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The f<strong>in</strong>al 20 hours of the course will be an <strong>in</strong>troduction to publish<strong>in</strong>g on the World Wide Web. The Web provides the<br />

ability to access hypertextually organized documents with l<strong>in</strong>ks to other documents, images, sound and video clips.<br />

With the vast storage potential of the 5 million “hosts” and the effective distribution of computation over the network,<br />

it will be possible to write applications of extraord<strong>in</strong>ary beauty and utility. More and more companies are hook<strong>in</strong>g up<br />

to the Web and creat<strong>in</strong>g “home pages.” The demand for people to design applications <strong>in</strong> this context greatly outstrips<br />

the available talent. Students will learn to design and implement fairly sophisticated Web applications. The stress will<br />

be on pr<strong>in</strong>ciples and their illustration <strong>in</strong> the context of contemporary tools. In the second section of the course,<br />

students will learn the pr<strong>in</strong>ciples of hypertext with<strong>in</strong> the simpler context of the CD-ROM environment. The Web adds<br />

a whole new set of conceptualizations and perspectives. Students need to learn to th<strong>in</strong>k <strong>in</strong> network terms. In this<br />

context, multiple threads, tim<strong>in</strong>g constra<strong>in</strong>ts, data transmission volumes and network bandwidth become<br />

important considerations.<br />

How the course will be structured<br />

CS20 is be<strong>in</strong>g structured similar to CS10. Twice weekly lectures will be complemented by twice weekly supervised<br />

labs. Lecture and laboratory manuals are be<strong>in</strong>g prepared and will be revised periodically based on an ongo<strong>in</strong>g<br />

evaluation of their effectiveness. The recitation will be devoted to work<strong>in</strong>g out numerous examples and to giv<strong>in</strong>g<br />

the students the much needed supervised hands on experience. Difficulties can be dealt with by the recitation<br />

<strong>in</strong>structor. Interest<strong>in</strong>g problems and their solutions may be shared.<br />

What will be the impact of the course.<br />

CS20 will significantly improve the quality of computer science <strong>in</strong>struction for non-majors. With<strong>in</strong> the next year,<br />

enrollment could be 200 students per semester. The limit<strong>in</strong>g factor is the lack of adequate lab space. We have applied<br />

to various agencies to help fund facilities devoted to just CS20.<br />

There has been a grow<strong>in</strong>g recognition of the need for a new type of comput<strong>in</strong>g m<strong>in</strong>or. Currently, the computer<br />

science m<strong>in</strong>or focuses on the needs of students major<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the sciences, eng<strong>in</strong>eer<strong>in</strong>g or mathematics. There is a need<br />

for high level comput<strong>in</strong>g skills <strong>in</strong> many other discipl<strong>in</strong>es. CS10 and CS20 courses could form the core of such a<br />

m<strong>in</strong>or. Many students currently <strong>in</strong> this course are Education or Communications majors. Empower<strong>in</strong>g large numbers<br />

of people with these skills will have a profound impact on both the educational and bus<strong>in</strong>ess communities.<br />

The need for such a course is not unique to Queens College. We hope and expect that the techniques and course<br />

materials developed at Queens could be used by <strong>in</strong>stitutions all across the country.

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