Study materials: Sample exams and review guides will be made available later.
Office Hours: Wed 11:30-12:30; Mon, Wed 2:30-3:30, Fri 9:30-10:30. My office is in DH316, email pld@math.luc.edu, 508-3576
Reachability: Certain announcements and individual messages may be sent to you via email. You are expected to receive them; make sure I have your preferred email address.
Course synopsis: We will study how a computer network is put together, from lowest to highest levels. We will focus on the TCP/IP protocols, with which the worldwide Internet has been constructed. The Internet, and its uses, will be one of our topics for study. When the text authors speak of a "systems" approach, they mean that the traditional "layer" model of networks is to be discarded whenever it doesn't fit; building real systems means doing what works!
Homework: This semester there will be several written homework assignments, because I have been hired by Morgan-Kaufmann Publishers to write exercises for the second edition of the text. Class feedback is encouraged! There will also be some programming project, in C, although the exact details have not yet been worked out.
Grades: Your grade will be based approximately on the following: written homework (10-20%), programs (25-30%), midterm and final exams (the rest). The midterm is tentatively Wed, Oct 27; the final exam will be Friday, Dec 10, at 10:20.
Academic Honesty: Your work on exams is expected to be entirely
your own; failure to adhere to this may result in an F for the course.
As for written homework assignments, talking to others about confusing
points is permitted and, to some extent, encouraged. However, it is expected
that all actual solution writing, program typing, and program design be
done by yourself. In particular, the sharing of your program source files
is never acceptable. Inappropriate collaboration may result in your receiving
a zero for the homework or programming portions of the course.
Finally, it is expected that you will be responsible in your use of
network facilities; in particular that you will make reasonable efforts
to avoid overloading the network and that you will make no attempts to
interfere with or intercept any other traffic. Failure to comply with such
rules may result in administrative sanctions; this applies to anyone at
any time. For the duration of this course such violations may affect your
grade as well.