COIN78 - XML Assignments
There are six assignments for this course, which represent a total of 100 possible points. Please read this page carefully! I am very firm with assignment guidelines and due dates, including messaging formats! If you zip text files I will return then unopened. Yahoo and AOL users send multiple messages as required for attachments.
These assignments are due roughly every other week, and are designed so that I can continually assess your progress, and keep you on track to complete all the assignments during the 12 week quarter. In the summer quarter assignments are due every week since the quarter is 6 weeks.
Assignments
Each of the assignments below is worth 15 points, contributing a total of 75 points towards your final grade. (The final writing assignment is worth 25 points). There are two 10 point extra credit assignments that are also available.
Please read the submitting assignments page which describes proper formatting of all email correspondence and assignment submission.
Assignment "zero" - Download simple.xml, fill in the data fields, and email it to me. This sets up your student folder. Please don't change -any- of the fields, -or- the filename. Send the file as a single attachment (do not zip the file). The purpose of this assignment is to learn how to -send- assignments - you may be asked to resubmit if your formatting is incorrect.
Assignment one - You will build two XML files, one for a nested model and one for an empty model, and email them to me as attachments. Call them filename_nested.xml or address_book_nested.xml, and filename_empty.xml or address_book_empty.xml, or whatever (use your model name). The nested XML file format is much easier than the empty file format. There are examples of each file for you to download and study.
Expect this assignment to take you about a week or two, and is due by the end of week 3. In summer it is due at the end of week 2. Remember to send them together as a pair of files by email as attachments, and do *not* zip these. You can send the empty and nested files separately as you complete them so I can give you feedback.
Assignment two - You will create a DTD for the nested and empty model files in assignment one, and the linking files to them. Call them filename_nested_dtd.xml, filename_nested.dtd, filename_empty_dtd.xml, and filename_empty.dtd (using your 'filename'). You must make the XML files identical in every way to the ones in assignment one or I can not grade them.
Expect this assignment to take you about a week, and is due at the end of week 5. In summer it is due at the end of week 3. Remember to send them together as a pair of files by email as attachments. Please do *not* zip these files.
Assignment three - You will create a CSS file to render your XML data, and an XML file linking to it. Call it filename_css.xml and filename.css . If you choose to use more than a few images please email me your image as a zipped archive (must be less than 100 Kbytes)
Expect this assignment to take you a full week, and is due at the end of week 7. In summer it is due at the end of week 4. Remember to send XML files unzipped, with the images in a -separate- folder if needed. Please send image *folders* as a zipped archive attachment. (Hint - send it to yourself first as practice).
In assignment three you may use a slightly different content model, i.e., you can add presentational tags if required / desired.
Assignment four - You will create a schema file for your XML data (both nested and empty models). Call them filename_nested_xsd.xml and filename_nested.xsd, and filename_empty_xsd.xml and filename_empty.xsd. Please use the data model from assignment one -exactly- so that I can use software tools (as needed) to correct and validate these files.
Expect this assignment to take you two weeks, and is due at the end of week 9. In summer it is due at the end of week 5. Remember to send the two pairs of files as attachments (instance files and schema for both nested and empty models).
Assignment five - You will create an XSL file for your nested XML file. Call it filename_xsl.xml and filename.xsl etc. In assignment five, similar to the CSS assignment, you can use presentational tags like "text" and "heading" etc. in your instance file. Expect this assignment to take you a full two weeks, and it is due at the end of week 11. In summer it is due at the end of week 6. Please remember to send the pair of files as attachments, and send and new images in a separate folder and zipped. Try to use the same images as in assignment 3, then no need to send them again.
Extra Credit - Google XML sitemaps and RSS feeds
Final writing assignment - It will include 25 questions, each worth one point. It is posted online, and is due the final week. Please email me a Word file in an RTF format (or optionally an HTML file). Use proper Web citations as needed (anytime you are copying anything from the Web).
Email all your assignments to me, pschales@gmail.com, as attachments, including images - please do not send zipped archives. Copy yourself on all assignments and / or request a read receipt to make sure they've arrived.
