COT2800

Public networks

David Foott

6 points
* 4 hours per week
* First semester
* Berwick

Objectives At the completion of this subject students should be able to demonstrate knowlege of the function and use of several network interrogation tools; perform retrieval and basic manipulation of several different file types commonly found on the networks; discuss the role of information sourced from the networks and its application to information management; and demonstrate knowledge of issues associated with public networks.

Synopsis This subject familiarises students with public research networks such as AARNet and Internet. Students will be made aware of a range of data sources available through the networks, along with knowledge of a variety of tools for accessing this information. A variety of compression and encoding approaches will be explored, including ZIP and unencoded material. Students will be made aware of standard transmission formats, such as ASCII, TIFF, GIF, JPEG, MPEG, and tools for using these forms. MIME will also be studied. Students will gain an understanding of basic principles of text retrieval techniques, and achieve an appreciation of how these are applied to the research network information. Management of digital artefacts will be discussed, and manipulation of these at local machine level will be practised. The use of stand-alone and networked CD-ROM databases will provide further instances of general access databases and text retrieval issues. Students will gain basic understanding of elements of and issues associated with electronic publishing including elements of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). Possible future developments will be discussed.

Assessment Examination (2 hours): 70%
* Assignment: 15%
* Practical work: 15%

Prescribed texts

Krol E The whole internet: User's guide and catalogue O'Reilly, 1992

Recommended texts

Hahn H and Stour R The internet complete reference Osborne, 1994
Lane E and Summerhill C An internet primer for information professionals: A basic guide to internet networking technology Meckler, 1992
Tennant R and others Crossing the internet threshold: An instructional handbook Library Solutions, 1993