THE ONLINE COURSE SYLLABUS
Element
Instructor Information
Contact Policy
Description
Dr. Nirmala Shenoy
Associate Professor
Information Technology Department
Email: ns@it.rit.edu
Phone: 585(716) – 475 4887
Office Hours: 4-6pm Tuesday
More information about Dr. Nirmala Shenoy is available in the
INTROS conference. All students please provide similar
information about yourselves when you put your personal
introduction in to the INTROS conference.
Email replies:
Please post all technical queries on the Q & A conference.
Address only personal email queries to me. The delays in reply
should not be more than a day during the week. On weekends,
please wait till the following working day.
Chats can be held during office hours mentioned above
Course description
Information and telecommunications technology have
changed the landscape of modern enterprise. Today it can be
said without qualification that there is no enterprise whose
success isn't intrinsically tied to the successful deployment of
information technology. The demands for instantaneous,
high-speed transmission of voice, data, image, video and
audio have been the driving force behind the growth of
complex networks.
Behind these complex systems and the enhanced
services they support are a series of hybrid
transmission facilities, which make up the total network
infrastructure. This course is designed to provide the
student of information technology with a comprehensive
overview of transmission principles.+ 4 credits
What you plan to include
The course will be divided into weekly topic areas as indicated in
the course schedule.
ADA considerations
This is a course only for majors.
Student Rights & Responsibilities
(http://www.rit.edu/~371www/R&R.html)
It is the responsibility of the student with a disability to identify
himself/herself to the Disability Services Office after they are
admitted to RIT. Students with a disability, which has been verified
and documented by a qualified professional, are entitled to receive
accommodations approved by the coordinator of Disability
Services.
It is the students' responsibility to discuss their accommodation
Prerequisites
needs with the appropriate faculty and personnel after they have
signed a Notice of Accommodation letter with the coordinator of
Disability Services.
Faculty members do not have the right to question the nature of
a student's disability. All disability information is kept in the
Disability Services Office and is not available to anyone unless
authorized by a signed release form from the student.
All students are expected to work to their full potential and
students with disabilities are not excluded from this expectation.
Students are expected to commit themselves to professional
excellence, personal integrity, and ethical behavior and
demonstrate this commitment in their academic and professional
conduct.
RIT LDC Disability Services
George Eastman Building #1
28 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, New York 14623
E-mail: PALLDC@rit.edu
Phone 475-7804
(716)475-7804 V/TTY
Students, who wish to take this course should have basic
knowledge on networks and the components on a network, like
LAN, MAN, WAN and hubs, switches, bridges, routers, and the
seven layers of the OSI Protocol Model.
Should have completed 4002-733
Instructors advice
If you are not sure about whether you have the required
prerequisite knowledge or not, please check with me.
This course is part of the Telecommunications Technology
concentration, which is part of the MSIT course.
To succeed in this course you will need knowledge of emerging
network and related technologies. Students should exhibit a keen
interest in learning about the growth in this area on the various
topics.
What are likely to be the challenges?
The networking field is a fast advancing and growing field. If you
are not continuously keeping up to date on this the information
quickly become obsolete.
Course materials
Required textbook(s)
As the coverage in this subject is wide and on the most recent
topics no one text book can be prescribed for this course. Some
books are described below as reference text books and should
cover most topics.
Pertinent readings will be found in the weekly conferences as PDF
files.
Additional websites with good tutorial and informative material will
be provided. These websites will be posted in the weekly
conferences. Students are advised to keep a continual check on
the websites posted as new websites will be added by the
instructor as and when she finds some interesting material
Lecture Notes:
Lecture slides on all relevant topics will be posted in the weekly
conferences. Each set of lecture notes will carry a readme doc
providing guidelines on how to read and understand the reading
materials and they also will carry information on the books
referenced to aid students in further reading and understanding of
the concepts.
Suggested Reference textbook(s)
1. Data Communications and Networking, by Behrouz A.
Farouzan, McGraw Hill.
2. Wireless Communications Networks, William Stallings, Prentice
Hall
3. Telecommunications Systems and Technology by Michael
Khader and William E. Barne, Prentice Hall
4. Telecommunication Essentials by Lillian Goleniewski, Addison
Wesley
Reference Materials
Web sites where relevant material is found will be posted regularly
Students who come across interesting material are welcome to
post it on appropriate weekly conference. Please cite URLs for
web-based materials and include a paragraph describing the site
contents and explaining why the site is worth a visit.
Useful Wallace Library Resources
Will be updated as I get the knowledge
Exit competencies
expectations/ Learning
Outcomes
Other online resources available through Wallace Library.
(You will need your DCE account and password to access
these and other journal databases.
IEEE communication magazine
IEEE wireless magazine
IEEE network magazine
IEEE Spectrum
On completion of this course you will be able to:
1. Identify and analyze the key features of emerging
technologies that are needed to support the growing
requirements for high capacity applications.
2. Identify and describe the key features of more prominent
older network systems like X.25, T1/E1 carriers, ISDN,
SS7 and FDDI, and discuss their limitations with respect to
the requirements you identified in Point 1.
3. Assess some of the newer emerging technologies like
Fast and switched gigabit Ethernet, Frame Relay,
SONET/SDH, ATM, IPv6 and identify which of the features
that were mentioned in point 1 are being addressed by
these emerging technologies. Their adequacy to address
issues listed in point1.
4. Assess the potential of emerging technologies to support
high-speed application requirements; comment and
discuss their relative strengths and weaknesses.
5. As a member of a group of 3 students, produce a technical
report of your exploratory study on a topic chosen from the
list to be provided during Week 2
6. Each team will develop and present a technical seminar to
share your findings, using MeetingPlace (the audioconferencing system)
Assessment
A reading schedule will be set up by me and posted in the INFO
conference, and also in each weekly conference. Students should
complete the reading for that week. Based on this assessment will
be made as detailed below.
Weekly Discussions:
Discussions will be held on the topic for the week. Each person
is expected to post and participate by commenting on the topic
covered. The comments should be general and should reflect the
understanding of the student and should not be material that was
lifted off some reference. These comments should be backed up
with other related material reading that was done by the student.
No unsupported comments should be posted. Collegial behavior
during discussion is a must.
Your active participation in the discussions will be marked as
stated in a subsequent section.
Total Points : 30 ,
 3 points for each weekly discussion
Quizzes:
Three quizzes will be held during this quarter. Time of starting
i.e downloading the quiz and the time of ending, uploading the
completed quiz will be recorded. Quizzes will cover all the material,
which was covered up to the previous week. The format for the
quizzes will be multiple choice and short answers.
Total Points: 135,
 45 points for each of the three quizzes
HISTORY of your uploaded file will be checked.
Exam:
On week 11 (date to be announced) all students will take an
exam that will cover all the portions from the beginning till the end
of the quarter. This will be a 2hrs exam. Format will the same as
for the quizzes. Proctored exams can be supported.
Total Points: 120
HISTORY of your uploaded file will be checked.
Group project:
The group project will start in week 3 with a maximum of three
students and a report will be presented in week 11. A technical
seminar is also to be presented in week 10. You will be informed
on the arrangements made at that time
Total Points: 65
 45 points for report
 20 points for seminar presentation
Marking Scheme will be posted in the INFO conference.
Final grade will be computed by adding all the components and
dividing by 3.5.
Without legitimate reasons, no postponement of any
assessment will be entertained. Every late submission will
incur –1 mark for each delayed 2 minute period.
Grading Criteria
Withdrawal with a ‘W’ grade is permitted till the 6th week of the
quarter.
By the rules of RIT, I am permitted to assign the grade of "I" in
cases where exceptional conditions beyond your control have kept
you from completing the course. Such conditions are accidents,
severe illness, family problems, etc. If you have a problem, talk
with me as soon as you can. I will not give an incomplete for
students who have fallen behind in their work.
Grading criteria for your project and seminar will be provided in the
INFO conference.
Tests and Examinations
Test and Exams will be closed book.
Material coverage under each has already been stated in the
previous section
Student conduct
Student Rights and Responsibilities
http://www.rit.edu/~301www/student_conduct/StudentR_R/
Library copyright/plagiarism site
http://wally.rit.edu/instruction/dl/stud.html
Expectations and responsibilities of students in THIS course.
Students should log on to FirstClass at least once a day, every day
so that you won’t fall behind in your reading.
Expected hours of study per week, 6 hrs. It advisable for the
students to summarize his reading for the week at the weekend,
which can help him/her prepare for the quizzes. Summarizing your
study should take you another hour and a half per week.
Time
I will check your input into the course conferences by 3pm
Tuesday and any discussions that you are to be marked on should
be posted before this time every week.
All assignments are due by 11:59 PM on the day specified.
Online activities
Readings: Readings will come from the textbook, lecture slides
and reference material.
Discussions and Interaction: You are expected to participate in all
online discussion activities. You are also expected to post your
own comments and constructively critique the comments of others
Group work assignments: Completed reports should be submitted
using the Drop Box. Files can be “dragged and dropped” from your
hard drive directly into FirstClass folders.
Assessing online participation
Points will be given for:
1. Offering up ideas or resources and inviting a critique of them
2. Asking challenging questions
3. Articulating, explaining and supporting positions on ideas
4. Exploring and supporting issues by adding explanations and
examples
5. Reflecting on and re-evaluating personal opinions
6. Offering a critique, challenging, discussing and expanding
ideas of others
7. Negotiating interpretations, definitions, and meanings
8. Summarizing previous contributions and asking the next
question
9. Proposing actions based on ideas that have been developed
Team assignments
Students will be allowed to form their own teams for the group
project. For those failing to form a team by end of week 2, I shall
make the team assignment. Once you have formed groups I shall
create group folders for you to discuss among the group members.
Check the “Teams” folder /discussion area.
Team members will receive individual grades based in their
presentations and their contribution to the report. Check the
marking schemes provided in the INFO folder. Each group is
expected to clearly state in the report the sections that were written
by them. If your team runs into team difficulties you must contact
the instructor immediately.
If a team presentation is not completed, all team members will
receive an “Incomplete”
Peer evaluation
Peer evaluation forms are included in the INFO conference. Use
these forms for peer assessment and email to me.
Library
E-reserves
How to use the library:
http://wally.rit.edu/instruction/instruction.html
Copyright/Plagiarism site
(http://wally.rit.edu/instruction/dl/stud.html)
(FirstClass) Helpful information on using Wallace Library is in the
Student Services conference.
Resources
For Technical help you can call the ITS helpdesk at 475-4357; TTY
475-7456
For Online Learning students can call 1-800-225-5748 (local 4755089) for administrative assistance; or email online@rit.edu
http://online.rit.edu has resources for potential and registered
students