Syllabus – Web Service Programming

MIS3502 – Section 1

Fall 2025

Instructor:

Jeremy Shafer (jeremy@temple.edu)

Physical Office: 209D Speakman Hall

Phone: (215) 204-6432

Profile: htt p ://communit y .mis.tem p le.edu/j shafer

Office Hours:

Noon – 2pm Tuesdays
11am – 1:00pm Thursdays
Other times by appointment
Office hours are in effect 8/25/2025 through 12/8/2025
Email: jeremy.shafer@temple.edu (Please be specific in your email communication with me, kindly include your name, course, and section for a faster reply)

Class Locations and Time:

Section 1: 9:00am – 10:20am, Monday and Wednesday, In Person, Speakman 12

Section 1: on the web: https://community.mis.temple.edu/mis3502sec001fall2025

Section 2: 10:30am – 11:50am, Monday and Wednesday, In Person, Speakman 12

Section 2 on the web: https://community.mis.temple.edu/mis3502sec002fall2025

Prerequisites:

MIS2402 (or MIS3501). MIS3406 (or MIS2501).

Course Description:

Use concepts of application integration to develop data driven software applications. Design the system architecture for an n-tier application. Learn how to integrate existing applications to produce new capabilities. Identify the technical and process issues of integrating a new application into the existing application structure. Relate software components such as middleware (specifically, a REST API) to the overall information architecture and apply software components to create client and server-based applications.

Course Objectives:

Describe, experiment with, and use widely recognized standards for client/server and mobile application architectures.
Describe and implement APIs that comply with a widely recognized standard (e.g. the RESTful standard) using a server-side programming language (e.g. JavaScript/Node.js)
Demonstrate understanding of exceptions to the RESTful standard made by leading technology providers (possible examples: Google Maps, PayPal, Amazon Poly, Chat GPT)
Develop one or more API services hosted in the cloud
Use a combination of front-end and back-end technologies to create an application that addresses a business problem.

How This Course Will Be Taught:

Two synchronous, “in person” class sessions will be held each week.

All quizzes will be conducted in class. Quizzes are intended primarily to assess student’s recall of the lecture material.

All exams will be conducted in class. See the class schedule for information about exam dates.

MIS Department Instructional Practices:

MIS faculty intentionally nurture student behaviors that promote critical thinking, curiosity, and perseverance.

In this class, this means: coming to class prepared, taking notes, submitting your work on time, task deconstruction (breaking large tasks down into smaller ones), experimentation, debugging your code thoughtfully, asking good questions in class and choosing project work that is meaningful to you.

Textbook and Materials:

There is no textbook for this course. Reading and viewing of free resources on the internet will be assigned throughout the semester.

Students are expected to own a personal laptop with working audio/visual capability for web conferencing. See: htt p s://www.fox.tem p le.edu/current-students/la p to p –p olic y /

Limited resources are available for students who do not have the technology they need for class. Students with educational technology needs, including no computer or camera or insufficient Wifi-access, should submit a request outlining their needs using the Student Emergency Aid Fund form. The University will endeavor to meet needs, such as with a long-term loan of a laptop or Mifi device, a refurbished computer, or subsidized internet access.

Evaluation and Grading:

Items

Item	%
Attendance	5%
Participation (5)	5%
Exam 1	15%
Exam 2	20%
Quizzes (10)	10%
Project 1	5%
Project 2	5%
Project 3	10%
Project 4	10%
Project 5	15%

Scale

Percentage	Letter Grade	Percentage	Letter Grade
94 – 100	A	73 – 76	C
90 – 93	A-	70 – 72	C-
87 – 89	B+	67 – 69	D+
83 – 86	B	63 – 66	D
80 – 82	B-	60 – 62	D-
77 – 79	C+	Below 60	F

Students who fail to earn the required MIS PRO points will receive an “Incomplete” for this course regardless of performance on exams or class participation! See the MIS Department PRO Points Requirement section of this document for details.

Grades are always communicated to the student as percentage score (i.e. on a scale of 0% to 100%)

Once a grade is communicated electronically students have a 1-week window of time in which they may approach the instructor during office hours and question the grade received. Grade adjustments will not be considered after this window has closed. Of course, during the last week of the semester, study days, and finals week, the 1-week window may shorten.

Grade adjustments will not be considered 48 hours after the last day of final exams.

Attendance:

Attendance is essential.

Attendance will be tracked and it will account for a portion of the student’s grade.

If a student does miss class, it is the student’s responsibility to catch up on any related material. While every student is encouraged to use office hours to gain a better understanding of class material, office hours are NOT for helping students catch up on material they missed because they were absent.

The instructor’s mechanism for tracking attendance each class will vary. It may be a signup sheet, roll call, or another mechanism. The instructor may ask you to submit a screenshot at the end of class.

Students may miss / skip two classes without penalty. Your lowest two attendance grades will be dropped. Please note that this applies to “excused” and “unexcused” absences. There is no distinction between “excused” and “unexcused” for the purposes of your attendance grade.

Participation:

Participation is essential.

Students will evaluate the contributions of their peers to group work. Students will evaluate each other in terms of their ability to collaborate and contribute to the project on a scale of 0 to 100. Written feedback will be collected as well. These ratings will be then averaged and translated into a participation score, one score for each project.

Typically, a student’s end-of-semester participation grade will be the average of these scores. However, the instructor reserves the right to adjust the end-of-semester participation grade, up or down, if the instructor deems necessary.

Exams and Quizzes:

There will be ten quizzes and two exams during the semester. The dates of these are documented in the class schedule. There will be no impromptu (‘pop’) quizzes or exams.

Exams will be administered in class. Exams are closed book , closed notes, and paper-based. Each exam will be a combination of multiple choice and short answer questions. Students will be expected to write portions of code without assistance, to read/interpret short segments of code, and to explain their approach to solving problems.

Quizzes are time-restricted, closed-book, paper-based assessments given during class. Quizzes are used to reinforce and evaluate student comprehension of lectures and assigned viewing. Most quiz questions are multiple choice. Please note that students may also be asked to recall basic command syntax and write short portions of code by hand.

Your instructor may assign seats for exams and quizzes.

Any collusion among students to save or share quiz and exam materials will result in disciplinary action.

Students are to complete each quiz in 20 minutes or less.

Make-up exams/quizzes will not be given. Your instructor will drop the lowest quiz grade for each student at the end of the semester. This is done deliberately to allow students to completely miss a quiz, and consequently get a grade of zero, without penalty.

Students who miss a quiz for any reason will be expected to take advantage of this policy.

Any student who will be absent for multiple quizzes due to hospitalization or some other extreme circumstance should discuss their situation with the instructor.

If an exception is made, students may find the content of the make-up quiz to be more difficult than the original. It is, therefore, to the students’ advantage to show up for the exam at the scheduled time and take it with the rest of the class.

Projects:

Students will complete five projects throughout the semester. The projects vary in complexity, and emphasis. Despite these differences, all projects share the following similar characteristics.

Contributing to the projects, as an individual, is the best way to prepare for the exams.

Students will work in instructor-assigned groups and will receive a new group for each new project.

Projects typically include the instructions to “upload your work” and then to provide answers to questions. Multiple server systems may be involved in the student’s solution. Students must follow the project submission instructions completely to receive credit for their work (e.g. students must perform the upload and deliver provide responses to the instructor’s questions).

All projects are graded on a 100-point scale. If a project is turned in on or before its due date, it is on time. Projects turned in later are automatically assigned a 20-point late penalty, no matter what the reason. Projects may not be turned in more than three days late. These projects get a grade of zero.

Because the submission of the project involves multiple steps, and (often) multiple systems, students are strongly encouraged to check their work carefully before and after they turn it in. Ensuring that your solution is up and running is part of turning in your project properly! Each student in a project team shares that responsibility equally.

Each project will have its own rubric that details the point value of that project’s objectives/features.

Project solutions will not be provided by the instructor.

However, some project solutions may be reviewed in class, and/or presented via video.

Project 1 – Setup

The focus of this project is to ensure that students have all the necessary accounts created and software titles installed.

Project 2 – Intro to AI-Assisted Programming

The focus of this project is to give students an introduction to using GitHub Co-pilot.

Project 3 – Client-side code

The focus of this project is to ensure that students know how to write some basic HTML, JavaScript and jQuery with the assistance of GitHub Co-pilot.

Project 4 – Server-Side Code / Web Service Code

The focus of this project is to ensure that students know how to create a Web Service hosted on Amazon Web Services with an emphasis on web services that perform database operations.

Project 5 – Original Project

In this project students are expected to use general instructions and resources provided by the instructor to independently work through the creation of an application with business value. Students will not be given specific, step-by-step instructions.

In this project students are expected to work with project buddies to create a project that is unique and distinct from all other projects in past semesters or the current semester. The project grade will be based on the solution’s functionality, sophistication, innovation, and appearance. While each final project grade is determined by the instructor, projects will be reviewed / commented on by your peers.

Academic Integrity:

The MIS Department has a zero-tolerance policy for any type of academic dishonesty in the classroom.

Academic dishonesty refers to any form of cheating, plagiarism, or other unethical practices in academic settings. This includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, the use, by paraphrase or direct quotation, of the published or unpublished work of another person without full and clear acknowledgment. It also includes the unacknowledged use of materials prepared by another person or agency engaged in the selling or distribution of term papers or other academic materials.
Cheating includes, but is not limited to: (1) use of any unauthorized assistance in taking quizzes, tests, or examinations; (2) use of sources beyond those authorized by the instructor in writing papers, preparing reports, solving problems, or carrying out other assignments; (3) the acquisition, without permission, of tests or other academic material belonging to a member of the university faculty or staff; (4) engaging in any behavior specifically prohibited by a faculty member in the course syllabus, assignment, or class discussion; (5) or otherwise engaging in behavior that gives the Student an unfair academic advantage including, but not limited to, fabrication of data or sources, resubmitting work already submitted for another academic requirement without prior authorization, or other similar behavior.
Facilitating, procuring, or encouraging another person to engage in plagiarism or cheating.

To be clear, the following are unacceptable:

Copying material directly from the Internet (or another source) without a proper citation crediting the author.
Posting material to the Internet so that it can be used by other students who are violating this academic integrity policy (i.e. posting exam material or assignment material to Course Hero).
Turning in an assignment from a previous semester as if it were your own and created during the current semester.
Having someone else complete your assignment and submitting it as if it were your own.
Fraudulently updating the attendance record.
Use of assignments completed in one class as any part of a project assigned in another class.
Sharing/copying any graded assignment.
Use of any unauthorized information during an examination.
Any attempt to deliberately interfere with the technology used in this class (e.g. the class servers), or to electronically impersonate a student other than yourself, or to knowingly share your credentials with another student.

In cases of cheating where multiple parties are involved, all parties will be held equally responsible. Under this zero-tolerance policy, any student found violating the academic integrity policy will immediately receive a final grade of “F” for the course and a formal complaint will immediately be filed with Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards. This incident will be listed on your permanent academic record. As part of my formal complaint, I will petition to have you expelled from the university. I will not discuss the penalty for violating this policy; I will simply direct you to this paragraph in the class syllabus.

As outlined in the university’s Withdrawal from Classes policy (policy no. 02.10.14), once a student has been informed that academic misconduct is suspected, the student may not drop or withdraw from the course during the investigation and adjudication process except where the drop or withdrawal is approved for exceptional circumstances. Details about the Department of Student Conduct, and related policies and procedures, can be found here: https://studentconduct.temple.edu/

Disability Disclosure Statement:

Any student who has a need for accommodation based on the impact of a documented disability, including special accommodations for access to technology resources and electronic instructional materials required for the course, should contact the instructor privately to discuss the specific situation by the end of the second week of classes or as soon as practical. Students should contact Disability Resources and Services (DRS) at 215-204-1280 in 100 Ritter Annex to learn more about the available resources. The instructor will work with DRS to coordinate reasonable accommodations for all students with documented disabilities.

Student and Faculty Academic Rights and Responsibilities:

The University has adopted a policy on Student and Faculty Academic Rights and Responsibilities (Policy # 03.70.02) which can be accessed through the following link: htt p ://p olicies.tem p le.edu/g etdoc.as p ?p olic y _no=03.70.02

Class recordings:

Class meetings will not be recorded.

MIS Department PRO Points Requirement:

The MIS Department has instituted a PRO points (professional achievement points) requirement for all MIS majors. This class is a checkpoint to ensure that students are focused on this requirement and on track to earn their 1,000 points by graduation. Students in MIS3502 must earn a minimum of 700 points by the end of the semester. Students who fail to earn the required points will receive an “Incomplete” for this course regardless of performance on exams or class participation.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If a student fails to earn the minimum number of PRO points within one year from the end of the semester or does not notify their instructor that they have earned the minimum number of points, then their “Incomplete” will be changed to an “F” automatically. The grade of “F” will then be the student’s permanent grade .

Students are STRONGLY encouraged to, at a minimum, do the following to earn points:

Create an e-Portfolio and have it listed with the department.
Become an active member of AIS and participate in professional development activities.
Volunteer your time for department-sponsored events.
Discuss opportunities to earn MIS PRO points for projects with your MIS instructors. Note that students may not request course/project related PRO points more than one year after the end of the semester.

Finally, here are two excellent resources that describe why the MIS professional achievement points are important to you.

http://community.mis.temple.edu/professionalachievement

http://community.mis.temple.edu/store