UMUC-EUROPE GRADUATE PROGRAMS
BOWIE STATE UNIVERSITY

INSS510 Syllabus

Course Title Computer Concepts
Term TERM 2, 2006/2007
Education Center STUTTGART-VAIHINGEN-GRAD
Faculty Member Fred Deeter - fdeeter@faculty.ed.umuc.edu

Faculty Contact Information:

To be provided on the first day of class.

Consultation:

One hour before or after class or by appointment.

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.ed.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:

A: 90 -100%

B: 80 - 89%

C: 70 - 79%

F: Below 70%

Grades will be assigned as follows:

10%: Class Participation and Articles

25%: Midterm Exam

25%: Final Exam

40%: Project

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:



- Participate and interact in class.

- Submit and present one or more articles on an IT technolgy.

- Complete the project described below.

- Complete the midterm and final exam.

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.

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.

Articles: Research a technology and present a synopsis if the article to the class, highlighting at least five major points.

Project:

You are to research an emerging IT technology, write a term paper, and present that technology to the class. Requirements are:

1. The technology must be emerging and not already in wide-spread production.
2. The paper must be a minimum of 10 pages and a maximum of 14 pages long.
3. You must show at least five credible references of which only three can be web-based.
4. The presentation should be done using PowerPoint or similar tools and cannot exceed 12 minutes.

Course Schedule:

This schedule presents 16 units or modules, with each unit corresponding to a regular three-hour weekday meeting, a half-day on weekends, or a full week of DE.

All chapter references are to the course text.


o Weekend 1: Introductions, syllabus review, chapter 1 - 3.
o Weekend 2: Chapters 4 – 8. Project proposals are due on Saturday. The midterm exam will be conducted Sunday afternoon.
o Weekend 3: Chapters 9 – 15
o Weekend 4: Chapters 16 – 18. Project presentations will start on Saturday afternoon. The final exam will be on Sunday afternoon.

The instructor reserves the right to alter the schedule based on need.

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.

Students with disabilities should contact the appropriate support office at UMUC-Europe. 

Jan Keller, Director of Student Services

UMUC-Europe, Heidelberg

Phone:  +49-6221-378299

Email:  edstudent_svc@ed.umuc.edu

Mailing Address:  Unit 29216, APO AE 09102 OR Im Bosseldorn 30, D-69126 Heidelberg, Germany

Please refer 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
Code of Civility

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

Faculty Bio:

Fred Deeter joined the UMUC faculty in April, 2000 and currently serves as Adjunct Associate Professor of Information Technology. He has more than ten years of college/university-level teaching experience, including: Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont; University of Maryland in Kunsan, Korea; Manatee Community College in Bradenton, Florida; and Western International University in Phoenix, Arizona. Mr. Deeter’s IT experience includes 22 years in commercial and DOD information systems as a Director of Information Technology, Operations Manager, Project Manager, Consultant, and Systems Analyst. He holds an MS in Computer Information Systems from Boston University and is presently Director & CIO of Information Technology at Honeywell Aerospace EMEA and AsiaPac.


Last updated by Fred Deeter: September 21, 2006, 3:47 pm
Find this syllabus linked from the schedule at: http://www.ed.umuc.edu/schedule