University of Puget Sound - Fall 2005
CSci250 Electronic Commerce

Class Periods and Exam Schedule

section	class times	mid-term exam	final exam
CSci250A Electronic Commerce	_M_W___ 1400-1450 TH311 __T__F_ 1400-1450 TH120	Oct 14	Dec 12 (Monday ) 4:00pm-6:00pm

Catalog description

An introduction to the technological issues in electronic commerce. Topics include networks, the Internet and World Wide Web, web page design, web page programming, HTTP, network and e-commerce security, electronic payment systems. Students program using markup languages and Javascript.

What we're really going to study:

We'll be visiting and analyzing several web sites, viewing on-line standards and tutorials, examining how protocols are defined and used, and finally, building a simple on-line store.

Textbook

No textbook has been assigned. The class will rely on on-line documents and class discussion.

Markup
- HTML and XHTML (HyperText Mark-up Language)
- CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
- DOM (Domain Object Model)
- Cookies
  - Persistent Client State - HTTP Cookies
    for the original Netscape specification.
  - RFC 2109, HTTP State Management Mechanism
    for the first RFC on Cookies.
  - RFC 2964, Use of HTTP State Management
    for guidelines on using Cookies.
  - RFC 2965, HTTP State Management Mechanism
    for the latest IETF standard.
  - HTTP Cookies: Standards, Privacy, and Politics
    by David M. Kristol for an excellent overview of the issues surrounding standardization of Cookies.
Client-side programming
- JavaScript
  - References
    - ClientSide_Guide_816-6409-10.pdf
    - ClientSide_Standards_816-6408-10.pdf
    - ServerSide_Guide_816-6411-10.pdf
    - ServerSide_Reference_816-6410-10.pdf
    - ECMA (the new JavaScript)
  - Tutorials
  - Examples
- Python
- Java
Server-side programming
Campus clients can refer to Apache's on-line manual
Databases
- MySQL Reference Manual 4.1 as html pages or pdf file
Encryption & digital signatures
- I've given a talk on electronic voting systems which included a brief survey of cryptographic techniques which are included here.
- ASN is used to hold/define signatures
Payment processing systems
- gateway
  - skypay
    - test system
  - PayPal
- Credit Cards
- EFT
- Digital cash

Lecture Schedule and Notes

Examples

Assignments

Ungraded (preparation for next class)

2005/08/30 bring to class examples of very good and very bad e-commerce sites
Consider the issues you'll find in Web Pages That Suck
and read Vincent Flander's article about how bad web pages can get.
Then visit the Web Style Guide for tutorial on how to do it right.
2005/08/30 study of Raggett's first two tutorials
2005/08/31 write example page which uses all of the tags cited in Raggett's tutorials.
2005/09/06 write example page which uses map
2005/10/24 write form which asks for a population, then identifies cities with that population in the world database, then returns the Name, District, and Country code in a response page

Graded (evaluated for part of final grade)

Individual assignments will include analysis of web pages,
analysis of client-side code,
design of simple web pages,
design of simple client-side code,
design of simple server side code,
etc.
The major assignment will be a team based project, with several significant milestones.

Grading

Programming is not just about writing syntatically correct programs which compute the correct results. It is also about writing commentary and other documentation which will help others understand what you're doing. (This matches one of the University goals which emphasizes "the ability to communicate clearly and effectively".) Therefore you will also be expected to write clearly. Spelling, grammar, and style count.

CSci250/index.html was last edited by Randolph Bentson, on 2005/12/06T14:58:03-08:00
This course syllabus is a work in progress, so be sure to visit again in the near future.
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University of Puget Sound - Fall 2005 CSci250 Electronic Commerce