University of Denver
University College
Information And Communications Technology
Fall 2011 Syllabus
XML Application Development — ICT-4540

Note: This syllabus is under construction

Course Summary

Course Name

XML Apps Development

Course Number

ICT-4540

Instructor

Michael I. Schwartz

Class Meetings

September 12th—November 18th

Class weeks: Weeks run Monday through Sunday, and times are given in Mountain Time.

ClassLive when arranged; initial session will be Sunday, September 11th, 5-6 PM, subsequent sessions will be Sundays, 6-8 PM. See .NeXT "Course Resources" for Adobe Connect information

Days Instructor Is Unavailable

Every Friday from 4 PM through Saturday
September 29rd and 30th.
October 13th, 14th, 20th, and 21st.

Course Description

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is an open, text-based markup language that provides structural and semantic inforamtion to data. This "data about data," or metadata, provides additional meaning and context to the applications using it, and allows for a new level of management and manipulation of web-based information.

This course focuses on the implementation of XML techniques for applciation development. The topics include XML basics, structure and syntax, scripting XML, document classes, and XML as data.

While the course material enables approaches used by programmers, a deliberate choice has been made to remove programming language requirements from the course. All coursework may be done with an editor and a standard web browser, independent of computing platform.

Additionally, the course will acquaint students with XSLT techniques necessary to perform basic transformation operations.

Course Prerequisites

 Knowledge of HTML; ICT-4300, Web Enabled Information Systems; ICT-4505, Website Design & Management; ICT 4510. Advanced Website Design & Management

Course Objectives

At the end of this course, a student will be able to:

  1. Explain the syntax of XML
  2. Create well-formed XML documents
  3. Create and use XML data on a web page
  4. Display XML data in table format on a web page
  5. Create a Document Type Definition (DTD)
  6. Understand and create an XML Schema document
  7. Create valid XML documents
  8. Work with XML Stylesheet Language (XSL) and XSL transformations (XSLT)
  9. Work with XPath expressions
  10. Create a Computational Style Sheet

Required Materials and Resources

Text

The selected text was chosen because it does not require programming skills to explore the power of XML and its associated technolgies. The book takes a “cookbook” approach to XML, which should be paired with theoretical underpinnings, provided by some of the lecture materials and supplementary materials. The main text is:

  • New Perspectives on XML, Second Edition--Comprehensive (Thompson Learning), by Patrick Carey, ISBN: 1-4188-6064-6, 2007.

Instructor slides are available via eCollege Companion (.NeXT) for student convenience.
The course intends to supplement the course material, in preparation for a book transition, from

  • Beginning XML (Wrox), 4th Edition, Hunter, et. al., ISBN: 978-0-470-11487, 2007
The course will also reference the standards for HTML, CSS, XML, and XSLT. These can be found at
The following book is a complement to the course for those interersted in programming XML
  • XML Primer Plus (SAMS), Nicholas Chase, ISBN 0-672324229, 2002

The following book is a suplement to the course, and covers much of the same information, with some updates and lots of illustrations.
  • XML Second Edition, Visual Quickstart Guide, Goldberg, Peachpit Press, ISBN: 0-321-55967-3, 2008

Material

 

Electronic Mail

Responses can also be received by mailing a description of your problem to mschwart@du.edu.

WWW

Syllabus, HW Problems, and Resources can be accessed on http://www.du.edu/~mschwart/xml.html as well as on the eCollege system

Appointments

Call 303-971-6781 (Day), 303-394-3117 (Eves).

Course Policies and Procedures

Attendance

 Course live session attendance is highly recommended.
Class discussion topic participation is required, and forms the class participation portion of your grade.

Assignments

Assignments are due each week, and must be handed in on-time. Late work will receive no credit. Make advance arrangements with the instructor for any requested exceptions. Except for the last assignment, all assignments may be resubmitted after rework of indicated portions. Resubmitted assignments will receive a maximum credit of 90%
Assignments are available at the beginning of the course, but the instructor reserves the right to clarify, modify, or replace them in advance of their being worked.

Sample Solutions

Sample solutions for each exercise will be made available after the due date for the assignment has passed. Sample solutions may be used as examples to draw from for future submissions.

ScoringGrading
Exam: 25%89%-100%: A85%-88%: A-
Homework: 65%82%-84%: B+75%-81%: B70%-74%: B-
Class Participation: 10%60%-69%: C50%-59%: D0%-49%: F

Academic Integrity

Students are expected to do their own work. Any student caught submitting the work of others on any assignment or exam will receive an automatic "F" for the course and a report will be submitted to the Dean's Office.

Academic dishonesty is contrary to the spirit of higher education as well as a violation of University College and University of Denver Regulations.

At its core, academic integrity requires honesty. This involves giving credit where it is due and acknowledging the contributions of others to one's own intellectual efforts. It also includes assuring that one's own work has been completed in accordance with the standards of one's course or discipline. Without academic integrity, the foundation of scholarship itself is undermined. Academic integrity, for all these reasons, is an essential link in the process of intellectual advancement.

Violations or non-compliance will be addressed in a manner consistent with the Student Handbook http://www.du.edu/honorcode/statement.htm#. Student committing plagiarism may be dismissed.

For a description of plagiarism and how to avoid it, see Ronald B. Standler, Plagiarism in Colleges in the USA http://www.rbs2.com/plag.htm#anchor111111

The instructor's own thoughts on the meaning of plagiarism in a coding environment is found here (HTML).

Course Evaluations

As part of being a sustainable and green campus, University College has moved from paper evaluations to online course and faculty evaluations. We hope that the electronic format will be more convenient, as well as allow time for more thoughtful responses. You will receive an email in your DU email account approximately a week before the end of the course with a link to the course evaluation. This allows you to complete the evaluation without having to login to the course shell on eCollege. The online course evaluation will be available for approximately two weeks. The faculty/course evaluation is anonymous and will close prior to grades posting for the quarter. As was the case with paper evaluations, faculty will not receive evaluation data until after grades have been submitted.

Please take the time to complete the course and faculty evaluations thoughtfully. The student responses from each evaluated course provide essential feedback concerning instructors and courses and assist in determining improvements for subsequent quarters. We appreciate your assistance in helping us maintain the quality of our academic programs.

Course Schedule

Following are the goals for each week's lessons:

Class / Objectives Weekly Goals Reading, Homework Due

Class 1:
A, B, C
  • Course Introduction
  • History of XML
  • HTML comparison to XML
  • XML document structure
  • XML document display using a cascaded style sheet
  • Displaying an XML document in a web browser
 Chapter 1

Class 2:
D
  • Namespaces: Why they are needed and how they are declared and used
  • Namespaces in CSS
  • Creating a compound document with XML and XHTML
 Chapter 2
Tutorial 1, Jackson Electronics case (39-42) due
Results of XML dialect research due

Class 3:
E, F
  • Document Type Definitions
  • Parsed and unparsed entities
  • Valid XML documents
 Chapter 3
Tutorial 2, Midwest Homes (84-87), due

Class 4:
G
  • XML Schemas and schema dialects
  • Approaches to building schemata
 Chapter 4, 5
Tutorial 3, Professional Basketball Association (135-136) due

Class 5:
H, I
  • History and theory of XSL, XSLT, XPath
  • XSLT Stylesheets and applications
  • Selections using XPath expressions and predicates
 Chapter 6
Quiz
Tutorial 4, Jazz Warehouse (211-213) due

Class 6:
J
  • Aggregates: Sums and counts
  • Principals of functional programming
 Chapter 7
Tutorial 5, Hardin Financial (286-288) due

Class 7:

Final project discussion

Tutorial 6, SkyWeb (358-362) due

Class 8:

Special topics (HTML5, other new technology drivers), final project discussion

Tutorial 7, SportsStats (438-443) due

Class 9:

Final project review groundrules
Preparation for final exam

Final Projects due

Class 10:

Summary and special topics

All commentary on final projects due
Final exam