For your final project, you will research some topic related to the Internet, and present your results as a small web site. The scope of your work should be similar to what you would do for a ten page paper, but your presentation should be suitable for the web rather than the linear narrative form of a term paper. You may work on your project with one other person from the class if you wish.
Here are your deadlines:
Friday, Nov. 15, class time. Hand in a one page proposal that includes a description of your topic, an outline of how you plan to present your topic via the web, and a list of any questions you have for me about your topic. I will get feedback to you by email by the end of that day.
Monday, Nov. 18, class time. If I asked you in my feedback email to submit a second version of your proposal, it will be due no later than class time on Nov. 18. I don't ask for many resubmissions, but if your topic is unclear or you neglect to discuss your web organization plans, I might ask for clarifications. The goal of the proposal is for you to have a clear plan early enough to enable you to do a good job on the project.
Monday, Nov. 25, 3:30-6 PM. Lab presentations of your web pages. Store your starting page at http://prism.mathcs.carleton.edu/cs107/yourusername/final/index.html (or index.php). Each project team will load up their web page on a machine in the lab, and team members can swap off walking around and checking out each others' projects. I'll also evaluate projects during this period. This will be a chance for you to demonstrate to me and to the rest of the class what you have put together.
Topics could be technical (e.g. a detailed comparison of PHP with a client-side language like Javascript, or a discussion of routing algorithms) or non-technical (e.g. research on the "digital divide," or the role of the Internet in dissident communities around the world) or a combination (e.g. a study of the legal and technical sides of privacy or of copyright on the Internet). You may use MySQL and/or PHP for your project, but you do not have to.