ACET (Association For Computer Educators in Texas )

Promoting Computer Education and Research in Texas
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The magazine archive includes every article published in Journal of the ACET for over the past 10 years. Retaining papers published in the ACET Journal will allow useful source material for later analysis by people interested in studying research and educational articles in our journal.

2013 & 2014 (Vol.9)

  • - Incorporating Project Management Tools and Techniques to Manage Student Team Projects and the Influence of Leadership Styles

    - Author: Trisha D. Anderson, Ph.D., Thomas J. Bell III Ph.D.

    We combine the cooperative learning environment methodologies with the project management knowledge areas , defined by the internationally recognized Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) , to provide a framework to understand the combined acquisition of sought after hard and soft skills in an effort to identify leadership opportunities. The paper further discusses the leadership construct s and its dimensionality using t he Multifactor Leade rship Questionnaire (MLQ 5x -­‐ short ) to rate 89 student responses regarding leadership behavior on project teams to understand the correlations between leaders’ behaviors and the team dynamics of conflict and cohesion.

  • - Teaching the Backtracking Method using Intelligent Games

    - Author: Anca Andrei , W. Ted Mahavier Ph.D.

    Teaching programming techniques has always been a challenge. We exhibit an innovative way of teaching the backtracking programming strategy using educational games, in particular Sudoku. Compared to traditio nal ways of teaching backtracking, we used a new pseudo - code that corresponds to the solution tree of the educational game. Most of the current textbooks present the traditional way to teach backtracking by showing the recursive call at the end of the back track() method. We wil l show an alternative to describing the backtrack() method by extending the solution with a choice, followed by the recursive call, which is in turn followed by an undo of that choice (that is, the backtracking step). As such, a path in the solution tree will correspond to a sequence of recursive calls of the backtrack() method. In this way, anyone who knows Sudoku rules or any other educational game (chess, eight queens, the knight’s tour problem, etc.) will most like ly understand th e backtracking strategy. Another contribution of our work is a mathematically sound method to transform a random Sudoku grid into a similar one which accepts only one Sudoku solution.

  • - Teaching for Understanding in Computer Science Education

    - Author: William A. Booth, Ph.D.

    The Teaching for Understanding (TfU) provides a framework for teaching that is focused on student understanding. In computer science education, pair programming is a powerful tool for helping students develop sound problem solving, and programming skills. This article discusses how pair programming can be used in the Teaching for Understanding framework.

2012 - 2013 (Vol.8)

  • - A Study to Identify Influences of Financial Aid on the Enrollment and Retention of Hispanic Students in Higher Education

    - Author: Dr. Charles McDonald, Jr., Dr. Theresa McDonald and Dr. Larry Davis

    In fall 2009, three professors realized th at attritio n was high among Hispanic university students and felt there was a need for a study to identify factors that influence Hispanic students’ experience s in higher education . The purpose of this study was to identify factors that influence Hispanic students’ experience s in higher education via a model that associates enrollment and retention levels with student satisfaction concerning financial aid. More specifically, t his study attempted to capture students’ perceptions of the financial aid office concerning the performance of services and the level of satisfaction related to human interface. Targeted f actors in this study were based on identified concerns expressed by students in two Hispanic focus groups.

  • - Computational Thinking: Building a Model Curriculum

    - Author: William A. Booth, Greg Hamerly, David Sturgill, Ivy Hamerly, and Todd Buras

    As computing technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous, the need to understand how computers solve problems and the need to decipher what types of problems are best solved with computational tools is becoming increasingly relevant throughout the academic and commercial fields. This paper describes a computational thinking curriculum development project. The purpose of this one - semester course is to introduce computational t hinking to undergraduate students who are not computer science majors. This course was designed to en gage a broad group of students, including those not ordinarily accustomed to using computation as a tool. The course includes skills such as problem abstraction and decomposition, understanding fundamental programming concepts, and appreciating the practical and theoretical limits of computation. With these goals in mind, problems from a diverse set of fields were developed to demonstrate how computati onal thinking could be applied in a variety of academic and real - world problem domains. These sample problems were then used to build a new course in computational thinking targeted at non - computer science majors. After testing and refining the curriculum, the course was evaluated in two instructional settings to establish its effectiveness. This investigation revealed that formal training in computational thinking decreases computer anxiety while increasing the participants’ ability to use computational th inking as a problem solving strategy.

  • - Practical Considerations for Retaining High Quality Technical Instructors in the Texas Public Schools

    - Author: Dr. Richard Rose

    The bursting of the infamous Tech Bubble in 2002 , and the huge layoffs of highly qualified technical personnel in its aftermath , has sent an unprecedented str eam of amazingly qualified technical instructors to our public schools . A whole indust ry of alternative c ertification has blossomed to support this migration of talent from the private sector to the public sector. As a result, the public schools, especially the high schools, are enjoying a quality of technical instructor that they previously could neither attract nor aff ord. This t emporary imbalance between supply and demand in favor of the public schools cannot contin ue. As the economy improve s , all signs point to the technology sector as being among the f irst to recover. P rivate industry will try to lure those technology teaching wizards back with better pay, better benefits, and infinitely better cafeteria food. If the public schools are going to retain the ir best talent, they must grasp the true motivators of te chnical inst ructor loyalty and s till not break the budget . This paper describes critic al non - pocketbook motivators and what steps school distr icts can take to leverage these motivators in their favor.

  • - Social Network's Role in the Classroom for Collaborative Learning

    - Author: Hajar Sanders, PhD, and Laura Kabiri, PT, MS

    The purpose of this study is to discuss the benefits and draw backs of the usage of social n etworks in the classro om environment. Can we use the social network as an enhancement learning tool to boost and motivate students to learn c ourse work materials? Internet t echnology offers a number of possibilities and opportunities for enhancing the learning environment. Opportunities include providing a unique and dynamic environment for learning complex topics and render many difficu lt or boring subjects more interesting and perhaps easier to grasp. Educators notice d that students were using the social n etwork media for sharing information and common interests. This communication tool provides a convenient means of communication and i s an accepted method of exchanging information and interacting with others. As educators, a possible question is: can we take advantage of the social n etworks to engage the learner in absorbing course material or can we benefit from the social n etwork as a communication media to reach out to our learners and use this media as a motivational tool?

2011 & 2012 (Vol.7)

  • - Developing a Three Tier Web Application Using ASP.NET and Open Source Object-Oriented Database db4objects

    - Author: Morris M. Liaw, Venkata Durbhakula, and Mahesh Molakalapalli

    This paper details the use of object - oriented database db4o bjects (db 4 o) , ASP.NET 3.5, MVC architecture , and the Visual Studio IDE (Integrated Development Enviro nment) to develop a three tier w eb application. The major contribution of this paper is to show how a three tier we b application can be easily deve loped and deployed by taking advantage of an object - oriented database instead of using ADO.NET or Datasets that access traditional rela tional databases. A sample web application called the “Fee Management Tool” is developed to illustrate how a db4o database can be used as a back - end database and how t he Visual Studio 2008 IDE can be used to run the db4o plug - in . The benefits and some conc erns about db4o are also discussed at the end of the paper.

  • - Benchmarking Comparison of VMware Workstation and Sun VirtualBox OSE

    - Author: Mark Revels and Mark Ciampa

    Virtualization is becoming increasingly popular, both for servers as well as desktop systems. Several studies have been undertaken to examine the impact that virtualization has on system performance. This study is a benchmarking comparison of desktop appli cation performance between VMware Workstation and Sun VirtualBox OSE using WorldBench 6 benchmark stress testing , which utilizes application - based tests to gauge real - world system performance. As was expected , both virtual machines imposed a performance impact upon the systems . However, an unexpected result was that the open source Virtualbox OSE performed in an almost identical level to the commercial ly available and more expensive VMware Workstation product .

  • - Coaching Style Teaching Strategy in Hands-on IS Courses

    - Author: Bahadir K. Akcam

    The purpose of this article is to describe the advantages of introducing a coaching style te aching strategy in a hands - on information systems course for non - information systems major undergraduate students. The outcome of teaching information systems courses to non - information systems majors was low g rades and wi thdrawals and it was u ltimately lea ding to student dissatisfaction . After implementing several teaching strategies, the coaching style teaching strategy was found to work best in decreasing withdrawals and failures as well as increasing student engagement in the course.

  • - SAT-MATH an Indicator of Gain or Loss in STEM Majors

    - Author: Reni Abraham

    The retention of students from one semester to another in a science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) major profits the nation as a whole. The purpose of this study was to conduct a site - specific research to determine the predictability in the students ’ persistence in STEM majors based on their SAT - MATH scores . The participants were 5,531 students that entered a mid - sized public university at Texas between the years of 2000 and 2001 and had a major declared on file . A fter a linear regression was conducted to check the assumptions , a binary logistic regression was performed on the re code d dichotomous categories with the students’ SAT MATH score. The results indicated that the SAT - MATH score is a predictor of students staying in STEM, switchin g out of or into STEM, or never attempting STEM majors. The researcher believe s that the results of this study will assist college counselors in better advising freshmen students in selection o f courses, declaring majors , and making correct career choices. Additionally, it will give insight to academic departments to make adjustments and or realign the curriculum to attain an increased persistence in STEM majors.

  • - Software Design, a 2011 Primer

    - Author: Sharon Andrews White and Muhammad "Tuan" Amith

    This paper examines the state of software design in 201 1 . It covers the benefits of good design, drawbacks of poor design, overviews the major challenges to good design, and categorizes the maj or strategies in use for design creation. Known design principles that have held the past 20 - 30 years are presented as well as the compositional makeup of a design method in general. It also provides a categorization of the modeling approaches in use today as well as a categorization of the types of design methods and an overview of four of the more recent promising approaches to software design.

  • - The Social Network Hiatus

    - Author: Hajar Sanders

    Social Networking has become trendy and well accepted as a communication medium. Such media are highly popular among the younger generation and others of a somewhat different age. These more youthful users, sharing information and interacting with others, might be referred to as the social network generation. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the rapid developments in social network technologies and online communications on the older generation. The Social Network is the use of the World Wide Web to promote the exchange of information and provide users with a convenient method of interacting with others; providing individuals the ability to communicate and share common interests. The availability and popularity of Social Network att racts and captures the attention of users in the early stages of their life. Their usage of this technology becomes embedded in their daily activity; forcing, as a practical matter, parents to become familiar with the technology in order to maintain relati onships and communicate. These trends, in general, are challenges to the older generations regarding the usage of newer technology, concepts, and capabilities.

2009 - 2010 (Vol.6)

2007 (Vol.5)

  • - Keeping Up With a Global IT Workforce

    - Author: Sharon Perkins Hall

    Economic issues have recen tly leapt into the realm of computing and information technology (IT) professions. As with a number of industries that have moved from isolation to globalization, th e IT industry has undergone dr astic, but not unexpected, changes as a worldwide economy has emerge d. The information industry evolved in a very short time due to the rapid developmen t and improvement of computer hardware and software and the increased need and capacity for information sharing. As the industry has matured, it moved along a similar path to that of agriculture and manufacturing. Because of increased communication and travel cap abilities, the workfor ce that is able to participate in the information industry is no l onger limited to the Un ited States and other developed countries. As the needs of this i ndustry continue to evolve, so must its workforce education and preparation. With an already crowded curriculum, computing and information systems educators are challe nged to develop and m onitor a rigorous and relevant plan of study. Thus, IT industries and universities who prepare the workforce must continually adapt creative and meaningful strategies in order to prepare competitive workers while balancing an expanding curriculum.

  • - Choosing a Web Based Homework Delivery System

    - Author: Nancy Leveille

    This study presents the implementation pro cess, using best practices, for choosing a web based homework delivery system unde rgone by one department at a wireless, diverse, mid-sized, urban, open-admissions univ ersity in the southwestern United States. The topics in College Algebra are similar to those in courses taught worldwide. Though changes were mandated by outside forces, ch oices were made by the faculty at the department level. Many aspects of the ch anges were data driven. The process of implementation was developed over several years due to the necessity of making refinements as well as to the desire of in cluding all stakeholders in the collaborative effort. The successful implementation of homework assignments transitioning from hardcopy format to a web based format are e xpected to have at least two worthwhile outcomes: (a) students will be more successf ul in the course due to the continuous availability of online assistance, and (b) f aculty workload will be decreased due to a reduction in the amount of homework grading.

  • - Microsoft Media Stream Technology and Online Media Teaching

    - Author: Delin Tan, PhD

    In this presentation, we explore how to use the Microsoft Media Streaming Technology to create software that can do cl ass room teaching, recording and live online education broadcasting simultaneously. This software not only can play voice with the lecture notes like any commercial online presentation, but also can show the instructor’s mouse writing and keyboard typing. Moreover, with the help of media server, the instructor can broadcast the online voiced lecture via Internet to students from any place if there is a fast network c onnection. We use this softwa re design as an example to educate our computer science students to understand the basic coding architecture and operations of Microsoft Encoder tec hnology and Media Server services.

  • - OSSIM - An Operating System Simulator

    - Author: Richard M. Reese., PhD

    Operating Systems concepts are best learned through implementation. However, this can be difficult and time consuming. To support th is learning process an OS simulator has been developed that allows students to lear n about OS concepts using student-written Java code fragments

2006 Fall(Vol.4)

  • - A Model for Developing Internet-based Course Samples for Successful E-Marketing to Recruit and Retain Students

    - Author: Shohreh Hashemi and Gail Kellersberger

    This paper describes the development of a user-friendly and a ttractive Internet-based multimedia course teaser that combines e-l earning and e-marketing to recruit and retain students. The needs and constraints that ins tigated the creation of the course sample are discussed, the model and its development ar e described, the technical aspects of the project are outlined, and the outcomes to date are delineated. The model was developed using software and materials available to an y developer regardless of computer-skill background. An attractive function of the model is its ability to not only respond to student need for practice but also its design for use as a marke ting tool. The simple data capture system collects prospective student data for future marketing. A marketing contact program using the captured data keeps name-recognition and program quality fresh in the minds of prospective students. The model is a work ing success and can be emulated by other programs.

  • - Six Experience-based Guidelines for Successful Synchronous Chat

    - Author: Jan Ray and Candace Figg

    Over the past four years (or a combined eight-years of experi ence facilitating chat sessions), we have incorporated synchronous chat sessions into our distance learning courses. While doing so, we have diligently elicited and carefully listened to feedback from our students—feedback rela ted to the types of chat activ ities that our students liked and disliked, including why; how the chat activities met or did not meet students’ learning style needs; and students’ overall pe rceptions of the effec tiveness of the chat sessions in helping them achieve their lear ning goals, objectives, and outcomes. Based upon the feedback received, as well as our pe rsonal observations, we have continually redesigned our chat sessions in an effort to improve students’ chat experiences. In this article, we offer insight into what we ha ve learned from and the accommodations made for our students. From designing purpos eful chats to establishing “on-demand” availability, our sincere hope is that these experienced-based guidelines help other online instructors who strive, as we do, to design and facilitate high ly effective chat experiences for distance learning students.

  • - Socio-Economic Disparity and Technology Use in the Urban Classrooms

    - Author: Emiel Owens, Holim Song and Terry T. Kidd

    Over the past fifteen years a cons iderable amount of research has been devoted to study of the socio- economic disparities in mathem atic instruction, technology and its application in the mathematics clas sroom. With the call for curricular and instructional reform, educational institutions have embarked on the process to reform their educational practices to aid the urban student in their quest to obtain a quality mathematic and science based education with the integration of technology. The study performed was to reexamine the socio-economic disparities in tec hnology application and to provide empirical evidence of whether thes e disparities continue to exist and their effects these factors have on student achieve ment in the mathematics classroom. The results of this study showed an overall pos itive relationship regarding the use of technology interventions with in the mathematics classroo m with levels of student achievement, showing a clear signs of c ontinued disparities within mathematics classroom.

  • - The Laptop Component in the Learners' Community

    - Author: Merrilee Cunningham, Ruth Robbins and Deborah Buell

    Universities can significantly increase the potential for academic success and degree completion for students who may be fearful of failing or have had toxic experiences with the traditional academic environment during their freshman and sophomore years in college. This positive result can be achieved by developing an infrastructure of student support delivered through learners’ communities that include an interpersonal mentorship component, laptop computers, and a high-tech component that includes a web of learning networks. Building such a network of learning communities allows students to function in an environment that sets them up for success rather than failure, that gives them the emotional assurance that they won't need to either fight or take flight, that they are not being set up for failure and further learned helplessness.

2005 Fall (Vol.3)

  • - IT Workforce: A Review of Employment Trends

    Today’s IT job market has changed signi ficantly from the explosive growth which occurred in the late 1990s. While a great deal of attention has been focused on dramatic reductions of IT jobs in several high prof ile industries, the overall IT employment experienced modest increases in 2003 and 2004. Current projections estimate a 3 percent annual increase in IT employmen t through the end of the decade.

  • - A Comparison of CIS Degree Programs

    - Author: Ruth Robbins

    In recent years, the computer inform ation systems field has changed dramatically: going through several iterations. Therefore, it is unclear how computer information systems educators should respond when updating their respective programs. As a result, this paper will report the results of a study which compared the computer information systems’ required courses at several undergra duate-only instituti ons which are schools certified by the Association to Advance Co llegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) with those IS 97 curriculum areas and courses sp ecified by the Association of Information Technology Professionals (formerly known as the DPMA/Data Processing Management Association). . This information can be utilized by CI S curriculum developers and other educators. It can provide helpful information to non-educator s and prospective students when they are attempting to compare and analyze the quality and effectiveness of a given IS program. The information was extracted from vari ous websites of undergraduate-only AACSB institutions as they appear ed between 11/1/00 and 12/1/00.

  • - From Outline To Powerpoint in Thirty Minutes!

    - Author: Sol Schneider

    Most users of presentation software repor t it would take them about two days of nonstop work to produce all the text for a 20 - 30 slide long presentati on, and to get it into Powerpoint©. This document will s how you how to do that task in 30 minutes ! How do you begin making a slide show? Do you collect source material, think about it, and get a firm idea what you need to say before you begin? Let’s assume you do. What tool should you use first, a word pr ocessor or presentatio n program? The word processor is designed for high sp eed text entry; the presenta tion program is designed for displaying the text in large and colorful letters and for including loads of multimedia. Once you know what you want to say you can type those words in MS Word© in very few minutes. Most users report they type at least 30 words per minute. A 30-slide show may only need 450 to 500 words of text.

  • - The Identity Theft Crisis Has Arrived!

    - Author: Charles R. B. Stowe, Kenneth Balusek, and Keith Jenkins

    Identity theft is emerging as a major criminal activity and security headache for legitimate businesses, consumers and for financ ial institutions. It has reached a crisis level. The reasons for the popularity of identity theft incl ude the following: technology has empowered individuals living far away from their victims to exploit false identities, sophisticated groups have discovered that th e changes of getting caught from stealing $1 from a million victims is less likely than r obbing a bank of a million in cash, and all but the most sophisticated law enforcement agencies lack the ability to electronically identify the culprits. Federal agencies tend to fo cus investigations on major thefts from institutions rather than crimes involving small amounts of money.

  • - A Web Database Development Course and a Unique Problem-Solving Project

    - Author: Charles R. Moen and Morris M. Liaw

    Today, the content of most Web site s contains dynamically generated pages that present information stored in a database, and computer science studen ts are eager to learn how to develop these database-driven Web site s. This paper presents how students at the University of Houston - Clear Lake (UHCL) learn about Web database development in a course that emphasizes projec t-building activities, and it looks at the implementation details of a successful student project, the Online Addres s Book. Four unique problems and the solutions that were implemented in this project are explained: 1) editing multiple students’ data; 2) checking the data with a regular expression ; 3) stale session variables; and 4) potential secu rity violations.

  • - Supporting an Information Systems Curriculum with a Management Science Course

    - Author: Scott J. Seipel

    The development of skills directly pertaining to information systems (IS) is often perceived as a task whose sole champions are the instructors in the discipline. However, there are reasons to believe that courses in other disciplines can be designed to further develop these skills, l eading to improved student performan ce. In the case of a seemingly unrelated management science course, critic al, problem-solving and development skills can be specifically developed to support a cu rriculum in IS. Many of the topics within management science – business process mode ling, systems testing, coding techniques, etc. – have a direct linkage to topics in IS. Additionally, the application of management science techniques can be focused on uses that are typical needs of IS professionals. This paper explores the connection between the tw o disciplines and suggests ways in which a focused course in management science can be used to advance students’ ability to process information and develop systems.

  • - A Framework for the Study of Technology Supported Education

    - Author: David Van Over

    Teachers must select both content for th eir classes and the level of technological support they will use to deliver it. The use of technology in the teacher/learning process has infiltrated nearly every leve l of education with the support of both teachers and administrators. The value of this revolution is uncertain. Research results are mixed. Part of the difficulty in interpretation is the lack of a framework to categorize existing results and direct futu re efforts. This paper proffers such a framework. The framework evolved from the simple communication model. The framework describes three dimensions in the process; teacher, student, and message. The various activities contained in each dimension are described by the tasks they contain. The paper also desc ribes where technology can be applied.

2004 Summer (Vol.2)

  • - A Multimedia Online Computer Literacy Course: Development and Preliminary Evaluation

    - Author: Lila Ghemri, Samuel K. Lau, Roger R. Mepewou, and Baqui Abdullah

    At Texas Southern University (TSU), a Historically Black Colle ges and Universities (HBCU) member, a pilot project, consisting in the creation of an on line course, has been realized. While this endeavor is quite co mmon in other universities, HBCUs have, in general, been somewhat lagging behind in offering online courses to their students. Indeed, results of a study [1] shows that only 25% of HBCUs offer online programs compared to 79% of public four-year inst itutions and 47% of private four-year institutions. This is due in part to the socio-economical st atus of the student population (see [2,3,4]) and also to the relatively lo w endowments that HBCUs receive [1]. The course selected for this pilot project is a computer literacy course, known as CS116 or COSC1300. This course covers topics su ch as computer hardware and software, and computer applications such as word pro cessing, spreadsheets, and report preparation. CS116 is a prerequisite course for all majors offered at Texas Southern University, which makes it a very high demand, very heavy attendance course. Consequently, it was deemed appropriate to produce an online versio n of this course, with the hope that this would alleviate the teaching load of faculty members. However, before launching this course online, it had to be tested on its effectiveness as a learning tool. In the following, we describe the website de velopment and give a preliminary evaluation of its effectiveness as a teaching tool.

  • - Use Of Low-Cost Beowulf Clusters In Computer Science Education

    - Author: Timothy J. McGuire

    A Beowulf cluster is a multiprocessor built from COTS (commodity off-the-shelf) components connected via a dedicated network, r unning open-source software. Beowulf clusters can provide performance rivaling that of a superc omputer for a miniscule fraction of the cost. This paper shares the author’s experience in building two such clusters. s

  • - Open Source and Open Standards in Higher Education

    - Author: Anand Kumar Chauhan

    The newest trend in software development is ope n source, which has become almost a revolution over the last decade. Led by the finest softwa re minds on the planet, open source is not only a social and collaborative way to develop software, but in most cases is immune to the profit motive common in the close source software compa ny culture. Open source software gave rise to open standards of data exchange, contro l procedures, and interaction among open source software components. This paper will analyze c ontributions made by open source software to education in general with special reference to higher education. The paper ends with a description and comparison of ke y features of some open source/ open standard resources for e- learning. These demonstrate the flexibility and consequent cost reduc tion for online education systems.

  • - Spam is Not Delicious - An Update on the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

    - Author: Charles R. B. Stowe

    The unsolicited commercial communicat ion via email is perhaps the most effective and cheapest of all marketing strategies . The result is that millions of emails are cluttering up inboxes. Other than unsolicited telephone calls , there is no single political issue that has garnered such bi-partisan support as attempts to legislatively curtail the use of spam. The result is a plethora of stat e legislation and, more recently, the Can-Spam Act of 2003 that that pre-empts state law. When this topic was first researched for presentation at the September 2003 ACET conf erence, the federal law was not included because there were several competing versions working their way through the legislative process. This paper is not based on the September 2003 ACET presentation titled “SPAM is not Delicious” but is an expans ion and updating to provi de insight on a new federal law, the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. This paper briefly outlines the recent federal legislation and provides a timetable of wh en federal agencies will have to submit proposed regulations to enforce the intent of Congress. Readers should beware that the entire anti-spam effort is truly a work-in-pr ogress that may require years before the legal landscape is fully defined. Ultimately, because the internet is truly a global institution, the United States will have to negotiate intern ational agreements with other jurisdictions because unscrupulous spammers will simply tran sfer their operations to other countries beyond the jurisdictional reach of the Unite d States. Meanwhile, legitimate U.S. companies need to develop an understanding of Can-Spam Act of 2003 and related legal issues.

  • - The Online Grade Book - A Case Study in Learning about Object-Oriented Database Technology

    - Author: Charles R. Moen and Morris M. Liaw

    An object-oriented database is faster than a relational database, and it can store complex data more efficiently. However, obj ect-oriented database technology is not as well known as relational databa se technology. This paper examines how students at the University of Houston - Clear Lake (UHCL) learn to develop an object-oriented database by completing a semester-long project.

  • - Building Student Forums with PHP and MySQL Technologies

    - Author: Rambis Chu and Etta F Walker

    In today’s open source soft ware (OSS) environment, PHP (Personal Home Page) scripting language [1] and MySQ L database [2] offer an alternative, effective, and cost- saving solution to build data-driven, dynami c, and personalized web applications. Meanwhile, on-line electronic learning become s ubiquitous and unique for contemporary education. In this article, we will discuss th e process of developing and deploying student forums using the PHP and MySQL technolog ies. We have found that by including on- line forums to support classroom instruction, st udent participation in creases dramatically.

2003 Summer (Vol.1)

  • - A Preliminary Report on TNMS: TCU’s Network Management System

    - Author: C. Thomas Nute and L. Donnell Payne

    Students obtaining an undergraduate degree in computer science at Texas Christian University (TCU) are required to take a two-semester, project-oriented, capstone course. This paper provides an overview of a network management tool being developed by one of the student teams in the course. The project involves three computer science majors, two faculty advisors, and a member of the University’s Information Services (IS) technical staff. The latter acts as both an advisor to the project as well as the ultimate customer. When completed, this tool will be used by system and network administrators in IS to monitor the “health” of the TCU network. In the discussion that follows we will describe the overall architecture of the monitoring tool, some of the issues tha t have been addressed in developing a prototype of the tool; and offer a critique of the project to date.

  • - Developing a MIS Major and Support Facilities: A Unified Project

    - Author: Gary Fisher

    Management Information Systems courses were introduced to the Angelo State University campus as of the fall semester 1996. This involved the creation of courses that were at first taught under the Management 4381 series of seminar courses. These courses were eventually cataloged as MIS courses once the MIS option to themanagement degree was approved in October of 1998 and became effective with spring semester 1999.

  • - Message-Passing as an Introduction to Distributed Processing In the Undergraduate Curriculum

    - Author: Timothy McGuire

    The paper shares recent experience using message - passing as an introduction t o distributed processing in lower - level CS courses. These experiences come mainly from using MPI in the CS I course, and comparing the experience with a similar assignment in an upper - level (operating systems) course. Distributed processing is not yet in cluded the standard computer science curriculum. When it is introduced, it is usually done in an advanced course. Nonetheless, distributed processing is being used extensively in industry, and hence it an important topic. There has been a great deal of i nterest in the construction of Beowulf clusters, and many institutions have constructed these from inexpensive or even surplus machines. The programming of these machines, however, is often difficult. Various means of programming include: PVM, MPI, and Java RMI. Each of these environments has its own idiosyncrasies when it comes to programming in it

  • - E-Commerce Contracts Enforceability

    - Author: Keith Jenkins

    With the increased use of the World Wide Web for commercial and consumer transactions and with the passage of the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, more and more sites offer > click to agree = contracts. This paper raises the issue of whether such contracts may be defeated by the argument that they are truly adhesion contracts and that their terms should not be enforced because of a lack of effective consent. Those who contemplate making purch ases or signing agreements over the World Wide Web will find this paper useful in understanding why > point and click = type contracts though fitting the description of adhesion contracts may nonetheless be deemed enforceable.

  • - The Role of Technologies in a Modern Urban Higher Educational Institution

    - Author: Steve A. Reames

    Our culture of urgency is splitting space into time. Although residences and work places have drifted physically closer over the last thirty years, travel t ime between residence and work has been increasing. Urban sprawl has thinned the human population to a level where interesting activities associated with diversity don’t spontaneously appear, and has created conditions where automobiles can no longer trav el space in reasonable lengths of time. In these circumstances, individuals are faced with a choice: (1) they can endure further degeneration of their time - space circumstance, (2) They can re - group at the city center and attempt to regenerate the diversit y within the bounds of the city, or (3) they can turn and run. Not surprisingly, telecommunications technology, rather than the telephone, remains at the center of this choice

  • - ADA and Website Compliance

    - Author: Charles R. B. Stowe

    This research was undertaken to consider the following question: whether the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to websites, and if so, what sort or compliance is required and for what types of sites? While there are no Supreme Court pronouncements on the specifics of the applicability of ADA to websites, there is a body of case law and regulatory standards. Assuming that the ADA does apply to websites, this a rticle introduces the technologies and sources of information on how to design a website that might be considered ADA compliant.