CIS4932 : Special Topics                                                                                     Spring 2002

XML and Information

(Tentative) Syllabus

Dr. Riggs


We shall first examine the XML constellation including XML, DTD's, XML schema,  XSLT and CSS. We will allow  6-8 weeks for this during which we will do several small assignments. We will likely use some elementary text such as Castro, XML for the World Wide Web, so as to rapidly gain familiarity with the breadth of XML processing. The goal of this is to have a working knowledge of XML adequate to create web pages readily from information.

In the second half of the course we will have two goals: 1) to solidify our skill with XML tools by developing a larger project 2) to examine issues in the use of XML. Likely issues include but are not limited to: knowledge representation & inference, marking for knowledge, information retrieval, knowledge models, database heterogeneity, ??? . There will likely be no text for the second half but rather a series of readings which I hope can be compiled ahead of time into a handout.


Grading (probable):
    30%   midterm (XML)
    30%   final      (information concepts)
    30%   project
    10%  short assignments/quizs