COSC264-14S2 (C) Semester Two 2014

Data Communications and Networking

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 14 July 2014
End Date: Sunday, 16 November 2014
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 27 July 2014
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 12 October 2014

Description

This course covers principles of theory and practice of data communications and networking, including information-theoretic fundamentals of communication.

This course introduces students to basic concepts of data communications as well as architectures, protocols and theoretical underpinnings of communication networks. The emphasis of this course is on basic networking mechanisms, which often will be exemplified by the Internet and its protocols. It serves as a basis for further studies in the area of communications and networking.

Learning Outcomes

  • On successful completion of this course students will be able to demonstrate:
  • an understanding of the fundamental limits of data communications and fundamental design principles of data networks
  • an understanding and detailed knowledge of data transmission technologies and local area network technologies
  • an understanding and detailed knowledge of Internet architecture and protocols
  • experience with implementation of networking protocols
  • the ability to critically evaluate existing networking standards and implementations

Prerequisites

(1) COSC121; (2) COSC122; (3) MATH120

Restrictions

COSC227, COSC231

Timetable Note

Depending on final student numbers, some of the advertised lab/tutorial streams may not run. Final lab/tutorial options will be available for self-allocation closer to the start of the semester through My Timetable.

Course Coordinator

Andreas Willig

Lecturer

Krzysztof Pawlikowski

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
Test 35%
Assignment 30%
Final Exam 35%

Textbooks / Resources

Recommended Reading

Gallager, Robert G; Principles of digital communication ; Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Stallings, William; Data and computer communications ; 8th ed; Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2007.

Tanenbaum, Andrew S; Computer networks ; 4th ed; Prentice Hall PTR, 2003.

Notes

There are several important documents available online about departmental regulations, policies and guidelines at the following site. We expect all students to be familiar with these.

Notices about this class will be posted to the class forum in the Learn system.

COSC students will also be made members of a class called “CSSE Notices”, where general notices will be posted that apply to all classes (such as information about building access or job opportunities).

Additional Course Outline Information

Grade moderation

The Computer Science department's grading policy states that in order to pass a course you must meet two requirements:
1. You must achieve an average grade of at least 50% over all assessment items.
2. You must achieve an average mark of at least 45% on invigilated assessment items.
If you satisfy both these criteria, your grade will be determined by the following University- wide scale for converting marks to grades: an average mark of 50% is sufficient for a C- grade, an average mark of 55% earns a C grade, 60% earns a B- grade and so forth. However if you do not satisfy both the passing criteria you will be given either a D or E grade depending on marks. Marks are sometimes scaled to achieve consistency between courses from year to year.

Aegrotats
If factors beyond your control (such as illness or family bereavement) prevent you from completing some item of course work (including laboratory sessions), or prevent you from giving your best, then you may be eligible for aegrotat, impaired performance consideration or an extension on the assessment. Details of these may be found in the University Calendar. Supporting evidence, such as a medical certificate, is normally required. If in doubt, talk to your lecturer.

Summary of the Course Content

The topics coved by this course are:
• Introduction to data communications: information, data, signals and their properties
    o Data sources and their basic characteristics
    o Coding for discrete data sources: instantaneous codes, lossless and lossy data compression
• Single-hop data communications
    o Transmission media
    o Sampling
    o Redundant encoding for error protection
    o Signal encoding / decoding and modulation / demodulation, passband and baseband
    o Information-theoretic limits for data rates
    o Multiplexing, including spread-spectrum
• Network protocols and their architectures
    o Networked applications and their traffic
    o Network architectures, protocol architectures / layering, switching techniques
• Local Area Networks
    o Medium Access Control
    o Ethernet
    o Wireless LANs
• Link-layer protocols
• Wide-area networks, TCP/IP networks
    o Internet and Internetworking
    o IP and related protocols (ARP, ICMP)
    o TCP/UDP and related protocols
    o TCP dynamics, Congestion control in the Internet
• Application-layer protocols
    o HTTP
    o FTP
    o DNS

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $748.00

International fee $3,388.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Computer Science and Software Engineering .

All COSC264 Occurrences

  • COSC264-14S2 (C) Semester Two 2014
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