Jump to navigation

Assignment #3

Due Wednesday, February 13

25 Points

  1. Do some Web research to develop an understanding of the difference between de jure standards and de facto standards and find one representative example of each in networking.
  2. Using the resources listed on the slide entitled “Some Standards Bodies” in the Networking Basics slides, pick one standards organization associated with the Internet and research its process for developing and approving standards. Try to find answers to the following questions:
    • Who can actively participate in the development of standards?
    • How does one get involved as an active participation?
    • How is it determined that a standard is complete?
    • What, if any, leverage does the organization hold to force or encourage others to adopt their standards?
    Of course, any other relevant questions may also be used to aid in your exploration of the topic.
  3. Using a text editor of your choice, compose a short report of your findings from steps 1 and 2. Explain your understanding of the difference between de jure standards and de facto standards and provide your examples. Indicate the standards organization you chose to explore and report on your findings.
    Length is secondary to quality of content, but in general if you were to print out your report single-spaced in a 12-point font, I would expect it to be somewhere between half a page and a full page in length.
    When composing your report, keep the length of each line to 70 characters or less, single space your text, and leave a single blank line between adjacent paragraphs. Make sure you save the file as text using UTF-8 character encoding and name it report.txt.
  4. Review the Publishing Tutorial, and use that information (plus the material presented in lecture) to publish your report.txt file in your own public_html folder with the appropriate permissions.

NOTE: I will grade this assignment by examining the file that you place on wcit.cs.unh.edu, so there is nothing for you to hand in or send to me. However, it is your responsibility to make sure you have your report.txt file in the proper place before the deadline and then do not change it until the grades have been posted.