UMUC-EUROPE GRADUATE PROGRAMS
BOWIE STATE UNIVERSITY

INSS510 Syllabus

Course Title Computer Concepts
Term TERM 3, 2004/2005
Education Center WUERZBURG-LEIGHTON-GRAD
Faculty Member Edmund Deaton - edeaton@faculty.ed.umuc.edu

Faculty Contact Information:

INSTRUCTOR: Edmund I. Deaton
e-mail: edeaton@faculty.ed.umuc.edu
phone: +34 956 81 38 51 (h) +34 639 55 02 64 (c)(Spain)
German numbers will be provided when available.
Mail address:
Edmund Deaton
UMUC
Unit 29216
APO AE 09102

Consultation:

Dr. Deaton is available 30 minutes before every class, after every class, by email, telephone, by appointment and via the web board.

Required Texts and Readings:

Englander, I.  (2003).  Architecture of Computer Hardware & Systems Software, (3rd ed.).  Hoboken, NJ:  John Wiley and Sons.

Supplementary Readings:

The standard for papers in the graduate program is the APA style. All participants in this course and all graduate INSS, MGMT, PUAD, and ECON courses should have a copy of the style guide:


American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th Edition. Washington DC: Author.


All graduate students should be prepared to utilize the UMUC online library at http://www.umuc.edu/library/.  The library contains a large number of full text academic journals that are free of charge and immediately available.  The library homepage also contains a number of links related to improving students' research and writing skills.

Recommended Journals:

Publications of the various professional societies (such as ACM -- the Association for Computing Machinery, the IEEE Computing Society, and the various management professional societies) are strongly recommended.  In addition, there are many trade journals (such as eWEEK) that MIS professionals should become familiar with, many of these being published both weekly and on-line.


 


Course Description:

3 semester hours credit.  Prerequisites: Undergraduate programming and college algebra, or permission of the Program Director. Provides an overview of basic computer concepts as they apply to MIS professionals. Emphasis is on basic machine architecture including data storage, manipulation, the human-machine interface including the basics of operating systems, algorithms and programming languages. In addition, the basic concepts of data organization including data and file structures are examined. Emerging trends in computer technology and their impact on organizational information systems are also discussed.

Course Goals:

Upon completion of the course, participants should:
1. Understand basic principles of computer architecture
2. Understand major operating system concepts, including the interrelationships between operating systems and computer hardware
3. Understand concepts of programming languages
4. Understand computer logic and data representation
5. Be conversant with the terminology describing computer hardware and software
6. Understand how computer peripherals work
7. Understand basics of network architectures
8. Understand new developments in computer technology

Course Objectives:

At the conclusion of this course the student will be able to:
1. Define the basic terms and processes related to computer systems architecture
2. Discuss components of an operating system
3. Describe the mechanisms by which an operating system manages hardware and software resources
4. Describe progression of operating system development
5. Describe the various types of programming languages
6. Describe the processes of translating and executing a program
7. Describe the process for developing applications
8. Describe basic methods of data representation
9. Describe the characteristics of data storage technology and how it influences the performance of computer systems
10. Describe the use of buffers and caches to improve computer system performance
11. Describe the use of data compression to improve computer system performance
12. Describe the concepts of file systems
13. Describe the characteristics and implementation of input and output devices
14. Describe the basic concepts of communication protocols
15. Summarize the advantages and disadvantages of distributed computing systems
16. Describe the technological trends in computer development
17. Discuss ethical issues in computing
18. Research current topics in computing

Grading Information:

Grades for this course will be assigned as follows:

A 90% - 100%
B 80% – 89%
C 70 – 79%
F Below 70%

Please note that Bowie State University does not use "D" for graduate students. The grade F(a) is used to designate academic failure. F(n) is used to designate failure for non-completion. Grades of Incomplete or Withdrawal are governed by UMUC-Europe policies. For further details, please refer to the UMUC-Europe Graduate Catalog, available in your local Education Center or online at http://www.ed.umuc.edu/general_info/publications/catalogs.

Course Requirements:

Homework and in class exercises: 20%
Programming problems, research paper: 30%
Mid term: 25%
Final examination: 25%

Description of Course Requirements:

Participate in classroom discussions: You are expected to come to class prepared to engage in all discussions in a professional and informed manner. Usually this requires two to three hours for every hour of a face-to-face class and approximately ten hours of preparation per week for a DE class.


 


Complete graduate level projects or programming assignments, write graduate level papers or case studies:  You are required to conduct professional-level research, including appropriately citing works of others and avoiding plagiarism. Resubmission of course work from previous classes (whether or not taken at UMUC, UMUC-Europe or BSU), partially or in its entirety, is not acceptable in this course and will result in an automatic failure on the assignment.


 


Orally/visually present prepared material: You are required to present your results in a professional manner. In a face-to-face course, this typically means an oral presentation accompanied by appropriate visual material. In a DE class, this means creating a visual/textual presentation for your instructor and classmates.


 


Complete one or more written examination(s): The examination process in this class will assist you in developing the writing and critical thinking skills necessary for successfully passing the comprehensive exam required of all graduate students. The examination questions used for this course will either be taken directly from past comprehensive exams or written as though to be included on a comprehensive exam.


 

Course Schedule:

Jan 22 am:
Introductions
Review of syllabus
Clarification of goals, objectives and requirements
Orientation to subject
Overview of computer systems Chapter 1

Jan 22 pm:
DATA IN THE COMPUTER
Number system Chapter 2

Jan 23 am:
DATA IN THE COMPUTER
Data formats Chapter 3

Jan 23 pm:
DATA IN THE COMPUTER
Integers and floating point numbers Chapter 4 & 5

Feb 5 am:
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE AND HARDWARE OPERATION
The little man computer Chapter 6

Feb 5 pm:
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE AND HARDWARE OPERATION
The CPU and memory Chapters 7 & 8

Feb 6 am:
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE AND HARDWARE OPERATION
Input/output and peripherals Chapters 9 & 10

Feb 6 pm:
Mid term examination

Feb 19 am:
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE AND HARDWARE OPERATION
Modern computer systems Chapters 11 & 12

Feb 19 pm:
THE SOFTWARE COMPONENT
An overview of operating systems Chapters 13

Feb 20 am:
THE SOFTWARE COMPONENT
The users view of operating systems Chapter 14

Feb 20 pm:
THE SOFTWARE COMPONENT
The internal operating system Chapter 15
Three operating systems Chapter 18

Mar 5 am:
THE SOFTWARE COMPONENT
File management Chapter 16

Mar 5 pm:
THE SOFTWARE COMPONENT
Programming tools Chapter 17

Mar 6 am:
Course review
Course evaluations

Mar 6 pm:
Final Examination
Celebration

Academic Policies:

The University has a license agreement with Turnitin.com, a service that helps prevent plagiarism from internet resources. I may be using this service in this class by either requiring students to submit their papers electronically to Turnitin.com or by submitting questionable text on behalf of a student. If you or I submit part or all of your paper, it will be stored by Turnitin.com in their database throughout the term of the University's contract with Turnitin.com. If you object to this temporary storage of your paper, you must let me know no later than two weeks after the start of this class. Please Note: If you object to the storage of your paper on Turnitin.com, I may utilize other services to check your work for plagiarism

The official university policy on Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty can be found at http://www.umuc.edu/policy/aa15025.shtml. Section I.C. states: "Faculty may determine if the resubmission of course work from previous classes (whether or not taken at UMUC), partially or in its entirety, is acceptable when assigning a grade on that piece of course work. Faculty must provide this information in their written syllabi. If the resubmission of course work is deemed to be unacceptable, a charge may not be brought under this Policy and will be handled as indicated in the written syllabi."

Please refer to Description of Course Requirements for specific information on how resubmissions will be treated in this course and to the UMUC-Europe Graduate Catalog for information on the following:

Academic Integrity
Course Load
Exception to Policy
Grade Appeal Process
Make-up Examinations
Nondiscrimination
Students with Disabilities

Hard copies of the catalog are available at your local Education Center.

Faculty Bio:

INSTRUCTOR: Edmund I. Deaton, Ph.D.
Dr. Deaton received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from The University of Texas. He has been teaching and doing research in Computer Science since 1980. After many years at San Diego State University he retired in 1992. He was a visiting professor at Hope College, Holland, Michigan during 1993-1995. He spent two years at Oklahoma State University from 1980 to 1982 as a visiting professor and visited there again in 1992. He worked as a management consultant with a Southern California consulting firm for several years in the 1980's. He specialized in database design for governmental entities. He has been with the University of Maryland, European Division since 1995. He teaches in the graduate MIS program and also teaches undergraduate computer science courses. His academic specialty is data base design. His primary hobbies are hiking and Alpine climbing. Although based in Heidelberg, he calls Rota, Spain home and hopes to be assigned there for some time each year. He is currently living in Rota, Spain and will be there until January, 2005. Phone (Rota) +34 956 81 38 51 (h) +34 639 55 02 64 (c)
Germany phone(s) will be provided when available.


Last updated by Edmund Deaton: December 4, 2004, 3:36 pm
Find this syllabus linked from the schedule at: http://www.ed.umuc.edu/schedule