IST 597, 2003 Fall

This is an Advanced Graduate Course intended to cover the state-of-the-art developments in XML and World-Wide Web research and technologies.

Prerequisite: You should meet all of the following conditions to take this course:

• You need to be a graduate student.
• You should be already familiar with the basic Database topics.
• You should be willing to read at least 2 research papers every week.

Since this is a seminar course, it is important for students to read ahead materials and actively participate in the discussions.

Goal: The advent of powerful personal computers and the Internet resulted in exponential growth in digital information. Anyone can create rich contents using his or her own personal computer and make it available on the Web. Many high-quality data sources are also available online within a single click of mouse.

The growth of digital information, however, has brought in tremendous challenges in managing, organizing and accessing such information. The inherent heterogeneity of the information as well as the wide variety of unstructured text, semi-structured, and structured data make it challenging to handle them. In this course, we will go over recent research papers to study the cutting edge methods that people have taken to manage Web and XML information on the Internet.

In particular, the class will be structured around two major themes:

• The characteristics and understanding of the World-Wide Web, and
• The XML Model from Database perspective

In addition, this class aims at training students to be able to write a "(database/web) research paper";

• Where to start
• How to read and criticize other's paper
• How to find problems and solutions
• How to package them in a publishable format

Introduction: The course consists of instructor's lectures, paper readings, in-class discussions, selected presentations, a project, and a final exam. Most of the work in this course consists of reading the state-of-the-art journal and conference papers. We will cover around 2 papers in each week (one paper per class). This class will be primarily discussion based, although it will have some lecturing components. Active discussion will (hopefully) give students a non-trivial understanding of the material. The only way this approach can work is if students read the papers carefully in advance. There will be as much as 10 hours of reading per week.

Do NOT take this course unless you are willing to do a lot of reading.

• Reading Assignments (7-10): 30%
• Class participation: 10%
• Presentations (1): 10%
• Project (1): 30%
• Take-home Final (1): 20%

There is no textbook for this course. The course is based on a collection of journal and conference papers. To encourage reading papers, each student needs to pick at least 2 papers from the week's list (or other related papers with the consent of the instructor) and write a review. Each review is required to have a 3-5 paragraphs (or shorter) consisting of:

1. Summary (1 paragraph),
2. Comments and criticisms (2-4 paragraphs)
3. One exam question (1-2 paragraphs)

Students will complete a substantial research or implementation project, on given or self-defined topics related to the theme of the class. Students work ALONE or form a team upto 2 people.

In general, students will choose a set of interesting research papers being discussed in class (or elsewhere) and try to do:

• Survey,
• Extension,
• Application, and/or
• Implementation

Eventual output of the project is (ideally) somewhat like a research paper with a publishable quality.

NOTE: Lists are subject to change as semester passes.

NOTE: we only provide the copy of the papers here for your convenience. The copyrights are with the original authors or publishers of the papers. Please do not use or distribute them other than the purposes of the study.

Week 9/2: Introduction

Academic Integrity: According to the Penn State Principles and University Code of Conduct: Academic integrity is a basic guiding principle for all academic activity at Penn State University, allowing the pursuit of scholarly activity in an open, honest, and responsible manner. In according with the University's Code of Conduct, you must not engage in or tolerate academic dishonesty. This includes, but is not limited to cheating, plagiarism, fabrication of information or citations, facilitating acts of academic dishonesty by others, unauthorized possession of examinations, submitting work of another person, or work previously used without informing the instructor, or tampering with the academic work of other students. Any violation of academic integrity will be investigated, and where warranted, punitive action will be taken. For every incident when a penalty of any kind is assessed, a report must be filed. This form is used for both undergraduate and graduate courses. This report must be signed by both the instructor and the student, and then submitted to the Senior Associate Dean.

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An Invitation to Students with Learning Disabilities: It is Penn State's policy to not discriminate against qualified students with documented disabilities in its educational programs. If you have a disability-related need for modifications in your testing or learning situation, your instructor should be notified during the first week of classes so that your needs can be accommodated. You will be asked to present documentation from the Office of Disability Services (located in 116 Boucke Building, 863-1807) that describes the nature of your disability and the recommended remedy. You may refer to the Nondiscrimination Policy in the Student Guide to University Policies and Rules.