CSCI-4176 — Mobile Computing

Course Syllabus

1 Instructor Information
Instructor: Alex Brodsky Office: 208
E-mail: prof4176@cs.dal.ca Office Hours: TBA
Class Meeting Time: MWF 17:05-17:55 Room No: Dunn 304
Lab Meeting Time: M 13:35-15:25 Room No: Teaching Lab 2
Course Homepage: www.cs.dal.ca/~prof4176 Course TAs: TBA
Course Mail List: all-cs4176@cs.dal.ca

2 Important Dates
1. Final Exam: TBA in the period of December 9 to 20
2. Final Withdrawal Date without academic penalty: October 8, 2010
3. Final Withdrawal Date with academic penalty: November 8, 2010
4. Assignment Deadlines: Three assignments due at 5pm on September 24, October 15, and October 29
5. Project Deadlines: Proposal (October 22), Updates 1 & 2 (November 6 & 19), Demo (December 6)

3 Course Descriptions
This course will introduce students to mobile computing and mobile application development. Mobile com-
puting will be discussed from three perspectives: mobile technology, application development, and user
interaction. The course will first overview various mobile computing applications, technologies and wireless
communication. Next, students will learn about common paradigms in mobile computing such as low power
computing, computing in an environment with limited resources, fault tolerance, and persistence. Students
will be introduced to and use mobile application frameworks and development environments to reinforce
concepts covered in lectures. User interface and user experience will be discussed and application develop-
ment guidelines from various vendors will be discussed and analyzed. Lastly, the the course will look at some
current research in mobile computing. Students will be expected to learn at least one mobile application
development framework and use it to implement their assignments and course project.

4 Evaluation Criteria
1. Assignments (15%)
2. Term Project (55%) (May be done in pairs.)
• Project Proposal (15%)
• Project Implementation (30%)
• Project Demo (10%)
3. Final Exam (30%)
Photo ID is required. No dictionaries, notes, calculators, cell phones, PDAs, talking slide rulers, or
other aids allowed.
Note: The instructor reserves the right to adjust a student’s evaluation criteria, with the student’s consent,
if the instructor deems than an adjustment is warranted.

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5 Texts and Resources
• Recommended Texts (one of):
– T. Mikkonen, ”Programming Mobile Devices: An Introduction for Practitioners”, Wiley, 2007.
– S. Hashimi, S. Komatineni, ”Pro Android”, Apress (2009).
– S. Hashimi, S. Komatineni, D. MacLean, ”Pro Android 2”, Apress (2010).
– D. Mark and J. LaMarche, ”Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK”,
Apress (2009).
– A. Rizk, ”Beginning BlackBerry Development”, Apress, (2009).
• Online documentation will be provided for the various frameworks.
• 2 - 3 research papers for the latter part of the course will be made available online.

Course announcements will be posted to the course mail list, which comprises the instructor’s and stu-
dents’ CS email accounts. It is the student’s responsibility to check their CS e-mail account on a regular
basis. If you do not know how to access your CS e-mail account please contact the CS help desk or see
http://www.cs.dal.ca/services/support/faq

6 Prerequisites
PREREQUISITES: CSCI-2121 and CSCI-3171

7 Tentative List of Topics to be Covered

1. Overview
• Mobile Technologies
• Anatomy of a Mobile Device
• Survey of Mobile Devices
• Applications of Mobile Computing
2. Application Design
• Context
• Information Architecture
• Design Elements
• Mobile Web vs Native Applications
3. Development Environments
• Introduction to Objective-C
• The Model-View-Controller Model
• The Delegate Pattern
• The iPhone, Android, & Blackberry SDKs
4. The Application Environment
• Limited Resource Computing
• Memory Management
• Low Power Computing
• Fault Tolerance and Persistence
• Security Issues
5. Wireless Communication Technologies
• Celluar networks
• Wireless (802.11)
• TCP/IP in the mobile setting
• Geolocation and Global Positioning Sys-
tem (GPS)
6. The User Experience
• The Small Screen Problem
• The Unified Look and Feel Paradigm
• The iPhone Human Interface Guidelines
• The Blackberry User Interface Guidelines
• Common User Interface Guidelines
7. Distributed Computing
• Consistency and Reliability
• Security Issues
• Ad hoc Networks
• Sensor Networks
8. The Future of Mobile Computing
• Upcoming Technologies
• Convergence of Media and Communica-
tion Devices

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8 Academic Integrity1
At Dalhousie University, we respect the values of academic integrity: honesty, trust, fairness, responsibility
and respect. As a student, adherence to the values of academic integrity and related policies is a requirement
of being part of the academic community at Dalhousie University.

What does academic integrity mean?

Academic integrity means being honest in the fulfillment of your academic responsibilities thus establishing
mutual trust. Fairness is essential to the interactions of the academic community and is achieved through
respect for the opinions and ideas of others. “Violations of intellectual honesty are offensive to the entire
academic community, not just to the individual faculty member and students in whose class an offence
occurs.” (see Intellectual Honesty section of University Calendar)

How can you achieve academic integrity?

• Make sure you understand Dalhousie’s policies on academic integrity.
• Give appropriate credit to the sources used in your assignment such as written or oral work, com-
puter codes/programs, artistic or architectural works, scientific projects, performances, web page
designs, graphical representations, diagrams, videos, and images. Use RefWorks to keep track of
your research and edit and format bibliographies in the citation style required by the instructor
(http://www.library.dal.ca/How/RefWorks)
• Do not download the work of another from the Internet and submit it as your own.
• Do not submit work that has been completed through collaboration or previously submitted for another
assignment without permission from your instructor.
• Do not write an examination or test for someone else.
• Do not falsify data or lab results.
These examples should be considered only as a guide and not an exhaustive list.

What will happen if an allegation of an academic offence is made against you?

I am required to report a suspected offence. The full process is outlined in the Discipline flow chart, which can
be found at: http://academicintegrity.dal.ca/Files/AcademicDisciplineProcess.pdf and includes
the following:
1. Each Faculty has an Academic Integrity Officer (AIO) who receives allegations from instructors.
2. The AIO decides whether to proceed with the allegation and you will be notified of the process.
3. If the case proceeds, you will receive an INC (incomplete) grade until the matter is resolved.
4. If you are found guilty of an academic offence, a penalty will be assigned ranging from a warning to a
suspension or expulsion from the University and can include a notation on your transcript, failure of
the assignment or failure of the course. All penalties are academic in nature.

Where can you turn for help?

• If you are ever unsure about ANYTHING, contact myself.
• The Academic Integrity website (http://academicintegrity.dal.ca) has links to policies, defini-
tions, online tutorials, tips on citing and paraphrasing.
• The Writing Center provides assistance with proofreading, writing styles, citations.
• Dalhousie Libraries have workshops, tutorials, citation guides, Assignment Calculator, RefWorks, etc.
• The Dalhousie Student Advocacy Service assists students with academic appeals and student discipline
procedures.
• The Senate Office provides links to a list of Academic Integrity Officers, discipline flow chart, and
Senate Discipline Committee.
1 Based on the sample statement provided at http://academicintegrity.dal.ca.