An Undergraduate Research
Course Aimed at Furthering
the Web
Michael Wollowski
Computer Science Department
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Overview
Introduction
Course Components


Project
Presentations
Experiences and Conclusions
Introduction
Web offers a new frontier
Many technical, social, and legal challenges left to be
addressed
Low lead-time to make contributions
Students are fascinated by web
Students can shape the web’s future through:
 research
 innovation
Course Objectives
In our department, students usually do not get an
opportunity to choose their own projects
Our students are very good at solving problems
In this course, students learn techniques that assist in
selecting and evaluating interesting projects
Course Components
Setting our sights: A look at some innovators
Analysis:



What is the web?
Where might it be headed?
What would a future, dominated by the web, look like?
Innovation and research: Team project
Keeping current: Presentations
Learning about tools: Introduction to major webtechnologies such as Perl, XML, database interfaces,
search engines
Project
Accepted way to learn at RHIT
Students determine their own project and group
Innovation/Research: Can be anything, provided it
advances the web
We spent about three weeks on the project proposal
phase
We had several “jam sessions”
Project Jam Sessions
In them, students presented ideas for possible
projects
Goals of jam sessions:
 To obtain feedback on whether project has already
been undertaken
 To identify project partners
First session:
 At end of first week
 Anything goes
Project Jam Sessions
Second session:
 At end of second week
 Students were asked to start forming groups
 Students were asked to perform some initial
research as to existing solutions
At end of third week:
 Project proposals were due
 Feedback was given over weekend
 Some projects were rejected
 Most project proposals were very interesting
Selected Projects
Web-driven Soda machine: Received local and
national media attention
RHINO: Integrating existing information services into
one, adding security, solving confidentiality problems.
This system is in the process of being adopted by
RHIT
P2P: To reduced internet traffic and deal with the
limited internet pipe
I/R port for web-driven soda machine
Graphical query editor for boolean search
expressions
Presentations
Everyone had to give a presentation of recent
newspaper clippings
Presentation had to:



Summarize contents
Indicate how the work can be applied to other areas
Get a discussion going
Aim of presentations:



Underlining the importance of keeping current
Look for cross-fertilization
Learn to quickly gather information
Presentations
Major areas of presentations:
 Shopping
 Virtual classroom (performed in a virtual
classroom)
 Networks
 Confidentiality and security
Side-effect: Discover topics students wished they
would have proposed for project
Presentations
Additionally, students were encouraged to report on
interesting web-sites as they encountered them
Students were encouraged to report on timely topics
A good number of them did
A good number took advantage of those reports
(AmIHotOrNot.com to get to know people, obtain
ratings on their professors, and self)
Experiences
The timeliness of many topics is stunning.


Town-hall meeting on Bandwidth problems and how to
address them
Confidentiality of student picture scripts
Students in one way or other caused RHIT to
address these issues
Students actively sought to find solutions to those
problems
Lessons learned:


Our work does make a difference
Road bumps are not always of a technical nature
Conclusions
Easy for students to make contributions
Timeliness of many topics is stunning