The cart lab needs to have several mac computers (powermacs or quadras), so that each student in the class have their own computer. It is difficult to work knowing you have only five minutes left on one computer which has to be shared. Most University Computer Labs do not have the graphics or mapping software applications which are needed for the project. The same application software should be available in all computers. When you use one computer the first time, and a different computer the next time, too much effort is wasted figuring out how to make the same file work on the second computer because it doesn't have the necessary application software.
Advanced cartography should be a prerequisite for this course. Students should already be familiar with many issues regarding both cartography and computers.
A discussion on how WWW works, from the standpoint of the HTTP server, should be covered, as well as CGI applications. This should include some lessons on simple scripting languages, such as Applescripts and PERL. Since the course deals with subjects in which the entire, worldwide, Internet is the laboratory, one should understand how the software that runs the system works. If this is too much to learn, then a simplistic overview of the basic concepts may be enough.
Both. There should be balance between the two topics. If there is enough published articles on the subject it could have been better also.
Before I took this course I didn't know much about WWW, although I had heard of it. The Internet has changed tremendously since the first day of the course, in terms of software used in the network. The basic concepts about networking remains the same; the only difference I saw was in how information is being carried from one computer node to another. The network changed my concept of distance and place. The world is much closer now than before and easy to navigate.