INTRODUCTORY NOTE: 

Please note that this year this class will include both undergraduate and graduate students; with a large number of undergraduate students enrolled in INFO 314, and a few graduate students enrolled in IMT 546.  While the basic course materials will be roughly the same for both undergraduates and graduates, those students who are enrolled in INFO 314 will have deliverables and be graded in relation to normal expectations of undergraduates, while students enrolled in IMT 546 will have additional requirements and will be evaluated in accordance with iSchool expectations of graduate students. 

PREREQUISITES: There are NO course prerequisites. There are only two requirements. One is that you are interested in the internet and other related network technologies (e.g. wired, wireless & IoT) and actionable data they generate and/or enable, including: how it/they work(s), and the remarkable range of what they can do and enable; how they can be leveraged by apps; what they are doing for (and to) us; related policy issues, and, what the future may hold. The early course sessions will assume that students have no significant previous background in networks and network technology, and will thus incorporate a quick course in the basics of networking. The other requirement is that you need to be able to create a voice narrated powerpoint presentation that you can turn in.

My goals in selecting course materials and assignments are for them to be broad enough to enable students to focus on either more technical, or 'business' or policy aspects of modern networks and their products, capabilities and consequences.  

Please note that there will not be any team or group assignments or projects. 

CREDITS:  

314 is a 5 credit course using the Standard UW Grading System

546 is a 4 credit course using the Standard UW Grading System

WEBSITE :  https://sites.google.com/view/spring2024-johnson/home . We will not be using Canvas.

COURSE DESCRIPTION : Explore current issues such as network neutrality, digital divide/broadband access, ’end of the public internet’, network based censorship, privacy issues, the internet of things, smart cities, libraries and the internet, internet (in)security, regulatory environment, metro networks, content/media consolidation etc.;  while, if you don’t already know, learning a bit at a high level about how ‘the internet’ really works and is operated, what it can do, and what some of its limitations are.  Each student must choose a topic of personal interest as their project for the quarter. It can  be in any of a very wide range of policy, practical, or technical areas. Grades will be based on that project as well as being prepared for class and constructively participating in class discussions and presentations.

COURSE OBJECTIVES: 

• Ensure every student understands the basics of networking technology, and: how the internet 'really works' and evolves; the challenges it faces; its potential 'futures'; and how it enables apps, platforms and myriad forms of data. 

• Become more familiar with the major opportunities created by and inherent in networks (including those for business, governmental, scientific, cultural, social and/or personal etc. ends)

• Become more familiar with the downsides, and benefits, of pervasive networks.  

• Understand and explore the equity, privacy, and other major social, policy and regulatory issues which are driven by networks

• Enable each student to intensively explore an internet or similar telecommunications related issue or topic which is of personal interest to them, whether that is policy, practice or technology related. 

• Provide an opportunity for each student to function, and conduct themselves, as a true professional who is part of an overall environment that is based upon teamwork, evidence based critical thinking and constructive open dialog.

SAMPLE OF COURSE TOPICS:  Basics of network technology, Internet of Things (IoT), digital divide/broadband access & 'universal service',  smart cities,  how networks change media/content, network security, BYOD,  network enabled 'platforms' & apps including distributed blockchain tech., privacy,  clouds & networks, leveraging network data, net. neutrality, libraries and the internet, peering, spectrum allocation, sensor networks, metro networks, roles of standards, how networks are effecting us, network industry structure, regulatory issues,  etc.

PROFESSOR:   Ron Johnson   |   ronj@uw.edu     |   VOICE/VM    206 543 8252

FYI & context, aka 'About me'- I've been doing both 'practical' networking and network research since a bit before the dawn of  'the internet'. My experience spans the history of modern networking and includes: 

• being a co-Princial Investigator (co- PI)  on USA's National Science Foundation (NSF) awards/work to create the NSFnet in the late 1980s [NOTE: The NSFnet was the immediate precursor and, when it was 'privatised', quite literally became the 1st instantiation of the modern Internet from which all the rest evovled]; 

• decades of work with a global set of colleagues creating and deploying pioneering internet messaging (including award winning email systems), interactive low-latency video, 'high res' streaming, ethernet-over-optical (to replace SONET), and distributed peering technologies;   

• groundbreaking broadband (including uncompressed high-resolution) streaming media platform work (with Paul Allen and his team) at/via KEXP/FM broadcast radio & KEXP.org (where I also served as  Chair of the Board) 

• > 15 recent years of work, including an ongoing current 5 year NSF project as a Co-PI,  on a continuous series of awards to design, deploy and evolve very high performance peering, exchange and transit fabrics, and also work to address various forms of 'digital divide' challenges.  

I've also been a principal designer/architect of international, national, regional and campus scale networks, and have experience in deploying sensor & IoT networks. I've co-founded national and regional networking companies, and founded and served for over a decade as the CEO of a successful networking organization/ISP.  

In addition to having served on technology advisory boards for Apple, NeXT, Sun, XEROX,  GTE/Verizon, IBM and, most recently, the current billion dollar 'GoldenStateNet' effort to better address inequitable internet access in California, I presently also serve on a number of Boards of not-for-profit 'public good' networking organizations including CENIC, WRN and PNWGP.  

I've had a career-long commitment to digital equity & DEI that has included: many 'digital divide' oriented network infrastructure projects; related service on broadband, digital-divide 'blue-ribbon' 'expert' panels and committees;  roles as an expert witness in 'network neutrality' lawsuits; and, serving as a Co-PI (with Dr. Sheryl Blix-Burgstahler as PI) on the initial NSF "Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology" award that led to the highly successful ongoing DO-IT center and related programs. 

OFFICE HOURS:  By appointment to meet via Zoom or phone, or face-to-face down in my office in the Ocean Teaching Building.  Typically the best way to quickly reach me is by emailing me at ronj@uw.edu, but it also works to call me and leave a message via 206 543 8252

CLASS MEETINGS: & LOCATION:  

There will be in-person class meetings on Monday's & Wednesday's during Spring quarter from 3:30pm to ~ 5:20pm PT in Denny Hall room 113. There won't be remote access unless there is either a new health or other emergency declared at the UW, or I am sick (in which cases we will move to using Zoom).  There's a lab section scheduled but the only lab work that may be needed will be for students who need help with the powerpoint skills required to create the narrated powerpoint "Course Presentation" that will comprise the largest part of a student's grade in the course.

There is a lab section scheduled Monday's 5:30pm to  6:20 pm. It will start Monday April 8. While it is officially scheduled to be in Denny Hall room  212 it will instead meet in Denny 113 (as there is not class scheduled immediately after ours).

The main function of the lab will be help people with any issues they have in creating voice annotated powerpoints.

   NOTE: There will NOT be lab sessions on March 25 or April 1.

COURSE OVERVIEW/BACKGROUND - Recently, I've been tasked with updating & revising the graduate level IMT 546 & the undergraduate INFO 314 courses to enable them to be offered together in the same classroom at the same time, while evolving and converging them both to cover topics that are aligned with to today's network realities, trends, opportunities and challenges, and to include materials that are more appropriate to today's iSchool students and the iSchools goals and values. 

My goal is to provide content that is relevant to both the undergraduate level INFO and graduate level MSIM programs, and to better reflect the evolution of 'networking' over the past decades, and the forces that drive it, to becoming:

•  a pervasive evolving substrate, and enabler, of a wide range applications and capabilities that are leveraged by business, manufacturing, government, health care, education and a whole lot of daily life; and,

• a large, and growing, fraction of our personal, psychological, social and physical etc. environments and 'realities'.

Hence, please think of this quarter's revised version as being more more accurately called "Networks - Apps, Infrastructure, Data;  and related Basics, Drivers, Challenges, Opportunities & Consequences" 

The foci of the course will be: 

• Ensuring students (who do not already have it) leave this class with a basic understanding of: the underlying technologies and infrastructure of the internet and other related wired and wireless network technologies; the main forces that are driving change in and and evolution of the technologies; and, how they can be leveraged. This will include some exposure to the management/enterprise, content distribution (CDN), 'cloud' and 'edge' aspects of networks. 

• Highlighting the inherent (often strategically disruptive) capabilities and related applications, and application opportunities of network technologies, including examples in areas such as: Location capabilities, data & apps.; Public Blockchain, the IoT (Internet of Things) and various forms of Sensor Nets.,  'Platform' realities/opportunities, etc.

• Framing Policy & Ethical Issues such as Digital Divide, Equitable Access, Network Privacy, Network Neutralit . . .

• Identifying key Business, Competitive & Regulatory Factors such as network/telecom/ISP industry structure, spectrum allocation, governmental regulation, achieving competitive advantages, etc. 

• Highlighting some of the effects of pervasive networks and network technology on people, society and the environment

MATERIALS/READINGS/VIEWINGS/TEXTBOOK:  THIS COURSE SITE -WILL NOT BE FULLY POPULATED/UPDATED FOR THIS QUARTER UNTIL THE END OF THE 1ST WEEK OF CLASSES AS ITS CONTENT WILL BE ADJUSTED BASED UPON THE INTERESTS OF ENROLLED STUDENTS & THEIR RELATIVE LEVELS OF RELEVANT EXPERIENCE & EXPERTISE AS DETERMINED BY A POLL OF STUDENTS AT THE START OF THE QUARTER.

• THERE IS NO TEXTBOOK, NOR ARE THERE ANY MATERIALS ON RESERVE. 

• ALL REQUIRED MATERIALS WILL EITHER BE PROVIDED BY THE PROFESSOR VIA DIRECT EMAILS, OR WILL BE FOUND INDEPENDENTLY BY STUDENTS IN SUPPORT OF THEIR CHOSEN COURSE PROJECTS.

  • Except for the initial two weeks of class, during which there will be a heavier load of required readings and video viewings, there will be a few, usually relatively short, current issues/events readings and/or videos and/or tutorials  for each class meeting which will I will email to students. Those will include some current and some 'classic',  opposing editorials, analysis, projects, issues, descriptions etc.  

  • Each student’s primary readings for their Course Presentation will be discovered and selected by primarily by the student and based upon the issue or topic which they decide to pursue for their course project.