IS100 Syllabus

SYLLABUS

DESCRIPTION: The course will give the basic skills to the students to make them both computer and information literate.

OBJECTIVES: At the end of this course, students will be able to

O1: Describe and link the basic concepts of information technology and adapt to using the emerging technologies effectively

O2: Identify the nature and extent of the information they need

O3: Search, access, collect, assess, criticize, compare, analyze, locate and present the information they require

O4: Identify, demonstrate and describe ethical issues, regulations and laws to use information, software and technology systems

O5: Practice health and safety issues involved in using computers

O6: Compose, edit and revise a document using a word processing tool including Microsoft Word

O7: Manipulate, organize, filter and analyze data using spreadsheets

O8: Communicate, interact and collaborate with peers, experts and other audiences through various media including NetMeeting and applications including Microsoft Outlook and web browsers

O9: Investigate, define and solve basic computer problems, provide maintenance and security of computers

O10: Use technology to support decision making process for real world problems

O11: Construct personal knowledge and meaning using electronic research techniques

O12: Apply technology to increase productivity

O13: Work with Windows environment

O14: Organize and present information by combining different media

The course covers the following topics:

Hardware: Definition of hardware; definition of PC components including mainboard, memory, harddisk, CPU, sound card, DVD, CDROM, and floppy disk; explanation of how PC components work; managing hardware problems.

Operating Systems: Definition of software and operation system; definition of file and directory; file and directory management including saving, deletion, renaming, changing attributes and permissions in Windows and command prompt; file formats including exe, sys, bat, bmp, doc, xls, txt, pdf, xml, html and ppt; system files; how to search a file and directory; bits, bytes, and kilobytes; how to set paths and classpaths and explain their purpose; copying and pasting; explanation of human computer interaction subject and user interface components on Windows environment; introduction to command prompt environment including MS DOS and Linux; explanation of how to change the display settings of monitors and control panel settings; health and safety in working with visual display units; definition of security terminology including firewalls, viruses and worms; setting a firewall; digital signatures; protect and restrict documents in Word, and Excel; computer maintenance including de-fragmentation, scanning disk, disk cleanup, start up programs.

Information Resources: Definition of information and computer literacy and their importance in our daily lives; definition of WAN, LAN, WWW, FTP, telnet, e-books, HTTP and explanation of how they work and how to use them; introduction to well-known digital information resources; how to use search engines and digital libraries effectively; introduction to shareware and freeware software packages.

Ethics: How to assess information summaries returned by the search engines; how to assess content; how to cite resources and introduction to well-known citation formats including Harvard and IEEE; importance of ethical/legal issues, copyrights, terms and conditions, contracts and intellectual property rights and examples; plagiarism and academic integrity

Document Processing: Wordpad and notepad basics including fonts, paragraph formatting and tabs, find and replace; Microsoft Word basics including bullets and numbering, styles, formatting, columns, inserting textbox, inserting pictures, spelling and grammar, indexing, table and contents, header and footer, tracking changes, language settings.

Electronic Presentations: How to prepare a presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint; presentation techniques; how to combine different media; definition of multimedia; multimedia authoring tools including image and video editors; multimedia networks including QoS, VoIP and media-on-demand; compression formats and standards for data, images, audio and video; web page design.

Data Analysis and Spreadsheets: Importance of data analysis; well-known functions including counting, summation, averaging, if blocks, finding maximum and minimum and standard deviation; how to prepare a professional looking table and its importance; how to interpret data by using techniques such as sorting and filtering; importing and exporting data in Excel; how to summarize data by using charts and graphs and how to make them professionally looking.

WEEKLY PROGRAM:

WEEK 1:

LECTURE TOPIC: Introduction to information and computer literacy
GOAL: Explain the importance of being information and computer literate and how this course will help them to achieve this.

CONTENTS:

  • General objective of the course
  • Definition of information and computer literacy and their importance in our daily lives
  • Identifying students' own limitations and skills in use of computer and information and make them empathize with subject
  • Definition of e-learning
  • Net-Clas

WEEK 2:

LECTURE TOPIC: Basic concepts in information technology

GOAL: Introduce the basic concepts in information technology including hardware, software and operating systems. The students will learn the components of PC, understand and define the terminology and be able to build a PC according to the minimum requirements of an operating system or a computer application. They will also learn how to read specifications.

CONTENTS:

  • Definition of hardware, software and operation system
  • Definition of PC components including mainboard, memory, harddisk, CPU, sound card,    DVD, CDROM, and floppy disk
  • Explanation of how PC components work
  • Bits, bytes, and kilobytes

WEEK 3:

LECTURE TOPIC: Human computer interaction

GOAL: Introduce the subject of human computer interaction and common Windows user interface components including menus, toolbars, buttons, icons, windows, pointer and scroll bars. Explain each interface component's task and how the students should interact. At the end of this session, the student will be able to use a software package sharing similar interface properties including Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint.

CONTENTS:

  • Explanation of human computer interaction subject and user interface components on Windows environment.
  • Introduction to command prompt environment including MS DOS and Linux.
  • Explanation of how to change the display settings of monitors and control panel settings
  • Health and safety in working with visual display units

WEEK 4:

LECTURE TOPIC: File and directory management

GOAL: Explain how to manage files and directories. The student will be able to recognize basic file extensions and understand their purposes. They will learn how to secure and organize their documents. The students will be able to install or uninstall a computer application and set the necessary properties to run.

CONTENTS:

  • Definition of file and directory.
  • File and directory management including saving, deletion, renaming, changing attributes and permissions in Windows.
  • File formats including exe, sys, bat, bmp, doc, xls, txt, pdf, xml, html and ppt.
  • System files
  • How to search a file and directory
  • Bits, bytes, and kilobytes
  • How to set paths and classpaths and explain their purpose.
  • Copying and pasting
  • The importance of backups and how to perform
  • The importance of versioning
  • Installation, de-installation.
  • Printing a file
  • How to compress files and directories and its importance

WEEK 5:

LECTURE TOPIC: Digital Information Resources

GOAL: Explain well-known digital information resources on the internet and explain how to use them effectively.

CONTENTS:

  • Definition of WAN, LAN, WWW, FTP, telnet, e-books, HTTP and explanation of how they work and how to use them
  • Introduction to well-known digital information resources
  • How to use search engines and digital libraries effectively
  • OPAC
  • Wordpad and notepad basics including fonts, paragraph formatting and tabs, find and replace

WEEK 6&7:

LECTURE TOPIC: Information quality assessment and ethical/legal issues

GOAL: Explain the importance of information quality assessment and show how to do it effectively. The students will learn the ethical/legal issues, intellectual property rights and citation, netiquette, internet fraud. They will also learn how to write a professional Word document.

CONTENTS:

  • How to assess information returned by the search engines
  • How to assess content
  • How to cite resources and introduction to well-known citation formats including Harvard and IEEE
  • Importance of ethical/legal issues, copyrights, terms and conditions, contracts and intellectual property rights and examples
  • Plagiarism and academic integrity
  • Basic netiquette quide.
  • Microsoft Word basics including bullets and numbering, styles, formatting, columns, inserting textbox, inserting pictures, spelling and grammar, indexing, table and contents, header and footer, tracking changes, language settings

WEEK 8&9:

LECTURE TOPIC: Data analysis

GOAL: Explain how to analyze quantitative data using spreadsheets. The students will learn how to prepare a summary of data using graphs and charts.


CONTENTS:

  • Importance of data analysis
  • Well-known functions including counting, summation, averaging, if blocks, finding maximum and minimum and standard deviation.
  • How to prepare a professional looking table and its importance
  • How to interpret data by using techniques such as sorting and filtering
  • Importing and exporting data in Excel
  • How to summarize data by using charts and graphs and how to make them professionally looking

WEEK 10:

LECTURE TOPIC: Presentation

GOAL: Explain presentation techniques. The students will learn how to prepare a professionally looking presentation and combine different media and resources to achieve this.

CONTENTS:

  • How to prepare a presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Presentation techniques
  • How to combine different media

WEEK 11:

LECTURE TOPIC: Computer maintenance, security and problem solving

GOAL: Explain how to maintain computers. The students will be able to define and search the computer problems that they came across. They will learn the basic security terminology and how to protect their computers.

CONTENTS:

  • Definition of security terminology including firewalls, viruses and worms.
  • How to protect PCs: demonstration of setting a firewall
  • How to attach digital signatures to the documents
  • Protect and restrict documents in Word, and Excel
  • Computer maintenance: de-fragmentation, scanning disk, disk cleanup, start up programs

WEEK 12:

LECTURE TOPIC: Multimedia

GOAL: The student will learn how to use multimedia applications on the web and understand the importance of standards for image, audio and video; define the real media, visual media, textual media, their applications and tools.

CONTENTS:

  • Definition of multimedia
  • Multimedia formats and standards
  • Multimedia authoring tools including image and video editors
  • Real time Media, Visual Media, Textual Media.
  • Compression formats and standards for data, images, audio and video
  • Web page creation strategies
  • Web page design