Lecturer: Giordano Lanzola  

Course name: Internet e medicina
Course code: 062171
Degree course: Ingegneria Biomedica
Disciplinary field of science: ING-INF/06
L'insegnamento è caratterizzante per: Ingegneria Biomedica
University credits: CFU 5
Course website: http://intermed.unipv.it

Specific course objectives

The main goal of this course deals with helping Students in getting acquainted with the basic ICT methodologies and tools required for generating dynamic web applications which interact with a database through a browser. The course has highly pragmatic contents, centered on the development of a group project, in order to facilitate developing those skills usually required by any IT professional. This course is highly related with all the preceeding modules where skills involving the fundamentals of computer programming and the methodologies concerning analysis and design of relational databases are taught. The course capitalizes on those skills complementing them with additional ones concerning web publishing languages and tools. Afterwards all those skills are applied together for coding the modules encapsulating the application business logic and for connecting the templates of any previously implemented web page to a relational database, thus making them "dynamic" pages.

Course programme

This course is held during the last year of the Bachelor's Degree and has very pragmatic contents. It is mainly held in computer classrooms and entails both attending lessons in which the fundamentals of web programming are taught and exercising in order to assess the proficiency level reached by Students. This last issue is accomplished through the implementation of a group project which, despite it has been marked as the last item in the following list, should be tackled as early as possible in order to keep up with the course schedule.

Internet fundamentals
Illustration of the very basic fundamental concepts concerning the Internet and enabling navigating on the web: packet switching; the TCP/IP protocols, definition of the World Wide Web etc...

Hypertexts for the Web
Introduction and basic issues concerning the definition of hypertexts. The HTML language as the means for defining hypertext pages for the web. Illustration of the most important elements along with their attributes provided by HTML and suitable for shaping the structure of a web page. The notion of a static web page as a resource available on the web and the ways available to access it. URLs, forms and the protocols for submitting requests to a server through a web page, passing some parameters to it and getting back a response.

Application Server
Difference between static web pages, which are immutable, as opposed to dynamic web pages including content which may change every time depending on on external sources. How to preserve the state during an interaction spanning multiple requests exchanged between a browser and a server.

Developing dynamic web pages with JSP
Fundamentals of JSP programming for the web. Generation of dynamic contents acquiring data from an external source such as a Database. Use of the different scripting elements provided by the JSP environment.

Developing a Project
During the course semester Students are required to apply the methodologies and technologies learned for designing and coding a project within a small work team. The project involves implementing a small web application exhibiting dynamic behavior and authentication. The application is supposed to be accessed by different classes of users, and should provide different functionalities to each class. Interaction with the users should result in creating, reading, updating, and deleting records on a backend database also designed by the same work team.

Course entry requirements

The course requires a basic (and firm) understanding on the fundamental of computer programming (i.e. variables, statements, functions/methods and control structures) along with the capability of coding simple algorithms. Additional requirements involve knowledge on the methodologies and technologies concerning analysis and design of relational databases and the ability of fluently writing simple SQL queries. All those skills can be acquired by preceding modules. The Student should also own the basic skills required for using a PC and navigating on the Web along with the design ability, logic perception, acumen, and open-mindedness which are mandatory for joining the School of Engineering.

Course structure and teaching

Lectures (hours/year in lecture theatre): 38
Practical class (hours/year in lecture theatre): 0
Practicals / Workshops (hours/year in lecture theatre): 0

Suggested reading materials

Students may proficiently attend the course relying only on the open sorce documentation and material made available through the course site. We report additional references for a broader insight on the course subjects and for Students wishing to acquire a deeper understanding on those.

Chuck Musciano, Bill Kennedy. HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide (5th Edition). O'Reilly & Associates. ISBN: 0-596-00382-X (August 2002, 700 Pages). A "classical" reference textbook covering the HTML language..

Hans Bergsten. JavaServer Pages (3rd Edition). O'Reilly & Associates. ISBN: 0-596-00563-6 (December 2003, 764 Pages). The textbook covers every aspect connected with the implementation of dynamic web application using JSP technology. It includes several examples describing both the design and the implementation issues..

C. J. Date, Hugh Darwen.. A Guide to SQL Standard, A (4th Edition). . Addison-Wesley Professional.. ISBN: 978-0201964264 (November 1996, 544 Pages). A textbook covering the standard syntax of the SQL language. .

Jason Brittain, Ian F. Darwin. Tomcat: The Definitive Guide. O'Reilly & Associates. ISBN: 0-596-00318-8 (June 2003, 180 Pages). A guide to the installation and use of Tomcat, a Servlet and JSP container freely downloadable on the internet as an open-source project..

Testing and exams

Students are asked to work in teams with the aim of developing a simple Web application fulfilling the guidelines illustrated during the lectures. At half-course a preliminary test is held for verifying the correctness of the requirements for the Web application being developed. Within the course limit Students are asked to complete the projects based on the requirements they set and exploiting the methodologies and technologies illustrated. Projects are then reviewed and ranked thus representing the basis for the subsequent final test. During the final test Students are asked to perform some minor changes on their projects in order to assess the proficiency of each one of them and discriminate among the contributions given by each Student to the whole work team. Teams which didn't complete their projects within the course limit can do so during any subsequent exam call. However the preliminary test is changed into a "treshold test" which is held during the exam.