be required to attend a Team Action Project session provided by the Office for Student Conflict Resolution. The goals of Team Action Project sessions is to:

• Create a positive group environment;
• increase students' knowledge of effective groups;
• allow students to transfer this knowledge to practical situations;
• help students handle conflicts that will come up.

Since implementing these TAP sessions, groups have demonstrated an increased ability to work towards the final project goals following the first visit to East St. Louis.

Required Trips

Students will visit their assigned site twice during the semester. All students will travel to East St. Louis to perform a service project mid-semester. Those groups whose sites are in East St. Louis will also perform a site survey during the visit. Students whose sites are not in East St. Louis will coordinate a time when their group, the site coordinators, and the instructor can all meet. Only groups with sites in East St. Louis are required to travel to East St. Louis at the end of the semester.

When travelling to East St. Louis, students will leave Champaign early Friday morning and return late Saturday evening. Students will need to plan their schedules accordingly, including:

• Contacting instructors of courses with instruction times on Fridays to make alternate arrangements;
• Adjusting professional/personal obligations to free up these dates;
• Work on major assignments of other courses in advance to avoid deadline conflicts.

Final project trips are a required part of 451. Students who have unavoidable scheduling conflicts for these trips might consider taking 451 at a later time. It is important that students meet with the instructors of conflicting courses prior to, or at the latest, the beginning of the semester if any scheduling conflicts are foreseen during the semester.

Trip Agendas

During the first visit students will interview people from the site to determine their needs and wants. They will also survey the site to determine possibilities and obsticles in implementing a lab. Also, while in the area during the first visit, students will have an opportunity to further interact with citizens in the community by helping with various non-technology based community projects. Examples of past projects 451 students have helped with include:

• cleaning up parks (raking leaves, picking up trash);
• landscaping (planting trees, bushes, flowers; pulling weeds; mulching);
• construction (building benches, signs);
• interior and/or exterior painting;
• passing out flyers to community members.

Projects are assigned by ESLARP staff. Assignments are made by working group. All students are expected to participate in these additional service projects. Besides helping the community, the work in the community is an aid in understanding the lab setup within the broader context of the community.

After returning from the first visit, the students will be responsible for using lab resources to implement the lab. This will require work both during scheduled lab time and during additional open lab hours. Finally, the students will make a second trip to their assigned sites to install the lab and give basic instructions on it's use to site administrators.

Additional Trip Logistics

Travel: all students travel in University vehicles to and from their assigned area unless other arrangements are made with the instructor.

Lodging: rooms at the Ramada Inn, Fairview Heights, IL are provided for students. Students stay four per room and will have an opportunity to indicate preferred roommates prior to the trip. Special arrangements in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act will be made upon request when possible.

Food: Lunch and supper are provided Friday, as well as breakfast and lunch on Saturday. Attempts are made to accomodate various dietary concerns. In some instances, lunch might be provided by a community technology center for those students assigned to work at that site. In those cases, students should plan to provide their own food if they have special dietary concerns.

Overall, every attempt is made to provide reasonable accomodations on a limited budget. However, it is important to remember that these trips are service oriented and are not meant to be cozy vacations ;-)

Final Project Summary

The design, development, and implementation of community technology centers in the disadvantaged areas of Illinois represents an important community service as well as a unique learning opportunity. The focus of the early part of the semester is geared towards development of the skills necessary to carry out the final project. The underlying assumption is that development and implementation of a community technology center is a representative project of the general skill set required to setup a small to medium sized networked information system.

Because the final project is an actual implementation that will be immediately used to address important social needs, a wide range of GSLIS, Prairienet, ESLARP, and University resources are directed towards facilitating students to accomplish the task at hand. However, it remains for the students to actually carry out the design and implementation within a working team. Course evaluations have indicated that this requires a greater than normal committment of time and energies by the students. However, it is hoped that the resulting rewards, not only to the community served but also to the students who are serving and learning, will justify this increased committment.

Overall, feedback regarding the final project has been extremely favorable. Students have found it a very useful tool that provides practical experience in the implementation of a computer lab whose target usership is community members. In addition, students have found the experience of serving those in need rewarding. My goal as an instructor is to do whatever it takes to assure that each student taking the class this semester will also find the final project a highlight of their academic career at GSLIS.

Students will be graded on a 90% (A), 80% (B), 70% (C), 60% (D) scale.  Graded assignments and the total percent of the grade for each are listed below:

One Minute Papers (8% of total grade):

Each week students will be asked to fill out a short web-based "one minute paper", linked from the course schedule page for each week. The idea behind the one minute paper (OMP) is to provide rapid feedback to the instructor regarding each student's understanding of the topics at hand. The web form asks for the main thing learned from the week's lecture, lab, and readings. As such, it should be completed after the assigned readings for the week have been completed by the student. It also asks for any issues that remain unclear for the student. The instructor will either respond to these points via email or during the first part of the following week's lecture.

Students are required to turn in eight OMPs, each worth 1 point, one after each of the first eight weeks. Students are encouraged to turn in papers for the second half of the semester, although only a maximum of eight points will be assigned for OMPs.

One minute papers must be turned in by midnight Sunday for the preceeding week (e.g., the one minute paper for Week 1 must be turned in by midnight Sunday, Week 2). The exception is for the spring or fall holiday week, in which case the paper is due midnight Sunday of the next full week of class. No one minute papers will be accepted late for a grade, although students may decide to turn in a paper late for informational value.

Concept Papers (40% of total grade):

There will be 5 concept papers due during the course of the semester. The concept papers will be related to the lab exercises performed during weeks 3-7. The goal of these concept papers is to gauge the level of conceptual learning of the tasks at hand. Students will indicate the general principles used to accomplish the assigned task, the types of equipment and software needed to accomplish the tasks, and general problems that might be encountered and techniques and solutions used to address these problems.

NOTE: while lab exercises will typically be performed with a lab partner, concept papers will be turned in individually. Reports turned in 1-7 days late will have one point deducted from their assigned scores. Reports turned in 8-14 days late will have two points deducted from their assigned scores.  No assignments will be accepted for a grade after 14 days late. The instructor reserves the right to modify the exercises during the semester to better meet the interests of the students.

Final Project Evaluation (47% of total grade):

During the assigned exam period for the class, each group will give an informal oral debriefing of their final project in front of the full class and invited guests. Presentations will be approximately 15 minutes in length and should include a description of the physical site, the people running the community technology center (CTC), and the primary target usership for the CTC. It should also present the major work done to setup the CTC. Each student within the group should take an active roll in the presentation.

A written report is due at the the time of the presentation. The written report should include:

• a description of the site;
• a digest of major internal and external group communications, including a review of the initial site survey interview, subsequent communications with the recipient site, minutes from group planning sessions, and a review of any other relavent communications;
• a synopsis of the implementation plan and rejected alternatives;
• an inventory of equipment and software placed in the community technology center;
• a schematic of the final floor plan implemented;
• a summary of major problems encountered, solutions tried, and solutions implemented; and
• a review of lessons learned by the group and by individuals within the group throughout the course of the final project.

Student Evaluations (5% of total grade):

Each student should participate actively in both the final project execution and the final debriefing and paper.  Students will be given a chance to anonymously rate the involvement of fellow final project group members on a 0-5 scale (5 being the top score assigned to those who provided significant help on all phases of the group work; 0 being the bottom score reserved for those who had no involvement at all in any phase of the group work). This is not a rating of a students technical ability, but a rating of their overall contribution to the project Scores from each student will be averaged for the final point value.