Unix Operating System I

ITSC 1407

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16 week version

This syllabus is intended as a set of guidelines for the Unix Operating System I course. North Lake College and your instructor reserve the right to make modifications in content, schedule and requirements as necessary to promote the best educational experience possible within prevailing conditions affecting this course.

ITSC 1407

Unix Operating System I

COURSE DESCRIPTION

A study of the Unix operating system including multi-user concepts, terminal emulation, use of system editor, basic Unix commands, and writing script files. Topics include introductory systems management concepts.

This course covers a basic understanding of the Unix operating system from the user's perspective. It includes an introduction to the principles of operation, general structure, commands, command language and use, use of the shell to perform basic tasks and an overview of some application program development tools. This course will focus on the Bourne and C shells, other shells like the Korn, bash, and T shells are not addressed. Unix tools such as awk, grep and sed will be discussed in some detail.

1.  Prerequisites:

There are no listed prerequisite but previous programming experience and some experience with another operating system such as DOS will be helpful. In addition, many students have found that having taken ITSC 1401 and ITSC 2435 are especially useful.

(4 Credits {hours: 3 lecture 3 lab})

2.  Course Focus:

This course is an introduction to the Unix operating system. Upon successful completion the student should be able to function at the entry level as a Unix user.

3. Text and References:

There are three required texts for this course:

Bulletproof Unix by Dr. Tim Gottleber, published by Prentice Hall., ISBN 0-13-093028-8

UNIX in a Nutshell by Daniel Gilly published by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., ISBN 1-57169-165-0

UNIX Lab Guide by Dr. Tim Gottleber.

Additional Unix reference books will most likely prove helpful, however they are optional. Two that are highly recommended are the sed & awk book by Dougherty, and Learning the vi Editor by Lamb, both are published by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.

Note: no Unix user or programmer can have too many Unix books ;-)

SCANS Information

What are SCANS skills?

These are skills that employers need the most from their workers. SCANS skills are the predictors of success in workplace.

Who defined the skills?

In 1989, the U.S. Department of Labor education jointly surveyed U.S. employers to find out the most important skills and competencies needed by workers.
The results of that survey identified SCANS (Secretaries Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills).

The Information Technology Department at North Lake College is committed to prepare you with the knowledge and skills you need to succeed in today's dynamic work environment. Toward this goal, the following course goals will be addressed. Workplace competencies and foundation skills have been integrated into this course. They are identified in the "Goals" section that follows. Each SCANS skill that is addressed will be listed next to the goal to which it applies.

Throughout a formal program of study (Certificate, Degree, or Transfer Program) each student will have the opportunity to master all of the SCANS skills and competencies.

General Definitions for the SCANS Workplace Competencies:

These definitions are reproduced from "What Work Requires from Schools; A SCANS Report for America 2000," Apps. B and C.

Resources

Manages Time: Selects relevant, goal -- related activities, ranks them in order of importance, allocates time to activities, and understands, prepares, and follows schedules.

Manages Money: Uses or prepares budgets, including making cost and revenue forecasts; keeps detailed records to track budget performance; and makes appropriate adjustments.

Manages Material and Facility Resources: Acquires, stores, and distributes materials, supplies, parts, equipment, space, or final products in order to make the best use of them.

Manages Human Resources: Assesses knowledge and skills, distributes work accordingly, evaluates performance, and provides feedback.

Interpersonal Skills

Participates as a Member of a Team: Works cooperatively with others and contributes to group efforts with ideas, suggestions, and effort.

Teaches Others: Helps others learn needed knowledge and skills.

Serves Clients/Customers: Works and communicates with clients and customers to satisfy their expectations.

Exercises Leadership: Communicates thoughts, feelings, and ideas to justify a position, encourage, persuade, convince, or otherwise motivate an individual or groups, including responsibility challenging existing procedures, policies or authority.

Negotiates to Arrive at a Decision: Works toward an agreement that may involve exchanging specific resources or resolving divergent interests.

Works with Cultural Diversity: Works well with men and women and with people form a variety of ethnic, social, or educational backgrounds.

Information

Acquires and Evaluates Information: Identifies a need for data, obtains the data from existing sources or creates them, and evaluates their relevance and accuracy.

Organizes and Maintains Information: Organizes, processes, and maintains written or computerized records and other forms of information in a systemic fashion.

Interprets and Communicates Information: Selects and analyzes information and communicates the results to others using oral, written, graphic, pictorial, or multimedia methods.

Uses Computers to Process Information: Employs computers to acquire, organize, analyze, and communicate information.

Systems

Understands Systems: Knows how social, organizational, and technological systems work and operates effectively within them.

Monitors and Corrects Performance: Distinguishes trends, predicts impacts of actions on system operations, diagnoses deviations in the functioning of a system/organization, and takes necessary action to correct performance.

Improves and Designs Systems: Makes suggestions to modify existing systems in order to improve the quality of products or services and develops new or alternative systems.

Technology

Selects Technology: Judges which sets of procedures, tools, or machines, including computers and their programs, will produce the desired results.

Applies Technology to Task: Understands the overall intents and the proper procedures for setting up and operating machines, including computers and their programming systems.

Maintains and Troubleshoots Technology: Prevents, identifies, or solves problems in machines, computers, and other technology.

General Definitions for the SCANS Foundation Skills:

Reading: Locates, understands, and interprets written information in prose and documents -- including manuals, graphs, and schedules -- to perform tasks; learns from text by determining the main idea or essential message; identifies relevant details, facts, and specifications; infers or locates the meaning of unknown or technical vocabulary; and judges the accuracy, appropriateness, style, and plausibility of reports, proposals, or theories of other writers.

Writing: Communicates thoughts, ideas, information, and messages in writing; records information completely and accurately; composes and creates documents such as letters, dictations, manuals, reports, proposals, graphic and flowcharts with the language, styles, organization, and format appropriate to the subject matter, purpose, and audience; includes where appropriate, supporting documentation, and attends to level of detail; and checks, edits, and revises for correct information, appropriate emphasis, form, grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Arithmetic: Performs basic computations; uses basic numerical concepts such as whole numbers and percentages in practical situations; makes reasonable estimates of arithmetic results without calculator; and uses tables, graphs, diagrams, and charts to obtain or convey quantitative information.

Mathematics: Approaches practical problems by choosing appropriately from a variety of mathematical techniques; uses quantitative data to construct logical explanations for real world situations; expresses mathematical ideas and concepts orally and in writing; and understands the role of chance in the occurrence and prediction of events.

Listening: Receives, attends to, interprets, in response to verbal messages and other cues such as body language in ways that are appropriate to the purpose -- for example, to comprehend, learn, critically evaluate, appreciate, or support the speaker.

Speaking: Organizes ideas and communicates oral messages appropriate to listeners and situations; participates in conversation, discussion, and group presentations; selects and appropriate medium for conveying a message; uses verbal language and other cues such as body language in a way appropriate in style, tone, and level of complexity to the audience and the occasion; speaks clearly and communicates a message; understands and responds to listener feedback; and asks questions when needed.

Thinking Skills

Creative Thinking: Generates new ideas by making nonlinear or unusual connections, new possibilities; and uses imagination freely, combining ideas or information in new ways, making connections between seemingly unrelated ideas, and reshaping goals in ways that revealed in possibilities.

Decision Making: Specifies goals and constraints, generates alternatives, considers risks, and evaluates and chooses best alternatives.

Problem Solving: Recognizes that a problem exists (i.e., that there is a discrepancy between what is and what should be); identifies possible reasons for the discrepancy, and devises and implements a plan for action to resolve it; and evaluates and monitors progress, revising the plan as indicated by findings.

Mental Visualization: Sees things in the mind's eye by organizing and processing symbols, pictures, graphs, objects, or other information -- for example, sees a building from a blueprint, a systems operation from schematics, the flow of work activities from narrative descriptions, or the taste of food from reading a recipe.

Knowing How to Learn: Recognizes and can use learning techniques to apply and adapt existing and new knowledge and scale in both familiar and changing situations; and is aware of learning tools such as personal learning styles (visual, oral, etc.), formal learning strategies (note taking or clustering items that share some characteristics), and informal learning strategies (awareness of unidentified false assumptions that may lead to faulty conclusions).

Reasoning: Discovers a rule or principle underlying the relationship between two or more objects and applies it in solving a problem -- for example, uses logic to draw conclusions from available information, extract rules or principals from a set of objects or a written text, or applies rules and principles to a new situation (or determines which conclusions are correct when given a set of facts and conclusions).

Personal Qualities

Responsibility: Exerts a high-level effort and perseverance toward goal attainment; works hard to become excellent at doing tasks by setting high standards, paying attention to details, working well even when assigned an unpleasant task, displaying a high-level of concentration; and displays high standards of attendance, punctuality, enthusiasm, vitality, and optimism in approaching and completing tasks.

Self-Esteem: Belize in own self -- worth and maintains a positive view of self, demonstrates knowledge of own skills and abilities, is aware of one's impression of others, and knows own emotional capacity and needs and how to address them.

Socialability: Demonstrates understanding, friendliness, adaptability, empathy, and politeness in new and ongoing group settings; asserts self in familiar and unfamiliar social situations; relates well to others; responds appropriately as the situation requires; and takes interest in what others say and do.

Self-Management: accurately assesses own knowledge, skills, and abilities; sets well-defined and realistic personal goals; monitors progress toward goal attainment and motivates self through goal achievement; and exhibit self-control and responds to feedback non-emotionally and non-defensively.

Integrity/Honesty: Recognizes when being faced with making a decision or exhibiting behavior that may break with commonly held personal or social values; understands the effects of violating these beliefs and codes on an organization, oneself, and others; and chooses an ethical course of action.

SCANS COMPETENCIES SCANS & FOUNDATION SKILLS

Course Goals

The following list of course goals will be addressed in the course. (* designates a CRUCIAL goal) SCANS data are included.

STUDENT CONTRIBUTIONS

Each student will spend, on the average, 12 hours per week preparing for class. Attendance at each class meeting is critical and required in this class. The student is expected to complete each lab assignment using either the computers here at North Lake College, or their own computer running a Unix operating system (or a variant which conforms to the general Unix standard. The Linux operating system is considered an excellent choice for a 386/486 or more powerful machine.)

The bottom line on this, folks, is that you will get out of this class exactly as much as you are willing to put into it.
It's your education, it's your choice.

COURSE EVALUATION

Your lab exercises and exams grades will be on a point basis, and the points you accumulate through the semester will result in a grade being assigned as is explained below.

There will be four (4) tests, each worth 100 points. (400 points total.)
There will be 12 required lab assignments worth 15 points. (180 points total.)
Some of these labs will have extra credit opportunities as well.

There will be at least one (usually 2) optional lab assignments that will serve as an extra credit opportunity.

Attendance/class participation is critical to student success, and regular attendance (missing no more than 2 class meetings) will be awarded 25 points.

This gives a grand total of 605 points without extra credit.

Grades will be assigned on the following scale:

A = 544 points and above 90%

B = 543 - 484 points 80%

C = 483 - 424 points 70%

D = 423 - 363 points 60%

F = fewer than 363 points

Course Schedule

The class meets for 6 hours per week. This time will be divided between lecture, exercises, and lab assignments. The actual amount of time in each of these areas will vary depending on the topic under discussion.

Addendum A is a tentative listing of the topics and reading assignments for each week.

Please also give careful attention to the following:

1. Cheating: It is possible to obtain another student's work, modify it slightly, and turn it in as your own. When your instructor becomes aware of your cheating you may receive a performance grade of F for this course as well as other consequences. Cheating robs two people of their rightful reward: the person from whom you copy is deprived of their right to the copyrighted work they did and you are deprived of the learning experience you could have had. No one benefits from cheating, it will not be tolerated. This does not mean I discourage discussion with your fellow students. I encourage you to discuss solutions to problems from class with other members of the class. At times the opportunity for a group project may be possible, that too is acceptable. What I want to avoid is an identical, common solution from two or more students where each claims the work as individual and unique.

   ***** Use of information obtained from the Internet *****
   Note: It is also possible to utilize the Net to create papers or other documents of which the student is not the author. For example, you might be assigned to write a paper or prepare a report on a specific topic. Were you to simply go to Web sites and cut and paste the material you found there into your own document, you would be guilty of plagiarism. This would fall under the heading of cheating through plagiarism, and you will receive a performance grade of F for the course. Any work you turn in, or in any other way identify as your own work must be your original thoughts and words.

2. Ethical computer usage: While this topic encompasses the problem of cheating listed as item one, it is a far larger issue than simply cheating in class. Any attempt by any student to compromise the integrity of the computer lab, classroom computers, or other instructional or administrative machines or steal or damage the software or hardware at North Lake or on other networked computers will be dealt with in the most severe manner allowed by the Student Code of Conduct.

   You may not load personal software on any machine at North Lake College, nor may you copy software from any North Lake College computer without prior, written permission from both your instructor and the data processing department.

   Along this same line, it is improper to use the computer resources of the college to copy another's paper or other assignments to be submitted as your own. Please use our equipment in an ethical manner. If you have any question as to the proper/ethical use of this equipment, please feel free to discuss it with your instructor, prior to such use.

   Finally, you will be using a machine connected to the Internet in the lab. Please restrict your Internet usage, during assigned lab and lecture time, to activities DIRECTLY related to your course. Do not use the Internet connection to play games, check your private (and non-class) E-mail, connect to computers outside North Lake College, or perform other non-class related activities. You will have NO NEED to use the World Wide Web during the lecture or lab periods.

   If you have an off-campus Internet provider (this has proved to be very valuable to many previous students), you may use that provider to log into the North Lake College machines to work on your homework during non-class hours. If you are working from home, the same rules of proper usage apply. Our machines do not have enough disk space to allow you to download files from the Net. You must also read and follow the DCCCD Computer Usage Policy.

3. Americans with Disabilities Act Compliance: accordance with the "Americans with Disabilities Act" and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, any student who feels that he or she may need special assistance or accommodation because of an impairment or disabling condition needs to contact the Disability Services Office at (972) 273-3165 or Room A-438 at North Lake College. It is the policy of NLC to provide reasonable accommodations as required to afford equal educational opportunity. It is the student's responsibility to contact the Disability Services Office.

   North Lake College will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals who are students with disabilities. Because of legal implications, it is imperative that all students requesting academic accommodations first notify and provide appropriate documentation of their disabling condition to the Disability Services Office. Disability Services staff will evaluate this information and develop an individualized academic accommodation plan that will then be shared with the students' instructors.

4. The last day to withdraw from a class is November 14, 2002 . Note: This date changes each semester. Withdrawing from a course is a formal procedure which YOU must initiate. For information about withdrawal procedures, go to the Admissions Office, Room A419, or call 972-273-3101. Please see your instructor prior to withdrawing from a course.

ADDENDUM A:

ITSC 1407 Unix Operating System I

Tenative * Course Schedule

Listed below is a tentative schedule of the topics for lectures for the Unix Operating System course. Please note: the student is expected to complete each reading assignment before the class date associated with that reading. Note: All readings are from Bulletproof Unix, students are also expected to consult other texts to obtain additional information on the topics listed for each lecture.

* Note: The instructor reserves the right to modify this schedule depending on occurrences during the semester, the particular needs of the class, or other unforseen events which would necessitate schedule modification to achieve the optimal learning situation for the class.