CS 502
Architecture of Web Information Systems and Digital Libraries
Spring 2002

Syllabus

Note: changes may be made in this syllabus as the semester progresses.

Class Formats

Each class meeting time is divided into two formats: 

Lectures
Lectures will take up approximately the first 40 minutes of each class period.  Links to the PowerPoint slides for each lecture will appear on the syllabus shortly after the lecture.
 
Discussions
Class discussions will immediately follow each lecture.  Readings, which relate to the subject of the lecture, are assigned for each discussion section. It  is essential that everybody comes to class well prepared.

Guests

A number of lectures will be presented by on-campus and visiting lecturers.  Material in guest lectures holds equal weight in the course as that presented by the instructor.

Part I.  The ends of the spectrum - libraries and the web

Date Event Topic
Tuesday 1/22 Lecture Introduction to course and digital libraries [readings] [slides]
Thursday 1/24 Lecture - guest The library legacy - theories, models, and systems.
Ross Atkinson - Deputy University Librarian, Cornell U. Library [readings] [slides]
Tuesday 1/29 Lecture/Discussion How the web works - architecture, protocols, syntax [readings] [slides]

Part II.  Documents, content, and data

Date Event Topic
Thursday 1/31 Lecture/Discussion Bibliographic concepts [readings] [slides]
Tuesday 2/5 Lecture/Discussion Identity and data types [readings] [slides]
Thursday 2/7 Lecture/Discussion Introduction to markup; SGML, HTML, XML [readings] [slides]
Tuesday 2/12 Lecture/Discussion More XML: XHTML, XML namespaces, XPath, XSLT [readings] [slides]
Thursday 2/14 Lecture/Discussion More XML: XML Schema, XPath, XSLT [readings] [slides]

Part III.  Metadata: data about data

Date Event Topic
Tuesday 2/19 Lecture - Guest
Discussion		 The library cataloging tradition - Dewey, Ranganathan, and Avram. Diane Hillmann - Metadata Specialist, Digital Library Research Group [readings] [slides]
Thursday 2/21 Lecture/Discussion Metadata for the Web - Issues and simple answers [readings] [slides]
Tuesday 2/26 Lecture/Discussion Metadata for the Web - From discovery to description [readings] [slides]
Thursday 2/28 Lecture/Discussion RDF - Basics of the semantic web [readings] [slides]

Part IV.  Information Discovery and Aggregation

Date Event Topic
Tuesday 3/5 Lecture - Guest Discussion Information Retrieval and the Web - William Arms, Professor of Computer Science Cornell, [readings] [slides]
Thursday 3/7 Lecture/Discussion Semantic Web - Ontologies and Data Models [Readings] [slides]
Thursday 3/7 Due Date Assignment 2
Tuesday 3/12 Lecture/Discussion Distributed search and discovery [readings] [slides]
Thursday 3/12 Distribution Mid-Term Exam
Thursday 3/14 Lecture - Guest
Discussion		 Web Crawling and automatic discovery - Donna Bergmark, researcher, Digital Library Research Group  [readings] [slides]

BREAK

Date Event Topic
Tuesday 3/19 NO CLASS  
Tuesday 3/21 NO CLASS  

Part IV.  Information Discovery and Aggreagation (cont.)

Tuesday 3/26 Lecture - Guest
Discussion		 Automatic Collections - Donna Bergmark, researcher, Digital Library Research Group [readings] [slides]

Part V.  Interoperability Architectures

Date Event Topic
Thursday 3/28 Lecture/Discussion Digital Library Interoperability Architectures [readings] [slides]
Thursday 3/28 Due Date Mid-Term Exam
Thursday 3/28 Distribution Assignment 3

Part VI. Rights Management

Date Event Topic
Tuesday 4/2 Lecture - Guest Discussion Intellectual Property - Introduction to Copyright - Peter Hirtle, Co-Director Cornell Institute for Digital Collections [readings] [slides]
Thursday 4/4 Lecture - Guest Discussion Rights Management - Languages and Mechanisms - Vicky Weissman, Ph.D. student Computer Science [readings] [slides]

Part VII. Longevity

Date Event Topic
Tuesday 4/9 Lecture - Guest Discussion Digitization - Anne Kenney, AUL for Research, Cornell Library [readings] [slides]
Thursday 4/11 Lecture - Guest Discussion Longevity of digital information - Nancy McGovern, Digital Preservation Officer, Cornell Library [readings] [slides]

Part VIII. Special Digital Libraries

Tuesday 4/16 Lecture - Guest Discussion Multimedia Digital Libraries - Jane Hunter, Research Scientist, DSTC (Australia) [readings] [slides]
Thursday 4/18 NO CLASS  
Thursday 4/18 Due Date Assignment 3
Thursday 4/18 Distribution Assignment 4 (Individual Assignment)
Tuesday 4/23 Lecture - Guest Discussion Geospatial Digital Libraries - James Frew, Assistant Professor, UC Santa Barbara [readings] [slides]. 
SPECIAL NOTE! This class will be held in Ives 115 where there are videoconferencing facilities.

Part IX. Scholarly Communication

Thursday 4/25 Lecture/Discussion Scholarly Publishing [readings] [slides]
Tuesday 4/30 Lecture/Discussion Reference Linking [readings] [slides]

Part X. Wrap Up

Thursday 5/2 Lecture/Discussion Conclusions [readings] [slides]
SPECIAL NOTE! Students should come prepared to give a two minute verbal statement describing what part of the course was most interesting or useful to them.
Thursday 5/14 Due Date Assignment 4

Carl Lagoze
(lagoze@cs.cornell.edu)
Last changed: April 28, 2002