Catalog Description: This course introduces students to the infrastructure underlying the Web, including protocols and markup languages. It also addresses the question of how one presents large volumes of information to people who need to find out what they are looking for quickly. The scope of the course ranges from mechanics to aesthetics. Social and ethical issues are also discussed, including the concept of information ecologies for social acceptance. Networks and protocols; pervasive computing; Web protocols; markup languages and XML; defining information architecture; understanding information needs and information-seeking behaviors; organizing web sites and intranets; navigation systems; search systems; thesauri; from research to design: strategies for information architecture; enterprise information architecture; ethics on the Web; information ecologies.
[Tan] Computer Networks, 4th edition by Andrew S. Tanenbaum. Prentice-Hall, 2003.
[MR] Information Architecture for the World Wide Web by Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld. O’Reilly, 2007.
[NOD] Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart by Bonnie Nardi and Vicki O'Day. MIT Press, 2000.
| Week | Topics Covered | Reading | Assignments |
| 1 | Introduction to networks; network protocol stacks; TCP/IP; DNS. | Tan 1, 7.1, 7.2 | |
| 2 | Pervasive computing. Mobility management and Mobile IP. Cellular networks. | Tan 2.6, 4.4, 6.5 | Using WebCT |
| 3 | Web protocols; HTTP and WAP. | Tan 7.3 | Evaluating existing websites |
| 4 | Introduction to HTML; style sheets; dynamic content. | Tan 7.3 | |
| 5 | XML; DTDs; XML Schemae; XSLT; XHTML and XHTML-ML. | ||
| 6 | Web 2.0: Wikis and mash-ups. Why Web sites fail. Case studies. | Create an HTML web page | |
| 7 | Requirements acquisition: information needs and information-seeking behavior. Organizing web sites and intranets. | MR 2-5 | |
| 8 | Navigation systems. Building context. Browser navigation features and supplemental navigation systems. Labels and folksonomies. | MR 6, 7 | Project Part 1 - evaluate your chosen website for structural flaws |
| 9 | Search systems: search algorithms, query builders, presenting results. Thesauri. | MR 8, 9 | XML |
| 10 | From research to design: strategies for information architecture. | MR 10, 11 | Project Part 2 - elicit needs from website users |
| 11 | Enterprise information architecture. Case studies: MSWeb. | MR 17-20 | |
| 12 | Ethics in Web design. Intellectual property and copyright. Values and technology. | NOD 1-5 | Project Part 3 - develop prototype for improved website |
| 13 | Information ecologies: cultivating local expertise; building communities; evolution of information ecologies. | NOD 6-9 | |
| 14 | Case studies: Digital photography at Lincoln HS. Privacy issues at a teaching hospital. | NOD 10-11 | Presentations |