Welcome to BACS 350

Maximum Flexibility

I am excited to be teaching you in BACS 350 this year. I hope that this course will be a bright spot in your training experience.

This class has been upgraded significantly to accommodate the current realities of our world. The biggest benefits you will see is a much greater flexibility in how and where you work. This is important not only to address health concerns but also to give you a very realistic work experience while you are still in school.

You will be able to work on the class content from anywhere at any time. All of the materials for the course content will be delivered by custom software I wrote specifically for this class. Content published on the classroom server includes notes, slides, tutorials, projects, and videos.

Class Experience

Every student must purchase the textbook. This textbook will be used througout the semester and contains essential information for completing the projects.

• Django for Beginners by William Vincent for $39.

Pre-recorded lectures will show demos that will help you complete each project. I will be taking you step-by-step through all of the info that you will need to finish the projects.

The class sessions will not be lectures, instead that time is available to get help with your projects. Each class session will be held via Zoom and will offer one-on-one help to assist you in completing the assignments. Some sessions will be conducted in Kepner 0075 and others will be done remotely to give you experience at both kinds of interaction.

Sensei Software

Over the summer, extensive work has been done on the Sensei Server which provides presentation of the class content and automatic testing of the projects. The system is highly interactive, guiding you through the project work.

Weekly projects will be done to create a comprehensive medium sized commercial web app.
Each week you will build a project milestone that will be a development iteration moving toward the final application release. Throughout the semester these projects will teach you all of the basic skills you need to build commercial apps.

Grades

The 14 projects will be due each Friday. Late work will be marked down by 10%. Do not fall behind since it is difficult to catch up. There will be no exams and no graded reading.

Course Objective

This class will build skills that qualify you for a job developing commercial web applications. Every student will be able to efficiently build a medium application independently by the end of the semester.