Chapter 1
Introduction to Data Communications

Outline
Introduction
Data Communication Networks
Network Models
Network Standards
Future Trends

Teaching Notes

It is helpful spending some time at the start of the course helping students become familiar with the organizational format of the textbook. A quick overview of the Table of Contents and some comments on each chapter helps to establish the beginning, conclusion and terrain of the course. This is also a natural time to review the syllabus and talk about expectations.
The text is well organized with an outline preceding each Chapter and good summaries at the conclusions. Teaching which follows these outlines and concentrates on the summary information is particularly effective.
Students should also be advised about the online resources that are available to supplement the text. The resources for Instructors are also helpful. The PowerPoint presentation and Web resources can be easily incorporated into class. The testbank is also valuable.
War Stories
Microsoft Internet Explorer and HTML Standards
(Objective: illustrate the importance of standards)
In early 1996, when we were developing our Web-groupware software (now a commercial product called Consensus @nyWARE (www.softbicycle.com)) we discovered that Microsoft’s IE would not work with our software. IE did not support the full HTML 3.0 standard in forms processing. All the form information was returned in reverse order from the standard. Since IE was a marginal product at the time and since our project was a research project, we decided not to bother rewriting our software to support IE.
I received an email message from an IE user mentioning that they had discovered that IE would not work with our software and asking if we knew why. I didn’t really read the note very carefully. I explained the problem and told them they should use