UMUC-EUROPE GRADUATE PROGRAMS
BOWIE STATE UNIVERSITY

INSS510 Syllabus

Course Title Computer Concepts
Term TERM 1, 2005/2006
Education Center WIESBADEN-GRAD
Faculty Member Edward Rodgers - erodgers4@faculty.ed.umuc.edu

Faculty Contact Information:

Name: Edward G. Rodgers
E-mail address: erodgers4@faculty.ed.umuc.edu
Telephone number:

Consultation:

Office hours: Before or after class, by appointment, or by e-mail
E-mail: e-mail will be answered at the earliest time possible.

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% and above
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 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:

Graduate school at the masters level focuses on helping students obtain the education needed for success as professionals in their chosen fields. Thus, UMUC-Europe Graduate Programs and Bowie State University share the common goals of promoting excellence in academic scholarship through thoughtful inquiry and the skillful application of knowledge and theory for the betterment of society.


 

In order to maximize your graduate educational experience in general and this course in particular, you are required to:

 

10%  -  Participate in classroom discussions


40%  -  Complete graduate level projects or programming assignments, write graduate level papers or case studies


10%  -  Orally/visually present prepared material


40%  -  Complete one or more written examination(s)

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:


27–28 AUG: Readings: Englander Ch 1- 6

Introduction and Course Overview
• Introductions
• Review of Syllabus
• Clarification of goals, objectives and requirements
• Orientation to the subject
• Overview of Computer Systems

Data in the Computer
• Number Systems
• The related number systems bases 2, 8 and 16
• Numeric conversions between number bases

Data in the Computer
• Data Formats
• Alphanumeric Character Data
• Image Data
• Other types of data

Data in the Computer
• Representing Integer Data
• One's Complement and Two's Complement representations
• Arithmetic using Two's complement representations
• Floating Point Numbers
• Normalization and Formatting of Floating Point Numbers
• The IEEE 754 Standard
• Arithmetic using floating point representation

Computer Architecture and Hardware Operation
• The Little Man Computer
• Operation of the Little Man Computer
• Sample Programs using the Little Man Computer

The Little Man Computer can be downloaded from
http://www.cba.uri.edu/faculty/vvm/
(The instructor must request a "key" to make the program really operable.)
This site also has a lot of information about the program.

11 SEP: Readings: Englander Ch 6

EXAM OVER CH 1-5

Little Man Computer Exercises

24 SEP: Readings: Englander Ch 6-10

Computer Architecture and Hardware Operation
• The CPU and Memory
• Components of the CPU
• The Memory Unit
• The Fetch-Execute Instruction Cycle
• Instruction word formats
• CPU Architecture, CISC and RISC

Computer Architecture and Hardware Operation
• Input/Output Devices
• Interrupts
• Bus Architecture
• Peripherals
• The Hierarchy of Storage
• Displays and Printers

25 SEP: Readings: Englander Ch 11-14

EXAM OVER CH 6-10

Computer Architecture and Hardware Operation
• Modern Computer Systems, Clusters and Networks
• High Performance Computing
• A detailed system example (Chapter 12 gives three system examples, it is suggested that
• you pick one for discussion.)

The Software Component
• An overview of Operating Systems
• What the operating system does
• The Bootstrap
• Some history of operating systems

The Software Component
• The User View of the Operating System
• Purpose of the User interface
• User functions
• Types of User interfaces
• Command and scripting languages

8 OCT: Readings: Englander Ch 15-18

Presentations of LMC Projects

The Software Component
• The internal operating system
• Processes and threads
• CPU scheduling
• Memory management
• Virtual storage
• Some details on an operating system (Chapter 18 gives some details on three operating systems, paralleling the three systems from chapter 12. It is suggested that you pick one for discussion.)

The Software Component
• File Management
• Logical and physical views of files
• Logical access
• Physical file storage
• The directory structure

The Software Component
• Programming Tools
• Program Editors
• Program Translation
• Assemblers
• Metalanguages
• Linking and loading

9 OCT: Continuation of Presentations of LMC Projects

EXAM OVER CH 11-18



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
Code of Civility

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

Faculty Bio:

Dr. Rodgers earned the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech and the Ph.D. in Business Administration at Georgia State University. Post-Doctoral work in international business and economics/international relations led to the award of the M.S. degree in international relations through a cooperative program between the University of the Saarlands, Germany and TSU/European Division. He was the first graduate of an innovative software engineering graduate program offered by TSU in cooperation with the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany, in which he earned the M.S. degree in computer information systems. He has served as a professor at the University of West Florida, Georgia State University, the University of Toledo, and Troy State University/European Division. He has presented lectures at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, China, the Human Resources Center in Shenzhen, China, the School of Management of Xi'an University in Xi'an, China, the Mikkeli Polytechnic Institute in Mikkeli, Finland, and taught the UWF Summer in Japan Program in Fukuoka, Osaka, and Tokyo, Japan.

Dr. Rodgers has published articles and made presentations at a variety of professional meetings in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, Australia, and Asia in the fields of management, operations research and computer science. His practical experience includes positions in operations research and systems engineering with the IBM, Armor and Milliken corporations. He has also served as a consultant and an expert witness in the fields of systems and operations research. He has been active in professional organizations such as ACM, TIMS, ORSA and DSI. He is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, Phi Kappa Phi and Alpha Iota Delta honor societies and earned the CDP and CSP professional certifications from the Institute for the Certification of Computer Professionals.


Last updated by Edward Rodgers: July 21, 2005, 11:21 pm
Find this syllabus linked from the schedule at: http://www.ed.umuc.edu/schedule