Overview

We will study networking by focusing on several key challenges
- application-level interoperability
- transport-level congestion control
- network-level routing
We do this by looking at current Internet protocol suite addressing these issues and the systems implementing it
We will also keep an eye out for potential future protocols and systems

Office hours

I welcome visitors to my office (OHS 304) on a drop-in basis as well as by appointment. You may send me electronic mail at .

All course materials will be available through my World Wide Web page. The URL for this course is https://gustavus.edu/~sskulrat/Courses/2018S-377/.

Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet, 7th ed, by James F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross, Pearson, 2017.
Please use the 7th edition. You may want to consider renting/electronic version.

Select your own homework questions and problems from the first seven chapters in the textbook
May be review questions or problems
May submit any of these as email message or hardcopy (preferably by email)
If your initial solution is inadequate, you can submit a revised version as many times as are necessary to succeed.
For each question or problem you eventually succeed at, you will receive one percentage point toward your course grade up to a maximum of 18%.

Restrictions on homework problems
- You will receive credit for at most three questions or problems in each chapter, though you may submit initial attempts on more than that.
- The beginning of class on the review date before each test is the final deadline for all chapters covered before then.
- You may not choose any question or problem that we have previously worked as a class.
- Review questions should always be individual work,
- May work on any of the problems in a group of two or three students. In that case, one copy of the solution produced by the team should be turned in with all team members’ names on it. I will take this to be your assertion under the Gustavus Honor Code that all team members contributed fairly to the problem solution.
I will return each homework submission to you as quickly as I can but normally with only an indication of whether it is acceptable or needs more work.
The reason why I won’t write much about the work I turn back to you is because I would like to talk with you face-to-face. If a problem needs more work, you should treat that as an invitation to come talk with me about it.
Once you’ve done the additional work, you may turn the problem in again. If you are using hardcopy, please attach the prior version.

At the end of the semester, students will teach the class.
Each of you will do this together with a partner.
Each pair of students will have 30 minutes to present one of the papers we read from a conference.
The whole class will be expected to read the paper at least casually
The students leading the class will be expected to have read it more carefully and done whatever it takes to really understand it, which may involve additional background reading, talking with me, etc.
A list of attributes that good presentations have.
For each presentation, each student in the audience will be asked to select two of these attributes that were particular strong points and two that particularly need work. I will summarize this feedback for the presenters. I will also use the same list of attributes to structure my own evaluation of the presentation.
Each of you to express a preference ranking for the topics and I will try to the extent possible to assign people to topics based on that.
read the abstracts of the papers to help determine your preferences.

There will be two intra-term exams as shown on the schedule and a final exam as scheduled by the registrar.
Tests will be closed-book and mostly closed-notes. You may, however, use a single 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper with hand-written notes for reference. (Both sides of the sheet are OK.)

group study encouraged
discussion allowed
all programs must be independent work
no source code copying
ideas for solutions must be acknowledged
under no circumstances may you hand in work done by someone else under your own name
first violation results in a grade of 0 on the project or exam in question
second violation results in an automatic F for the course and a notification to the Provost Office

All lab reports are due at the beginning of class on the day indicated. Late reports will be penalized by one “grade notch” (such as A to A- or A- to B+) for each weekday late or fraction thereof.
If you are too sick to complete an assignment on time, you will not be penalized. Simply write “late due to illness” at the top of the assignment, sign your name and hand it in.
Other circumstances will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

The course components will contribute to your final grade in the proportions indicated below:

All homework and lab reports should be readily readable, and should not presuppose that I already know what you are trying to say.
Use full English sentences where appropriate (namely almost everywhere) and clear diagrams, programs, etc. Remember that your goal is to communicate clearly and that the appearance of these technical items plays a role in this communication process.
Be sure your assignments are either submitted online or stapled together with your name on them.