REQUIREMENTS, ASSIGNMENTS, DELIVERABLES, GRADING and IMPORTANT NOTICES

INFO 314 & IMT 546  -  'Data Communications & Networks'  etc.- Spring 2024

REQUIREMENTS:  ASSIGNMENTS, DELIVERABLES & GRADING:  

I. The requirements, and deliverables for this graded class, and the factors used in grading, are as follows:

Everyone's (i.e. students in either INFO 314 or IMT 546) final prerecorded narrated "Course Presentation" is due on June 4th by 5pm (Pacific Time) 


The other 30% of your grade will be based upon salient and constructive class participation that demonstrates that you have read (or viewed) and understood the assigned materials, and listened to your colleagues in class (see section 8  ("General") below).  

Please also be prepared to respond to questions, comments and suggestions from the class and me during up to five (5) minutes following your five - seven minute presentation.

If you are either absent when you are randomly selected (and have not previously notified me of that forthcominh absence), or you are unprepared to make the presentation, that will significantly diminish your class particpation grade.



If (and only if), for some reason emailing the .pptx file doesn't work for you, then both send me an email explaining that, and then upload the .pptx file to the folder @  https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ncRmvS7vmVy23YwlcBg3pSjcWkU3o_2l?usp=sharing


II. GRADING:  

Students who are enrolled in INFO 314 will be graded in relation to normal expectations of undergraduates. 


Students enrolled in IMT 546 will be evaluated with respect to iSchool expectations of graduate students. 

Your Final Course Presentation will count for roughly 70% of the final grade, with the remaining 30% being based upon: 

For more information on grading policy please see the section below.


III. ABOUT THE COURSE PRESENTATION:  The required final course presentation will count for approximately 70% of the course grade. The topic needs to be approved in advance by me. The FinalCourse Presentation needs to be an approximately 30 minute - no less than 20, or more than 35 minute - Powerpoint presentation in which you voice narrate the slides.

The presentation should be of a nature suitable for presenting your findings and/or recommendations and/or analysis of the chosen topic to an audience of fellow professionals. As such it should not be overly formal, but should at its conclusion have a 'bibliography' slide citing sources used.

While it must be a topic directly related to computer/telecommunications/sensor or other such 'physical' networks, it can address any of a very wide range of technical, policy, strategy, ethical, regulatory, standards, tools, security, outsourcing or other issues or subjects. 

It can be a survey of an issue or topic that is intended to inform others of a relevant technology, or approach to an issue etc.  

It can be an analysis of the efficacy or a technology, a policy, a regulatory regimen, a technology strategy or architecture etc.

It can be an opinion piece, but if it is, then it must also be well researched, well evidenced ,and also fairly/factually present at least a sketch of the, or an, opposing opinion. E.g. students have explored and taken sides on  the issues such as:  whether public distributed blockchains will be able to scale to high transaction rates,  how to best allocate communications spectrum, whether broadband should be treated as a basic human right even if that comes at the expense of other pressing needs  like clean water and electricity;  whether network neutrality is good or bad or both etc the (arguable); the need (or not) for municipal networks; the importance of user/community readiness & education in programs to address the digital divide.;  etc.    

It can be a report on the relative effectiveness of a project, a program (e.g., eRate in the USA), regulations (e.g. pole attachment regulations and fees), or a policy, or a technology (e.g. the effectiveness and limits of residential broadband internet over telco twisted pair technologies), or a network related standard etc.  It can be an explanation of a well formulated project. E.g., a student came up with a design with budgetary cost numbers for a library network that split the public patron network, from the private library internal network. It does not need to be original research, but it can be. 

It can be an technical analysis; e.g. of the issues involved in updating software and/or data throughout a network of sensors or other networked devices; or the network and computational latency inherent in distributed, public and/or private  blockchains 

It can propose a new use case for a network based app. or network sourced data etc.  E.g. a few decades ago a UW student formulated a project to use the network to 'crawl' websites (and that turned out to be an excellent idea that worked out well for Google and others :-)

In any case, whatever the topic and presentation is: 

it must be approved in advance 

it must provide evidence/facts (even - maybe especially - if it is an opinion piece);

it can not do violence to facts (or people); 

it must be clear, coherent and communicate well to the audience, which you should assume to be a group of knowledgeable technology professionals, or perhaps CTOs,  who are not experts on your specific topic .

Here are a few  examples of topics that have been successfully done and could be done again with more current information. 

Etc.

So overall there is a very broad range of possible topics. I strongly suggest you pursue one that is of interest to you. 


IV. GRADING POLICY:  This class will use the Standard UW Grading system.

General grading information for the University of Washington is available here. The iSchool has adopted its own criteria for grading graduate courses. The grading criteria used by the iSchool for graduate courses are available here.

Your written work will be graded based on its clarity, organization, balance, amount of pertinent detail included, depth and clarity of evaluative and analytical comments, and preparation. It will also be graded on the extent to which a good understanding of the material presented in the course is shown and on the extent to which directions are followed. If evaluative or analytical comments are required, they should be supported by factual evidence, either from readings or other documents. Other aspects of individual assignments may also be included in the grading.

Written work that shows a lack of understanding of subject matter, is unclear or poorly organized, contains few or irrelevant details, does not follow directions, contains little or unsubstantiated evaluative commentary, or is poorly written, prepared (e.g. typos, grammatical errors), or documented will receive low grades.

Class participation and constructive and collegial interaction will also be a component of grading in this course.

Late assignments are not accepted unless submitted to the professor no more than 24 hours after the due date. A late assignment will incur an automatic .5 deduction for its grade. If there are any extenuating circumstances, please notify the professor BEFORE the day that the assignment is due.

Students are encouraged to take drafts of their writing assignments to the Odegaard Writing and Research Center for assistance. Information on scheduling an appointment can be found here.

VI. EVALUATION OF STUDENT WORK:  You may expect to receive comments on and evaluations of assignments and submitted work in a timely fashion. 

VII. COURSE EVALUATION: The end-of-quarter course evaluations will be provided.  You will have opportunity to evaluate the course and your work in the course. Please do it (!), as it is one of the few mechanisms I have for improving the course. Thank you!


IMPORTANT NOTICES 

The following paragraphs discussing academic integrity, copyright and privacy outline matters governing student conduct in the iSchool and the University of Washington. They apply to all assignments and communications in this course!

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY:  The essence of academic life revolves around respect not only for the ideas of others, but also their rights to those ideas and their promulgation. It is therefore essential that all of us engaged in the life of the mind take the utmost care that the ideas and expressions of ideas of other people always be appropriately handled, and, where necessary, cited. For writing assignments, when ideas or materials of others are used, they must be cited. The format is not that important as long as it is consistent, the source material can be located and the citation can be verified. In any situation, if you have a question, please feel free to ask the instructor or teaching assistant. Such attention to ideas and acknowledgment of their sources is central not only to academic life, but life in general.

Please acquaint yourself with the University of Washington's resources on academic honesty.

COPYRIGHT:   All of the expressions of ideas in this class that are fixed in any tangible medium such as digital and physical documents are protected by copyright law as embodied in title 17 of the United States Code. These expressions include the work product of both: (1) your student colleagues (e.g., any assignments published here in the course environment or statements committed to text in a discussion forum); and, (2)your instructors (e.g., the syllabus, assignments, reading lists, and lectures). Within the constraints of "fair use," you may download or copy slides, recordings or notes for your personal intellectual use in support of your education here in the iSchool. All of these examples are copyrighted expressions, and fair use by you does not include further distribution by any means of copying, performance or presentation beyond the circle of your student colleagues in this class. If you have any questions regarding whether a use to which you wish to put one of these expressions violates the creator's copyright interests, please feel free to ask the instructor for guidance.

PRIVACY:  To support an academic environment of rigorous discussion and open expression of personal thoughts and feelings, we, as members of the academic community, must be committed to the inviolate right of privacy of our student and instructor colleagues. As a result, we must forego sharing personally identifiable information about any member of our community including information about the ideas they express, their families, life styles and their political and social affiliations. If you have any questions regarding whether a disclosure you wish to make regarding anyone in this course or in the iSchool community violates that person's privacy interests, please feel free to ask the instructor for guidance.

Knowing violations of these principles of academic conduct, privacy or copyright may result in University disciplinary action under the Student Code of Conduct.

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES:    To request academic accommodations due to a disability, please contact Disabled Student Services: 448 Schmitz, 206-543-8924 (V/TTY). If you have a letter from DSS indicating that you have a disability which requires academic accommodations, please present the letter to the instructor so you can discuss the accommodations you might need in the class.

Academic accommodations due to disability will not be made unless the student has a letter from DSS specifying the type and nature of accommodations needed.

STUDENT CODE OF CONDUCT:   Good student conduct is important for maintaining a healthy course environment. Please familiarize yourself with the University of Washington's Student Code of Conduct, here.


LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:  The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot nations.

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