CS-490: Web-based Information Systems

Course Description

The objective of this course is to (a) classify current and likely future uses of the web, (b) to identify issues related to the dissemination and gathering of information on the web, and to (c) develop tools that aim to address some of those issues or that highlight future or otherwise interesting uses of the web. We want to achieve these goals in the following manner:

(i) We want to study how information providers use the web and for what purposes. In other words, we want to have a look at what sorts of information is put on the web and how it is presented. This will be achieved by empirical studies of web-sites. Based on the information gathered, we want to develop criteria of good and bad usages of the web in regards to the kind of information presented and the manner in which it is presented.

(ii) We want to determine likely ways in which the web will develop. This will be achieved by reading articles by leading figures in the field as well as by challenging ourselves to think creatively about likely future avenues.

(iii) Depending on the prior knowledge of the students enrolled in this course, we will do a more or less condensed introduction to HTML. We will learn Perl, the language of choice for quickly developing web-applications and use it to develop some popular applications ourselves as well as to study some important issues related to the web. One of them is the problem of finding information in the vast sea of information. We will study ways of improving current search-engines and implement our ideas in Perl.

This is a research-type course in which we want to learn about the power and limitations of the web and explore new ways of doing things. It will be held in a seminar style, where active participation is expected. One of the objectives of this course is to develop the skill of quickly gathering essential information on a topic and to present it to the class in a brief and concise manner. To further this skill, there will be frequent short presentations by small groups that form on the fly. Additionally, there will be several short design projects, in which you develop or improve your own web-site. If you already have a good web-site, you may be able to improve or develop a site for an organization here at Rose. Later in the quarter, there will be larger projects in which you can use your programming platform of choice to implement new and exciting applications and tools.