Community Information Systems

(http://www.scn.org/edu/tesc-ds/2000-2001/winter/syllabus.html)

Doug Schuler, douglas@scn.org, 206.634.0572

Office Hours: 5:00 Wednesdays, Lib 1603

CIS Program Listserv: cis@scn.org

This handout more or less replaces the syllabus that was distributed last quarter. (Fall quarter's can be found at http://www.scn.org/edu/tesc-ds/2000-2001/fall/index.html.)

The schedule for winter quarter can be found at http://www.scn.org/edu/tesc-ds/2000-2001/winter/schedule.html.)

Some useful resources can be found at http://www.scn.org/edu/tesc-ds/2000-2001/fall/resources.html

The class pictures can be found at http://www.scn.org/edu/tesc-ds/2000-2001/fall/pictures

Community Information Systems is a three quarter half-time program (started in fall, 2000 and extending through spring, 2001) designed for people who want to improve their software development skills while helping a community. The program concentrates on technical knowledge as well as theoretical knowledge and pragmatic knowledge. Each person is expected to hold onto all notes, assignments, etc. from the quarter and turn them in at quarter's end in an Individual Portfolio.

Technology. As you know, we are all working with public domain technology that runs on Linux operating systems to build web applications. This quarter we will continue working with Perl (programming language) and MySQL (relational database management system). We will be assigning more smallish programming assignments -- easy pieces -- to help us all build our knowledge. We are aware that the technical experience varies greatly among all of you so we're not evaluating everybody identically. Nevertheless it is a program requirement that everybody improves their technical expertise. All new students need to get an account on grace as soon as possible. There is a resource page (http://www.scn.org/edu/tesc-ds/2000-2001/resources.html) that includes lots of pointers to tutorials, etc. Please check these resources out -- they're a great way to keep pushing ahead technically!

Partnership Project . As you know the Partnership Project is the primary, though not exclusive, focus of the program. Unless other arrangements have been established with the community, the software should be delivered to the community's satisfaction (not your!) by the end of spring quarter. This generally means that you will need to have completed your design and have started coding by the end of this quarter. It is perfectly acceptable to establish division of labor in the project. All students, however, must have some technical as well as managerial responsibilities. The designated manager at any given time will be responsible for the planning and other documents. The team will be (minimally) meeting with their faculty advisor during class for about 10 minutes about every other week. A partnership project mid-quarter is due February 7 and the final presentations (15 - 30 minutes) will be made on March 10 (8 presentations) and March 14 (4 presentations). The Every student in the project should participate in the presentation.

The Partnership Project Notebook (due on March 14) should include a project description, winter quarter accomplishments, plan for spring quarter, individual contributions, functional specifications, problems encountered, systems architecture, and (selected) web page printouts.

Seminars. Each student will be in either Randy's or Doug's seminar. Your faculty seminar leader will write your evaluation at the end of the quarter and you will have your evaluation conference with him. We have planned 5 seminars throughout the quarter. There will be reading associated with each one (below). Be sure to have read all of the material and be familiar with it. Please write on the material or take notes: it is not enough to know what the person said, we need to know what you think of the readings. Also please plan on participating in the seminars. This is an important part of the Evergreen experience.

Readings. All of our readings this quarter will be on the web or distributed in class or found in either one of the two technical books (Elements of Programming with Perl by Andrew Johnson and MySQL by Paul DuBois both required). The readings are listed on the schedule.

Four Credit Group Contract Option. If you are in good standing you are eligible to join the CIS group contract for an additional four credits. There is a handout which explains this but basically the people that work on this group contract will be working more or less independently to assist with the program. This may mean helping with the CIS web site, writing, conducting research, or consulting with project teams.