CISC474 Spring 2007—Choice Assignments

You need to accumulate between 465 and 500 points from the assignments on the list below in order to earn an A for the "choice assignment" portion of your course grade. The "choice assignment" portion is 30% of your overal course grade.

You may choose to accumulate fewer points if you are satisfied with one of the grades indicated below:

perfect score	A	A-	B+	B-	B	C+	C	C-	D+	D-	D
500	465	450	435	415	400	385	365	350	335	315	300

To count, choice assignments must be submitted for a grade (in the manner indicated) before the deadline shown.
After that deadline, late penalties apply, per course policies.
No choice asssignment will be accepted if more than 6 days late.
Points earned in excess of 500 may be transferred to other categories of your grade, subject to the limitations indicated on the course syllabus.

Assignment	Title	Proposal Due	Code Due	Presentation Due	Points	Group or Individual
C01	JavaScript assignments for CISC103	n/a	04/11/2007	n/a	30-90 per assignment, limit of 5 per student	individual
C02	PHP + MySQL App: You design it	Wednesday: 03/14/2007	05/04/2007	05/07/2007	100-500 depending on complexity, usefulness	your choice
C03	Java Servlet/JSP app: You design it	Wednesday: 03/14/2007	05/04/2007	05/07/2007	100-500, depending on complexity, usefulness	your choice
C04	Developing content for CISC474 Wiki	none, but need to reserve your topic on the Wiki Page TopicList_TODO	03/23/2007 for simple edits, 04/20/2007 for complex projects	n/a	25-400 points see TopicList_TODO for exact point values	individual
C05	Design your own web app (technology tba-could be PHP, or JSP, or JavaScript)	Wednesday: 03/14/2007	05/04/2007	05/07/2007	100-500, depending on complexity, usefulness	your choice

More Choice Assignments TBA...

I expect to post several more choice assignments as the semester progresses.

Several of the assignments "in the works" are projects involving real customers

Developing web materials for the White Clay Creek Wild and Scenic River program (http://www.whiteclay.org).
- Complete redesign of their current site to make information easier to find
- Google maps mashups to help the public understand the watershed (see proof-of-concept idea at http://www.pconrad.net/gmaps/gmapTest3.html
Developing new web site materials and web applications for the STN49 UD TV station (http://www.stn49.tv/)
Evaluating various architectures for web hosting company support of Java Servlets JSPs
- working with HostMySite.com to evaluate use of Tomcat vs. Caucho Resin
- understanding and solving the problems of running Servlets in a real world scalable fashion
Developing web apps to help CISC181 students practice for quizzes and exams
- based on an XML platform developed by a previous CISC474 student

Another assignment involves engaging with the material in various ways and making a record of those experiences:

Journaling on the WebCT discussion board about various issues raised in the textbooks and the accompanying reading notes

Finally, there are opportunitites to pursue other topics related to CISC474, and present your findings to the class:

Develop a presentation, notes, and "homework exercises" to enable fellow CISC474 students to learn about Ruby on Rails (could be group or individual).
Evaluate, download, install, and demonstrate the use of an open source bug/issue tracking package such as Bugzilla, and present your findings to the class. (most likely an individual, but working in the context of helping a group to use the chosen package.)