GST 2710, Computers and Society
Fall 2002, Wayne State University, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
David Bowen, Instructor, Section 984
Agenda 14 for 12/9/02

1. Announcements:
   1. The Final Exam is next week, on Monday December 16.
   2. Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) tonight.
   3. The Essay is due tonight, December 9.
   4. Does anyone want to make up Quiz 2? (Pamela Black, Amber Oates, Joyce Thomas, Royce Williams and Ray Wilson)
   5. Homework in folder, check name off (just a line inside the box on the left-hand side, please)
   6. Course web site, from Pipeline or direct from http://www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/drbowen/casf02
   7. GST 2710 web site http://www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/gst2710, now updated to show how to forward your WSU Email after you have activated your AccessID and Password. (But do not forward it until we are through with it here.)
   8. WSU class schedule for Winter 2003 is now online at http://www.classschedule.wayne.edu . You can also register online at pipeline, or by touch-tone. Printed schedules will be available at Helen Newberry Joy, Undergraduate Library, extension centers at Oakland and Wayne County, and at the University Center at Macomb by the week before registration begins.
   9. My office hours (available for help or work on the computers): 5 - 6 PM Mondays in 113 Rackham. I can come at 4 if you make an arrangement. Other good days for pre-arranged help sessions this week: Monday and Friday. Telephone: (office) 313-577-1498, (113 Rackham) 313-577-9705, (home) 248-549-8518, (at Ford Tuesdays and Fridays) 313-390-2155.
   10. Finishing up the semester...
       1. I will not be able to accept all of your assignments at the end of the semester.
          MAXIMUM: two assignments accepted tonight, December 9
          MAXIMUM: two assignments accepted on the day of the Final, December 16
          I will not be able to grade assignments over these maximums in time for them to count in regular grades. This may result in a low grade or a failing grade. If you cannot get the assignments in on time, speak to me about an incomplete (I) before the Final.
       2. I will accept missing parts of assignments that you turned in earlier, outside of the limit of two.
       3. If you are going to turn in more than the limit of two assignments, make sure that I understand which two to include in your regular course grade, and which others to count in a later Change of Grade.
   11. If you were not here last week - online grade reports. On the course web site, you can look at my record of your grades. You will need to give me a password to access your grades.
2. Review of homework assignments: 
   1. General: The last part of the class is the computer lab session. There is a lot to do during this part, especially if you want to do the computer homework at this time, and reading the lab section before class will help you work faster. The lab work is generally one of the tutorials in Microsoft Office 2000 Professional. The tutorials have you work through a file, which you should print out and hand in along with the rest of the assignment. At the end of that tutorial, there are other assignments that are part of homework, but that you can also do during the lab section, if you can work quickly. The tutorial will teach you what you need to know in order to work quickly and accurately on the case studies.
      NOTE: Assignments also include other reading and problems on an assignment sheet.

   2. See Agenda 12 for a summary of Assignments 1 through 9.

   3. Assignment 10 due 11/18

      1. New Perspectives Computers, Technology and Society Chapters 4 (Pages 4-14 to 4-33) and Chapter 9 (9-29 to 9-36)
      2. Lab - Excel Tutorial 4 in Microsoft Office 2000 Professional, Pages EX 4.01 through 4.35. Cast Iron Concepts.xls worksheet, print it out and turn it in.
      3. Assignment 10. Do Case Studies 1 and 4 only at the end of Excel Tutorial 4.
   4. Essay assignment: The general essay topic is social dependence on technology. Your essay should be three pages long, based on the assigned reading, The Machine Stops, by E.M. Forster. The essay should be in 12 point Times Roman type, with 1" margins on all four sides, with "Double" line spacing. Your essay should have a footer including your name and the page number. No cover sheet is necessary; the essay title should be at the top of the first page, bold and centered. Make sure to use spell check and grammar check. The Word grammar checker complains about all use of the passive voice, although normal writing contains up to about one-third passive voice. The essay is due in class on the last regular class, December 9.
   5. Assignment 11: Do the Assignment 11 handout. The lab is web searching (handout):
      1. Do searches according to directions, for the same topic on all of the search engines listed (Google, Alta Vista, Dogpile). Examples of topics:
         1. George Washington Carver
         2. Battle of Gettysburg
         3. other...
      2. Print first page of search results, and first article (five pages max), turn them in as the lab assignment
   6. Assignment 12 - Due Monday, December 2
      1. Lab - Integrating Word and Excel. Do the Tutorial INT (Integration) 1 from pages INT 1.03 through INT 1.19. Print out the files and hand them in. The files can be downloaded from the course web site at www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/gst2710
      2. Homework:
         1. Assignment 12 - we did not cover the material in time for you to do this, so you can hand it in tonight (December 9).
         2. Also, in Microsoft Office 2000 Professional, read the Tutorial ACCESS 1 for next week's lab.
   7. Assignment 13 - due Monday, December 9
      1. Lab - Do Access Tutorial 1 in pages AC 1.01 through 1.27
      2. Homework:
         1. Assignment 12, if you did not hand it in December 2 (except for #1 see "b" below)
         2. Access Case Study 1 starting on Pg AC1.28 (do not do the other three at the end of AC 1. 
3. Access (database)
   1. Definitions
      1. Data - a simple fact in a number or piece of text, with no explanation about what it is, such as "62" or "Waldo."
      2. Information - data with a description added, such as "David's age: 62" or "What I don't want for Christmas: Waldo." Note that databases are meant to store information, identified by the field namke. ("Meant to" because some people may not choose descriptive field names.)
      3. The above is on the Final Topics list. Some people go further by defining "Knowledge" as the addition of information from outside that explains the significance of the information in a specific context, such as "David's age: 62. Hmmm. May be taking a nap on Sunday afternoon; maybe I'll call him later." A still more higher concept is "Wisdom."
      4. Record. A record contains all of the information for a given case, such as all of the information about David Bowen that is stored together. (In a table, a record is shown as a row.)
      5. Field. A field contains a given piece of information for all records in a table. a field is idnetified by a name.
      6. Table. A table is a collection of records and fields. A record is identified by a number.
      7. Flat file. In this course, a database with only a single table, or with no joins defined.
      8. Relation. A method of combining information from two or more tables together (see B below). Information from multiple tables can be combined, linking records containing fields with the same content.
      9. Relational. A database with one or more relations defined is a relational database.
      10. Primary key. A table's primary key is a unique value (only occurs once in that field) that identifies a record, and is used to find that exact record in a file, quickly, without reading all of the records in the file.
      11. Foreign key. A foreign key is a field in another table that is used to join to. If we are joining tables A and B, a foreign key for A is a field in B that is being joined. A foreign key often, but not always, has the same name as the primary key in table A itself.
   2. Making a join or relation. We will join information from two tables in a database.
      1. Download the database "WebLog.mdb by going to the course web site (www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/drbowen/casf02) and clicking on the link "WebLog.mdb" underneath the link to Agenda14 (tonight's Agenda).
      2. Save the database, either to a floppy diskette ("A:\") or to C:\Temp if you do not have a floppy diskette.
      3. Close your web browser and open Microsoft Access using the "Start" button.
      4. In Access, make sure that "Open an existing file" is clicked and "More files..." is highlighted, then click OK.
      5. Navigate to where you saved the database file and open it. Notice that there are two tables, AccessLog and Codes.
      6. Open the AccessLog table. This contains the record of all of the hits to the CLL web server for a certain period of time. Notice all of the information that is saved. This is standard, for all web servers. Notice especially the "Code" field. This has the numerical code for what happened with each hit. This is important for the WebMaster to know, but it is hard to remember the codes. It would be nice to have some descriptive information about what a given code means.
      7. Open the Codes table. Here is descriptive information! We will join the information from the two tables together to make a relation or relationship.
      8. Click on the "Queries" button in the left column of the database window, and then click on the "Design" button on the toolbar.
      9. The "Show Table" dialog opens up. This is where we add the tables we want to join to the Query. Make sure that AccessLog is highlighted, then click the "Add" button. Click on "Codes" to select it, and repeat the "Add." Once both tables are added, click the "Close" button.
      10. Now we will join the two tables, using the "Code" field, which has the same information in each table, the numerical code. (While the information in the field has to be the same, the field names do not have to match, but they do here.) To join the two tables, scroll down in the AccessLog sub-window and until you see the field name "Code," and click on it. Then point the tip of the mouse cursor in the word "Code" and drag over to "Code" in the "Codes" sub-window. After doing this, you should see a line joining the two "Code" field names - this is the join.
          
      11. Now, what fields to display in the Query? (A Query is like a table, with cells, fields and records.) We will display all of the fields in the table "AccessLog" and the "Description" field in the "Codes" table. To start, in the left-hand column of cells (see picture above) click near the right side of the "Field:" cell, to display a drop-down list of fields in the table AccessLog (fields in the table "Codes" are at the bottom of the list). (When you are in the right place to click, the mouse cursor will change to an arrow pointing up and slightly to the left.) In this list, select the first item "AccessLog.*" which will display all of the fields (*) in the table AccessLog.
      12. In the next column to the right, click in the corresponding area to display the same drop-down list of fields, scroll down near the bottom to "Codes.Description" and select that. The picture below shows what you should see after this step. Make sure that both of the "Show" boxes are clicked; otherwise, the fields will be invisible in the Query.
          
      13. Close the Query1: Select Query window by clicking on its close box. You will be asked "Do you want to save changes to the design of the query 'Query1?". Respond "yes" and then supply a name for the Query.
      14. You will now see your Query displayed in the database window. Double-click on it to open it. Scroll to the left to see the descriptions added in to the other information from the AccessLog table. "OK" means the requested web page was supplied as requested, while "Not modified" means that the user's web browser checked with the web server, and the user already had an up-to-date copy of the page, and the browser and server agreed not to waste time by sending a second copy; the browser will display the already-stored copy.
      15. Note: the Query is very efficient; the joined table is not actually kept in secondary storage, but created in primary storage whenever it is requested. At the same time, the use of keys makes re-creating the Query a fast process.
4. Review for Final (topics list is a separate handout)
5. Lab - do the Access tutorial in pages AC 2.01 through 2.33. Do the printouts as instructed and hand them in with the rest of the assignment. The files can be downloaded from the course web site at www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/gst2710.
6. Homework, due next week, December 16:
   1. Assignment 13. The case studies (Problem 1 on the assignment sheet) are not assigned.
7. Computers off