L548: Computer Programming for
Information Management

Instructor: Uta Priss
Email: upriss@indiana.edu
Office: 029 SLIS
Phone: 812-855-2793
Office hours: Monday 2.30 - 3.30 or by appointment

This syllabus is electronically available at http://php.indiana.edu/~upriss/l548/548-Sp00-syllabus.html

Course Syllabus

Some class-related links:

Introduction

Currently the class is taught using Perl/CGI. Perl provides a good introduction to general programming concepts. These concepts include basic programming structures, such as control structures, file handling and program design strategies. But they also include more advanced topics, such as networking, text-based user interfaces, and basic retrieval concepts. Perl allows rapid prototyping which is appropriate for applications in a fast changing environment such as the WWW. Furthermore, Perl is very suited for search engines, parsers and mark-up languages. Students will develop a small information systems application as a project for this class. The concepts are therefore not taught abstractly but as hands-on experiences with WWW applications.

Course Objectives

1. teaches basic programming concepts and structures.
2. introduces basic information processing and management concepts.
3. uses small scale but realistic examples of information management tasks.
4. teaches the basics of Perl and Perl/CGI.
5. provides an introduction to more advanced topics such as object oriented programming.

Prerequisites

Class Organization

Computer Lab

Readings

The book should be treated as an "encyclopedia". It contains detailed technical information, which sometimes may be difficult to understand for programming beginners. Some on-line tutorials may serve as complimentary, easier reading: Day 2 on this page or the Perl Tutorial. Additional resources can be found at www.perl.com and on a local IU resource page.

Grading

The final course grade will be computed for each student on the basis of grades assigned for the following:

Class contribution and listserv discussions	1/5
Project	2/5
Final exam	2/5

Each student is expected to complete all course work by the end of the term. A grade of incomplete (I) will be assigned only if exceptional circumstances warrant. Late work will be accepted only at the discretion of the instructor and in every case will be automatically downgraded by 1/3 grade (e.g., a B+ becomes a B, a B- becomes a C+, etc.).

Class contribution and listserv discussions

Project

Teams and topics

Examples for projects are: a mail filtering system (allows users to extract mail messages from a standard Unix mail folder based on certain preferences), a search engine, an information extraction tool for webpages (allows to extract certain information from a set of webpages), an html or xml viewer (displays markup pages as text with certain formatting), a data preprocessing tool (prepares data for input into a database or formats the output from a database), a library access tool (formats user input for search in an electronic library catalog), an indexing tool (parses text and identifies important words based on frequencies). Other similar topics can be suggested by the students. Some of these topics require additional knowledge (such as databases or xml) and should only be chosen by students who have acquired such knowledge prior to this class. The students should discuss their choice of topic with the instructor.

Project presentation, assignments and final project report

Grading of the projects

The project will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

• General project: The project should be appropriate and feasible for Perl/CGI. It should be neither too comprehensive nor too simple. It should provide a service that is relevant and interesting for WWW users.
• Performance: The software must run without errors and must do whatever is claimed in the documentation. The software should not be too slow, for example, it should not try to download huge files or graphics from the WWW while the user is waiting.
• Security: The software should not present an open security risk for the CGI server, i.e. all security rules that are given in class must be followed. The CGI scripts must not permit sending of unsolicited email messages. All copyright and privacy rules that are common law or issued by IU must be followed.
• Usability: the software must be usable by a medium computer literate person. The web pages and links must contain enough information so that users know what the software does and what happens if they follow links or press buttons. The structure of the pages should be clear, consistent and contain no redundancies. The documentation should be clear and concise. The web pages and documentation should be spell- and grammar-checked.
• Programming style: the source code of the script should be clear and should have appropriate comments.

Final Exam

A note on plagiarism

Class Schedule

Week 1. Programming basics

Topics: Introduction to information processing tasks; simple Perl programs; scalar variables
Assignments:

1. Exercises
2. Read chapter 2 p. 31-36 in Learning Perl
3. Develop a plan for your information processing tool: what do you want to accomplish with the tool? Which components will your tool have? What are possible features and limits? Find a name for your software tool.

Week 2. Operators and if statements

Topics: operators, if statements and debugging
Assignments:

1. Exercises
2. Read the rest of chapter 2 and chapter 6 in Learning Perl
3. To be handed in by Jan 25: Email the name of your project and a short description to the discussion list.

Week 3. Logical expressions

Topics: Logical "and", "or", and "not", truth tables
Assignments:

1. Exercises
2. Optional reading: A Logic Tutorial

Week 4. Program design and control structures

Topics: Program design; flowcharts; control structures
Assignments:

1. Exercises
2. Read chapter 4 and p. 101 and 102 in Learning Perl
3. To be handed in by Feb 7: Draw flowcharts for components of your information processing tool.

Week 5. Arrays, Hashs and File handling

Topics: Arrays and hashs; file handling
Assignments:

1. Exercises
2. Read chapter 3, 5 and p. 108 - 111 of chapter 10 in Learning Perl
3. Chapter 3 exercises 1 and 2;

Week 6. CGI I

Topics: HTML forms and how to process them with CGI
Assignments:

1. Exercises
2. Read chapter 19, pages 180 - 186, in Learning Perl
3. To be handed in by Feb 21: Create forms for your project and email the URL of the forms to upriss@indiana.edu.

Week 7. Regular expressions I

Topics: Regular expressions
Assignments:

1. Exercises
2. Read chapter 7, p. 76 - 81, in Learning Perl

Week 8. Regular expressions II

Topics: Regular expressions; substitution, transliteration and split
Assignments:

1. Exercises
2. Read the rest of chapter 7 and 15 in Learning Perl
3. Chapter 7 exercise 1

Week 9. Programming in the large

Topics: Functions, modular program design, local and global variables
Assignments:

1. Exercises
2. Read chapter 8 in Learning Perl
3. Chapter 8 exercise 1
4. To be handed in by Mar 20: Write the main (sub)routine of your project. Print the source code of your main routine and hand it in.

Week 10. A Perl networking client

Topics: Retrieving documents from the web via Perl
Assignments:

1. Exercises
2. Read Appendix C in Learning Perl

Week 11. CGI II

Topics: Searching web pages on-line; security
Assignments:

1. Exercises
2. Read chapter 19, pages 187 - 192, 203 - 206 in Learning Perl
3. To be handed in by Apr 3: Process the form input for your project in a secure manner. Print the source code of the subroutine that processes the form input and hand it in.

Week 12. CGI III

Topics: Environment variables, hidden text and cookies
Assignments:

1. Exercises

Week 13. The object oriented paradigm I

Topics: Objects, classes, methods
Assignments:

1. Exercises
2. Here is an optional reading on object-oriented Perl. Follow the links: Object-oriented programming, Objects, ..., Using Modules on that page.
3. To be handed in by Apr 17: Write a two page user manual for your project. Print the manual and hand it in.

Week 14. The object oriented paradigm II

Topics: Class hierarchy, inheritance, polymorphism and encapsulation

1. Exercises

Week 15. Outlook and Team presentations

Project report is due
Final exam is due: May 1