BUS 680: Special Topics in Information Technology
Coursework
Assignments
There will be assignments after each class which you need to do to understand the subject material. Please work individually on all assignments. It is okay to discuss the concepts and questions with other colleagues but it is improper to share code with each other. All assignments will not be graded, however, please make sure that you complete all your assignments. The assignments must be submitted on a Floppy disk with your name and the assignment number clearly marked.Lecture 1: Students get introduced to the basic concept of programming and learn how to download and install the development environment (Cygwin, Emacs, Java standard development kit). Additional material will be distributed in class:
- Installation instructions for the development environment
- Cheat sheet for using Emacs editor
- Rules for using the Laboratories
Students will also learn the architecture of the Java language and the structure of a Java program. Students will familiarize themselves with the API for the language and the online documentation for the language constructs.
Class Assignment: The students will go into the lab and try to compile a simple program and run the program so that they get familiar with the programming environment.
Lecture 2: Students learn how to convert simple business logic into a structured algorithm which can be used for writing a program. The students learn the concept of data types in programming and how the different data types are stored in memory. Students also learn the lexical elements of the Java language i.e. keywords, identifiers, literals, operators, punctuation, comments.
Class Assignment: As a class assignment students will get a business problem which they will try to formulate into a structured algorithm.
Lecture 3: Students will learn the object oriented programming concepts such as classes, scope of variables and methods
Class Assignment: Students develop simple classes reflecting a real project
Lecture 4: Students will learn advanced concepts of object-oriented programming, such as, multiple inheritance and write more advanced programs.
Class Assignment: Students complete the problems provided in the class
Lecture 5: Review of the course
Class Assignment: Exam
Lecture 6-9: These are seminars on emerging technologies which are relevant to the field of Information Technology. A tentative list of these seminars is presented below. These may change based on the student interest and speaker availability. Students are expected to follow up the lectures with some self study on the web where they research the topics and learn further. There may be a quiz at the end of the seminar series to test the student learning on the topics.