CISC 7334X Computer Communication Networks (Section R6)

Fall 2023 (08/25/2023 – 12/20/2023)

by Professor Hui Chen, CUNY Brooklyn College

Table of Content

Instructor

Professor Hui Chen, Ph.D.
Office: Room 1432N Ingersoll Hall (No appointment is necessary during office hours.)
Phone: 718-951-5000 x2055

Office Hours and Contact

Office Hours: 4:15 - 5:15, Tuesday ;4:15 - 5:15, Thursday

Office Hours Access: No appointment is necessary during office hours.

E-mail: chen@sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu
E-mail Policy: When e-mailing the instructor, include your name and course section in the subject. The instructor will generally reply your message before next class meeting.

Class Meetings

Class Meeting: 06:05-08:10PM Thursday;
Class Meeting Method: In-Person

In-Person Class Meeting

The College designates this class as a in-person class in this semester, i.e., we shall convene class meetings including all exams and tests at the designated times and at the designated classroom.

Course Description

37.5 hours plus conference and independent work

3 credits

Advanced concepts in computer organization and an introduction to the fundamental principles of computer communication networks. Network structure and architecture. The ISO Reference Model. Protocols and their software implementation. Point-to-point, satellite, radio, and local area networks. Routing, congestion, and flow control algorithms. Examples of current networks.

Prerequisite: Computer and Information Science 7300X [703X] or 7310X [704X] or a course in operating systems; Computer and Information Science 7302X [742.1X] or a course in computer organization; and Mathematics 6652X [652X] or a course in probability and statistics.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, students should be able

  1. to understand the basics of data communications (SLO1)

  2. to understand computer network structure and architecture (SLO2)

  3. to understand the operations of the protocols of the Internet (SLO3)

  4. to master computer network application design and analysis (SLO4)

  5. to master the knowledge and the skills on designing and building a complete networked system. (SLO5)

Textbook

  1. Stallings, W. (2013). Data and Computer Communications (10th ed.). Prentice Hall Press.

Academic Regulations and Procedures

All students should carefully and thoroughly read the section entitled Academic Regulations and Procedures in the Brooklyn College Undergraduate or Graduate Bulletin for a complete listing of academic regulations of the College.

Academic Integrity

The faculty and administration of Brooklyn College support an environment free from cheating and plagiarism. Each student is responsible for being aware of what constitutes cheating and plagiarism and for avoiding both. The complete text of the CUNY Academic Integrity Policy and the Brooklyn College procedure for policy implementation can be found at www.brooklyn.edu/policies. If a faculty member suspects a violation of academic integrity and, upon investigation, confirms that violation, or if the student admits the violation, the faculty member MUST report the violation. Students should be aware that faculty may use plagiarism detection software.

Student Disability Services

The Center for Student Disability Services (CSDS) is committed to ensuring students with disabilities enjoy an equal opportunity to participate at Brooklyn College. In order to receive disability-related academic accommodations, students must first be registered with CSDS. Students who have a documented disability or suspect they may have a disability are invited to schedule an interview by calling (718) 951-5538 or emailing Josephine.Patterson@brooklyn.cuny.edu If you have already registered with CSDS, email Josephine.Patterson@brooklyn.cuny.edu or testingcsds@brooklyn.cuny.edu to ensure accommodation emails are sent to your professor.

Consideration of Religious Observance

New York State Education Law (Title I, Article 5, Section 224-a) requires that the College

makes available to each student who is absent from school, because of his [or her] religious beliefs, an equivalent opportunity to make up any examination, study or work requirements which he [or she] may have missed because of such absence on any particular day or days.

If you are unable to attend classes or take examinations, the instructor is happy to accommodate you as permitted by semester schedule and other constraints there may be; however, it is recommended that you make arrangement with the instructor in advance. You may also contact Division of Student Affairs , if you have questions about accommodations for religious observance.

Policy and Software for Online Exam Proctoring

CUNY procured online proctoring software for hosting online exams. In case that we must have online exams, the instructor may elect to proctor the exams via the online protoring software. A design objective of online proctoring software is to improve online exam security. However, to learn how it may affect you, you should take a look at some online proctoring software, such as, Respondus Monitor and Proctortrack.

Important Dates

The College’s Academic Calendar lists a few important dates. Below are some of these important dates.

Important Dates

Date Description
Friday, August 25 First day of Fall 2023 classes
Thursday, August 31 Last day to add a course
Monday, September 4 College Closed – No classes scheduled
Friday, September 15 through Sunday, September 17 No classes scheduled
Monday, September 25 No classes scheduled
Monday, October 9 College Closed – No classes scheduled
Tuesday, October 10 Conversion Day – Classes follow a Monday schedule
Wednesday, November 22 No classes scheduled
Thursday, November 23 and Friday, November 24 College Closed – No classes scheduled
Saturday, November 25 and Sunday, November 26 College OPEN – No classes scheduled
Monday, December 11 Last day to withdraw from a course with a “W” grade
Tuesday, December 12 and Wednesday, December 13 Reading Days
Thursday, December 14 Final Exams Begin
Wednesday, December 20 Final Exams End / End of Fall Semester

Attendance and Partcipation

You are required to attend the lectures. Unless prearrangement is made with and approved by the instructor, or is permitted by Federal and State laws and regulations and the policies of of the College.

Reference to the state law regarding non-attendance because of religious beliefs is in the Undergraduate or Graduate Bulletin.

Student receives credit for attendance and participation in lectures. At each class meeting, the instructor will conduct an attendance roll-call or ask the students to sign an attendance sheet. In addition, there are required in-class exercises and discussion. For the in-class exercises and discussions, see the section of Assignments and Examinations for details.

Late Attendance

Students should join the class meetings on time. A late attendance may be recorded as absence from the class.

Assignments and Examinations

Individual Assignments

Typically, there several three kinds of assignments that you submit individually. These are quizzes, in-class discussion/exercises, and individual laboratory/programming assignments.

Projects and Presentations

The instructor assigns projects or research paper study and presentation assignments for selected major areas of study. These assignments are group assignments. These assignments are to provide students with sufficient practice and ample exploration to master the knowledge and skills pertinent to the area, and learn to collaborate in a team setting.

For each of these group assignments, the instructor will place each student randomly in a team of 2-3 students.

To grade these assignments, the instructor considers the quality of the group work and individual contributions. The students shall provide a peer evaluation. The instructor will provide an evaluation on the quality of the projects. Both of the student peer evaluations and the instructor’s evaluations will be used in the student’s final grade calculation. A student’s may receive a lower grade than the project quality grade if the student makes far few contributions than her or his team members. In an extreme case, a student who does not make any contribution to the project may receive no points on a group assignment as evidenced by the peer evaluation and the others (such as, Github commit logs).

Students should expect 3 of these group assignments, generally, 1 every 3-4 weeks.

Midterm and Final Examinations

The instructor will give two exams, a Midterm Exam and a Final Exam. Refer to the course schedule for the time, the date, and the location of the Midterm and the Final Exams. Be aware that it is Brooklyn College Registration determines the time, the date, and the date of the Final Exam. In this semester, as the College designates this class as a Synchronous Online class, the instructor will proctor the exams online as the designated date and time by the College.

To protect the integrity of the exams, the instructor requires the students to turn on their Web cameras during the exams and the instructor will record the exams for a later analysis if there is a need.

Assignment Submission

The instructor adopts the Github Classroom to manage selected assignments, in particular, group assignments. The students submit their work to Github by committing their work using a _Git_ client and pushing their work to their Github repositories.

The Github Classroom repository invitation links for this class will be distributed in class.

Late Submission

Late submissions are accepted, but penalized with 10% of penalty or one letter grade lower each day late. For instance, if a team submits a project one day late, the grade of the project will be lowered from A to B, B to C, and so on. In addition, a student will receive 0 on a submission of 5 or more days late.

Grade Calculation

Students final score is calculated on the scale of 100 as follows,

Grading Components and Grade Calculation

Component Percent Note
Attendance 5%  
Individual Assignments and Quizzes 15% 15 best assignments, 1 points each.
Projects and Research Papers 30% 3 Projects and Research Papers are 10 points each.
Midterm Exam 20%  
Final Exam 30% Final exam is cumulative

Letter Grade

Your final letter grade will be given as follows:

Letter Grade Assignment

Component Percent
90 - 100 A
80 - 89 B
70 - 79 C
60 - 69 D
0 - 59 F

Tips for Learning Success

Below are some tips to help us succeed in this class.

Access to the Internet and Information Technology

It is essential that you have access to Broadband Internet, and to a computer with Web camera and microphone, minimally 8 GB RAM and 50 GB disk space. This allows you to install necessary software on the computer, e.g., JDK, to study, research, and look up online material, and to communicate with the instructor.

Be aware that the College and the University have made resources available to aid students. For instance, the College has established the Device Loan Program for Students and the University has a Virtual Desktop service In addition, the College maintains a Student Resources and Updates that documents services that students can leverage on for success. For instance, it describes the steps to obtain free Internet services from Charter Communications and Altice USA for students to take online classes.

Work Hours

You will need to devote at least 9 to 12 hours per week to the required lecture, reading, programming, experimenting, writing, and reasoning. Please devise a schedule (e.g., 2 to 2.5 hours per day, 5 days a week) and keep to it.

Lecture Participation

The lectures are crucial. It is important to participate in the class actively, such as, participating in class discussions, answering your classmates’ questions, answering the instructor’s questions, and asking questions.

Group and Peer Learning

Peer groups can be effective and beneficial to learning. You should leverage on the groups to which the instructor assigns you for your group assignments, or establish a group of your own, and actively discuss the relevant class topics with the group.

Video Conferencing Tools

Video conferencing tools, such as, Blackboard Collaborate Ultra has particularly useful features, such as, sharing screens and sharing files. You should master the tools and communicate effectively with your classmates and with the instructor, regardless the lectures are online or in-person.

The Brooklyn College Learning Center

Don’t forget that Brooklyn College has a Learning Center that is committed to help students succeed. One essential service that the learning center provides is the tutoring service. Visit the learning center online for more information.

The Brooklyn College Student Support Services

The Division of Student Affairs oversees a wide range of services among which you may find some useful. Visit the student support services online for more information.

Office Hours

The instructor maintains weekly office hours. The office hours provide you opportunities to work with the instructor on a one-to-one setting, and can be helpful to your study.

Instructional Technologies

The instructor posts syllabus, course schedule, and lecture notes on the Class Website, and posts assignments, assignment grades, and advisory grades on CUNY Blackboard.

Support and Resources