Administration of the Windows and Linux operating systems, including installation, configuration, distributed file systems, firewalls and security, shell scripting, and user account management. Introduction to cloud computing resources.
Computer information systems form the backbone of many large organizations, and many students will be called upon in their careers to help create, manage and maintain these large systems. This course will give students knowledge and experience working with enterprise level computer systems including workstation management, file servers, web servers, networking devices, configuration management, monitoring, and more. We will mainly focus on the GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows server software, and much of the learning will take place in hands-on lab activities working directly with these systems. In addition, students will be responsible for developing some technical documentation and communicating information about their systems in a variety of ways. Finally, throughout the course students will be exposed to a variety of information directly from system administrators across campus.
At the end of this course, students should be able to:
This course is being taught 100% online, and each module is self-paced. There may be some bumps in the road as we refine the overall course structure. Students will work at their own pace through a set of modules, with approximately one module being due each week. Material will be provided in the form of recorded videos, links to online resources, and discussion prompts. Each module will include a hands-on lab assignment, which will be graded interactively by the instructor. Assignments may also include written portions or presentations, which will be submitted online.
The course will also include a final project and presentation. More information about this will be announced during the semester.
In theory, each student begins the course with an A. As you submit work, you can either maintain your A (for good work) or chip away at it (for less adequate or incomplete work). In practice, each student starts with 0 points in the gradebook and works upward toward a final point total earned out of the possible number of points. In this course, each assignment constitutes a portion of the final grade, as detailed below:
All group work will include a REQUIRED peer evaluation component which can adjust that portion of the individual’s grade up to 50%. If a student should fail to contribute to a group assignment at all, their grade for that assignment will be reduced to a zero. Failure to complete the peer evaluation will result in a 10% grade deduction for that assignment.
Up to 5% of the total grade in the class is available as extra credit. See the Extra Credit - Bug Bounty & Extra Credit - Helping Hands assignments for details.
Letter grades will be assigned following the standard scale:
Warning
Read this late work policy very carefully! If you are unsure how to interpret it, please contact the instructors via Piazza. Not understanding the policy does not mean that it won’t apply to you!
Since this course is entirely online, students may work at any time and at their own pace through the modules. However, to keep everyone on track, there will be approximately one module due each week. Each graded item in the module will have a specific due date specified, and all work submitted after the due date will have its grade reduced by 50% of the total points possible on that item. For the purposes of recordkeeping, the time that each lab is graded interactively will be used to establish the completion time of the lab.
However, even if a module is not submitted on time, it must still be completed before a student is allowed to begin the next module. So, students should take care not to get too far behind, as it may be very difficult to catch up.
Finally, all course work must be submitted on or before the last day of the semester in which the student is enrolled in the course in order for it to be graded. No incompletes will be given in this course for any reason.
If you have extenuating circumstances, please discuss them with the instructor as soon as they arise so other arrangements can be made. If you find that you are getting behind in the class, you are encouraged to speak to the instructor for options to make up missed work.
Students in this course are expected to have access to a computer with virtual machine software (VMware, Virtual Box, Parallels, or other) installed and running. The computer should be capable of running multiple VMs simultaneously, which usually means having 8GB of RAM and a moderately powerful processor. Contact the instructor if you have questions or concerns.
Since this class covers such a wide range of material, no single textbook will suffice. Therefore, students who would like a textbook should refer to resources available on Safari Books Online. The K-State Library has access to the entire catalog of books published on that platform, and it is a great resource for this course.
We will also use several online resources as needed.
This book contains useful information for anyone thinking about pursuing a career in system administration or information technology in general:
“The Practice of System and Network Administration” by Thomas Limoncelli, Christina Hogan and Strata Chalup.
ISBN 0321492668 - eBook Editions Available - Amazon Link
The details in this syllabus are not set in stone. Due to the flexible nature of this class, adjustments may need to be made as the semester progresses, though they will be kept to a minimum. If any changes occur, the changes will be posted on the Canvas page for this course and emailed to all students. All changes may also be posted to Piazza.
Kansas State University has an Honor and Integrity System based on personal integrity, which is presumed to be sufficient assurance that, in academic matters, one’s work is performed honestly and without unauthorized assistance. Undergraduate and graduate students, by registration, acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Honor and Integrity System. The policies and procedures of the Honor and Integrity System apply to all full and part-time students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate courses on-campus, off-campus, and via distance learning. A component vital to the Honor and Integrity System is the inclusion of the Honor Pledge which applies to all assignments, examinations, or other course work undertaken by students. The Honor Pledge is implied, whether or not it is stated: “On my honor, as a student, I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this academic work.” A grade of XF can result from a breach of academic honesty. The F indicates failure in the course; the X indicates the reason is an Honor Pledge violation.
For this course, a violation of the Honor Pledge will result in an automatic 0 for the assignment and the violation will be reported to the Honor System. A second violation will result in an XF in the course.
The Codio platform can perform automatic plagiarism detection by comparing submitted projects against other students' submissions and known solutions. That information may be used to determine if plagiarism has taken place.
Students with disabilities who need classroom accommodations, access to technology, or information about emergency building/campus evacuation processes should contact the Student Access Center and/or their instructor. Services are available to students with a wide range of disabilities including, but not limited to, physical disabilities, medical conditions, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, depression, and anxiety. If you are a student enrolled in campus/online courses through the Manhattan or Olathe campuses, contact the Student Access Center at accesscenter@k-state.edu, 785-532-6441; for K-State Polytechnic campus, contact Academic and Student Services at polytechnicadvising@ksu.edu or call 785-826-2674.
Note
This is our personal policy and not a required syllabus statement from K-State. It has been adapted from this statement created by two educators at Brown University. We feel that a statement such as this is very powerful and important in today’s world, and we’ll do our best to live up to it.
In an ideal world, science and technology would be objective. However, much of science and technology is subjective and is historically built on a small subset of privileged voices. In this class, we will reference many materials from a diverse set of sources, but limits still exist on this diversity. I acknowledge that it is possible that there may be both overt and covert biases in the material due to the lens with which it was written, even though the material is primarily of a technical nature.
Please contact me or submit anonymous feedback through the Computer Science department office if you have any concerns or suggestions regarding this course and related materials.
Furthermore, I would like to create a learning environment for my students that supports a diversity of thoughts, perspectives and experiences, and honors your identities (including race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, ability, etc.). To help accomplish this:
I, like many people, am still in the process of learning about diverse perspectives and identities. If something was said in class, by anyone, that made you feel uncomfortable, please talk to me about it. Again, anonymous feedback is always an option.
Note
This is our personal policy and not a required syllabus statement from K-State. It has been adapted from this statement from K-State Global Campus, and the Recurse Center Manual. We have adapted their ideas to fit this course.
Online communication is inherently different than in-person communication. When speaking in person, many times we can take advantage of the context and body language of the person speaking to better understand what the speaker means, not just what is said. This information is not present when communicating online, so we must be much more careful about what we say and how we say it in order to get our meaning across.
Here are a few general rules to help us all communicate online in this course, especially while using tools such as Piazza:
As a participant in course discussions, you should also strive to honor the diversity of your classmates by adhering to the K-State Principles of Community.
All student activities in the University, including this course, are governed by the Student Judicial Conduct Code as outlined in the Student Governing Association By Laws, Article V, Section 3, number 2. Students who engage in behavior that disrupts the learning environment may be asked to leave the class.
Kansas State University is committed to providing a safe teaching and learning environment for student and faculty members. In order to enhance your safety in the unlikely case of a campus emergency make sure that you know where and how to quickly exit your classroom and how to follow any emergency directives. To view additional campus emergency information go to the University’s main page, www.k-state.edu, and click on the Emergency Information button, located at the bottom of the page.
K-State has many resources to help contribute to student success. These resources include accommodations for academics, paying for college, student life, health and safety, and others found at www.k-state.edu/onestop.
To protect the health and safety of the K-State community, students, faculty, staff and visitors must wear face coverings over their mouths and noses while on K-State campuses in all hallways, public spaces, classrooms and other common areas of campus buildings, and when in offices or other work spaces or outdoor settings when 6-feet social distancing cannot be maintained. In addition, all students, faculty, and staff are required to take the COVID-19 and Face Mask Safety training. Employees who need reasonable accommodations and assistance related to required face coverings may contact the ADA coordinator at charlott@k-state.edu, and students needing accommodations may contact the Student Access Center at accesscenter@k-state.edu. In classrooms, faculty have the right to deny a student entry into the room if the student is not wearing a face covering.
Kansas State University is a community of students, faculty, and staff who work together to discover new knowledge, create new ideas, and share the results of their scholarly inquiry with the wider public. Although new ideas or research results may be controversial or challenge established views, the health and growth of any society requires frank intellectual exchange. Academic freedom protects this type of free exchange and is thus essential to any university’s mission.
Moreover, academic freedom supports collaborative work in the pursuit of truth and the dissemination of knowledge in an environment of inquiry, respectful debate, and professionalism. Academic freedom is not limited to the classroom or to scientific and scholarly research, but extends to the life of the university as well as to larger social and political questions. It is the right and responsibility of the university community to engage with such issues.
© The materials in this online course fall under the protection of all intellectual property, copyright and trademark laws of the U.S. The digital materials included here come with the legal permissions and releases of the copyright holders. These course materials should be used for educational purposes only; the contents should not be distributed electronically or otherwise beyond the confines of this online course. The URLs listed here do not suggest endorsement of either the site owners or the contents found at the sites. Likewise, mentioned brands (products and services) do not suggest endorsement. Students own copyright to what they create.
Original content licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA license by Russell Feldhausen unless otherwise stated.