UCI ICS 1C Syllabus, Winter 1995
Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval

What this course is about

The world-wide Internet has become a massive repository of information and tool for communication. This course will explore a range of information resources and communication tools available over the Internet, with emphases on the organization of computer networks and the information they provide.

Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval (NIDR) is the generally accepted term in the networking community for the variety of resources, techniques, and underlying concepts surrounding remotely accessible information. ``How-to'' details about using the various tools for NIDR are not a principal part of this course, although students will learn them ``along the way'' through their laboratory work. Instead, the course focuses on concepts and issues underlying the network, its resources, and access tools.

For example, even with a tool as simple as gopher, one can examine such issues as these: What is a network protocol, why are protocols important, what protocols are used by gopher as opposed to other services? Many fundamental issues in systems architecture appear clearly when examining network-based applications: the interaction of various separate sequential processes, the role of cache and cache management, achieving reliability in the face of errors, building systems at successive levels of abstraction, various interface issues (both human and between routines), and so on. Networked information access systems provide concrete examples which take such concepts out of the realm of unmotivated, disconnected abstraction into an arena of broad, immediate discourse.

Course Structure

• The course is divided into 3 approximately equal parts, each incorporating complementary class and lab sessions.
  1. The first part will focus on a general conceptual and technical overview in classes, based on readings, lectures and discussion. The labs will concentrate on establishing in all participants basic fluency in fundamental electronic communications and information access tools and techniques.
  2. The second part will examine the conceptual and technical underpinnings of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Class work will focus on analytic understanding of fundamental issues and concepts in network and information-server architecture. Labs will cover specifics of being an information provider.
  3. The third part of the course will address two or three specialized topics in computer science whose ``practical'' import is manifest in networked information discovery and retrieval. The selection of these topics will take into consideration interests expressed by class participants.
• Lab work will be done in structured teams of 2 to 4 students working at 1 to 2 adjacent workstations.
• Each student will keep an individual course notebook recording course activities, questions, observations, homeworks, etc. These notebooks will be reviewed on a regular basis (approximately every other week) and evaluation of them will be a component of the final grade.
• 50% of the final grade will be based on homework, projects (including the course notebook described above), and class participation, with class participation counting at least 10% and no more than 20%.
• 50% of the final grade will be based on in-class quizzes (30%) and the final exam (20%). There will be 4 or 5 quizzes. The lowest score will be discarded. A quiz missed receives a score of 0.