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Syllabus
| COURSE NAME | Web Development |
| SEMESTER | Spring 2026 |
| NUMBER AND TYPE OF UNITS | 3 |
| COURSE TIME AND LOCATION | 8:25am-9:45am & CTC 114 |
| INSTRUCTOR NAME | Osvaldo Jiménez |
Course Description
This course is about the principles and techniques for designing and developing web applications. Topics include web application design, client-side web programming, and server-side web programming. Students are expected to read online resources and apply techniques to develop a website from scratch.
Contact Information
| ojimenez AT pacific.edu | |
| Discord | https://discord.gg/85rgmTtxHm |
| Office Hours | TTh 1pm-2:45pm |
| Other meetings | by email/discord appointment |
Prerequisites
COMP 141 with a "C" or better and graduate or blended students in the School of Engineering and Computer Science or instructor approval.
This is a graduate course in computer science. Therefore, you are expected to have:
- good programming skills
It is also strongly recommended that you have some basic knowledge of:
- web programming
- databases and...
- git or a similar version control system.
You are also expected to have perseverance and a capacity for solving problems and seeking information independently.
Previous knowledge of JavaScript or other course topics is not required. If you do not have the strongly recommended skills, then realize that you will need to put extra time in at the beginning of the course.
How much programming experience is needed? It is hard to say, but you should be pretty fluent in your programming language. This level of fluency takes usually at least 100-200 hours of practice to develop.
Course Objectives
After successfully completing this course, students will be able to:
- Identify the basic components of a client-server system.
- Apply client-side programming techniques to improve the interface of web-based applications.
- Build dynamic websites using modern programming techniques.
- Build a functional web-based application across a variety of technologies.
Computer Science Program Learning Outcomes
This course helps students meet the following Computer Science Program Learning Outcomes:
- Analyze a complex computing problem and apply principles of computing and other relevant disciplines to identify solutions.
- Design, implement, and evaluate a computing-based solution to meet a given set of computing requirements in the context of the program’s discipline.
- Communicate effectively in a variety of professional contexts.
- Recognize professional responsibilities and make informed judgments in computing practice based on legal and ethical principles.
- Function effectively as a member or leader of a team engaged in activities appropriate to the program’s discipline.
- Apply computer science theory and software development fundamentals to produce computing-based solutions.
Learning Resources
Other Responsibilities
You will find that the following attitude will significantly contribute to your success in this class:
- A positive attitude toward technology
- An open mind toward this style of education
- Willingness to share your experiences with others
- Strong communication skills for expressing yourself
- Strong analytical and critical thinking skills for when you "get stuck"
- Resourcefulness - don't be afraid to click on links and explore and ask questions that give you just enough information to get unstuck
- Time management
The next reading in the course will discuss more information about the course in general and what is necessary.
Technical Assistance
It's crucial to seek help when you can't access Canvas or class materials. It's up to you to ask questions!
-
We will be using Discord.
- if you have not used Discord before it is fairly intuitive, but here's a guide should you need it
- Canvas has live help that will assist you with any technical issues. To access help, click the question mark at the far left side of the screen. You can also email the Pacific Helpdesk for guidance at [email protected].
- For assistance with course materials contact your instructor or ask in the #help channel of discord
An overview of available Canvas help resources can be found here: https://community.canvaslms.com/videos/1687-canvas-help-resources-all-users
Further in-depth information can be accessed in The Canvas Student Guide which can be found here: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10701
Attendance policies
Attendance in the class is mandatory. We will be tracking attendance and we have a variety of group exercises that we'll do in class. Your presence and engagement directly impact not only your learning experience, but that of your peers. We also need the course time to be able to check in and for me to be able to provide feedback to you all (and vice-versa). While there will be some asynchronous portions, coming to class will allow me to observe you and provide tips. It will also serve as an opportunity for you to work on exercises and to help each other out in a community fashion.
You can discuss the course and related topics in our Discord outside of class hours. Discord will have different channels for both your learning partners as well as course-related conversations to help augment class exercises.
Pronouns
Knowing and applying the names and pronouns that students use is a crucial part of developing a productive learning environment that fosters safety, inclusion, personal dignity, and a sense of belonging across campus. Please let me know your preferred name and pronoun anytime throughout the semester.
Grading Scale
In this course, we’re experimenting with an ungrading approach. Instead of assigning traditional letter or number grades on every assignment, I’ll give you frequent feedback and expect you to reflect on your own growth, as well as to adjust based on that feedback. We’ll set goals together, discuss how to evaluate your own work, and use feedback (from me and from peers) to track progress. At four different points in the semester, you’ll propose what your final grade would be based on your reflections, effort, and learning milestones that I’ll take into consideration. The aim is to focus on understanding and improvement rather than chasing points. We’ll talk more in class about how this works and answer any questions you have along the way. In terms of how to put your effort in and as a reference this is what I’m expecting to take up most of your time in order:
| Individual Exercises | |
| Social Learning Exercises & Attendance | |
| Final Project | |
| Other Activities |
Major Assignments and Examinations
The course is composed of a few parts
- Individual Exercises
- Social Learning Exercises
- Final Project
- Other Activities
- Course Exam
Individual Exercises
Part of your assessment for the course will be based on the work you do towards the exercises (including exercises marked with an asterisk). For all of the exercises, your work will not only come from the solution but from you showing your work as you move toward your solution.
Your assessment will not come just from these exercises.
We will be having other exercises and assignments as well that will be just as important to your assessment.
Know that there are many exercises in this course, and you do not, nor should expect that you need to finish them all. However, what you provide as evidence of work will be variable, but what is most important here is being able to demonstrate a continual amount of progress regularly each week. You will be expected to demonstrate what you have learned. This means that if you get stuck during a week, that is OK! If you are unproductive, that is OK too, but means there will be an expectation of trying to improve and to learn from mistakes. How much you can catch up per week will also be capped, to no more than 10% of your average output. You will be expected to work regularly and submit the assignments as listed in Canvas.
With all submissions requested, please follow submission guidelines carefully.
Students are responsible for reading course material and following instructions posts on Canvas. Students are also responsible for being aware of any announcements the instructor makes through Canvas and in the course.
Course Meetings
You must also complete the course meetings and the reflections that lead up to each meeting. Notice though that the exam is not listed in your grade breakdown. The exam does not count towards your final grade, but you must pass it to pass the course. More info about the exam will be discussed via Canvas and Discord in the middle of the semester.
You can only take the exam after submitting a sufficient number of exercises. It is not wise in practice to take the exam immediately after submitting the critical number of exercises. The exam is the same and does not count toward your grade (you just need to pass it).
If you complete the assignments and you work through the material in earnest, you will be fine on the exam.
Late Assignments and Make-up Work
The only acceptable excuses for missing an assignment due date are serious illness, death in the immediate family or important professional activities. Illness or death in the family may require documentation. Excuses for professional activities must be approved by the instructor in advance. Late assignments other than the individual exercises will be deducted 15% per day and will not be accepted beyond 1 week late.
Individual exercises will follow a different policy. Exercises are broken into Canvas assignments. Students must submit one part before unlocking subsequent parts. There is no late penalty to submit a part. However, there is a cap on how many individual exercises can be submitted in a given week, to no more than 10% of your average workload. Your focus on that point with the individual exercises should be to focus on your current understanding. All work will have a hard cutoff that will be outlined in Canvas.
Individual Work and Collaboration
Computer professionals usually work in a cooperative environment, yet proper assessment requires that work be done by individuals. AI is also beginning to be used quite heavily in full stack development. However, realize that part of the issue that is being faced is that there may be an over-reliance on AI. To alleviate confusion, the following policy will be followed:
Collaborative work is encouraged. You can also use AI to help you understand certain lines of code or to use as a partner. This includes students working together on problem sets, planning solution strategies, and helping each other to debug programs. Collaboration must stop short of asking to write a program or English that represents your work. You need to make sure that you understand well any work that you submit, as you may be asked to change the code on the fly.
This policy is not meant to be punitive, but to help you maximize your learning. Ask questions to me whenever you are unsure.
Collection of Work for Assessment
Student work may be retained to assess how course learning objectives are being met, for accreditation purposes, and to provide examples to future students in this course. With COMP 227, all submitted work and electronic activity will be retained for:
- assessment
- accreditation, and
- learning how to improve the course for the future
- viewing by future students.
Furthermore, some of the work may end up being public, as you may end up contributing to repositories that are public (open source) in nature. Realize that those platforms will also have records of your activities and contributions.
Honor Code
The Honor Code at the University of the Pacific calls upon each student to exhibit a high degree of maturity, responsibility, and personal integrity. Students are expected to:
- act honestly in all matters
- actively encourage academic integrity
- discourage any form of cheating or dishonesty by others
- inform the instructor and appropriate university administrator if they have a reasonable and good faith belief and substantial evidence that a violation of the Academic Honesty Policy has occurred.
Violations will be referred to and investigated by the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards. If a student is found responsible, it will be documented as part of her or his permanent academic record. A student may receive a range of penalties, including failure of an assignment, failure of the course, suspension, or dismissal from the University. The Academic Honesty Policy is located in Tiger Lore and online at https://www.pacific.edu/student-life/student-conduct/tiger-lore
You will be expected to conduct yourself according to professional ethics, just as if this were a real-world job.
With this course focused on exercises,
you may not ask others (including computers) for solutions or to partially solve any of the individual exercises,
This also applies to search tools, AI services and other humans, whether hired, friends or classmates.
You MAY ask others (both computers and humans)
for help understanding particular errors that appear, or in explaining high-level concepts that you feel the text does not explain well.
However, those concepts should not contain the exercise text.
You should be able to explain any of the code you write and you also need to cite anything longer than a line of code that you get from the internet.
If ChatGPT or other AI services are used, you must be prepared to send me a share link of conversations with the AI.
Provide links to any code and tutorials that you find that help you program.
Make sure to cite and credit code, libraries, videos, ideas, or other resources that are not provided directly from this website.
Honor code cases will be resolved by an oral examination of the understanding of the material.
just as a professional would need to credit the source or fully understand code when receiving help from others.
Students are expected to participate as a team, with fair credit given according to effort and participation.
Accommodations for Students with Disabilities
If you are a student with a disability who requires accommodations, please contact the Director of the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) for information on how to obtain an Accommodations Request Letter.
3-Step Accommodation Process
- Student meets with the SSD Director and provides documentation and completes registration forms.
- Student requests accommodation(s) each semester by completing the Request for Accommodations Form.
- Student arranges to meet with his/her professors to discuss the accommodation(s) and to sign the Accommodation Request Letter To ensure timeliness of services, it is preferable that you obtain the accommodation letter(s) from the Office of SSD as early as possible in each term. After the instructor receives the accommodation letter, please schedule a meeting with the instructor during office hours or some other mutually convenient time to arrange the accommodation(s). The Office of Services for Students with Disabilities is located in the McCaffrey Center, Rm. 137. Phone: 209-946-3221. Email: [email protected]. Online: http://www.pacific.edu/disabilities NOTICE: The preceding information is the minimal information required in this section of the course syllabus, instructors are free to expand on the information above and/or add any additional information below. See the requirements below for Program Objectives and Course Schedule.
Academic Support Services
Students at University of the Pacific have access to many free support services to help them thrive academically. These services can benefit all students and are designed to help reinforce, extend, enrich and support students’ learning in the classroom. Both students who simply want to improve their performance and those struggling with understanding the material in a course can benefit. Come to the academic support center on the second floor of the library for one-on-one or group tutoring appointments, drop-in or by-appointment writing help, math skills lab open hours, research help from academic support librarians, or to sign up for study hall, a study pal or study group. Click on the link to schedule an appointment: Academic Support Services Appointments.
Additional resources can also be searched for on the student success resources website.
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
FERPA is a federal law designed to protect the privacy of educational records by limiting access to these records, to establish the right of students to inspect and review their educational records and to provide guidelines for the correction of inaccurate and misleading data through informal and formal hearings. The University of Pacific complies with FERPA and has placed the most updated version of FERPA in our Academic Catalog.
If you wish to view FERPA, or locate the Non-Release of Directory Information Form, Please click the following link to view the University's FERPA Policy. NOTICE: Items that can never be identified as public information are a student’s social security number, citizenship, gender, grades, GPR or class schedule.
All efforts will be made in this class to protect your privacy and to ensure confidential treatment of information associated with or generated by your participation in the class.
| Week | Date | Hours, Topics, and Activities |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jan 12 | 0 - General course info & Setup 1a-1c: React, Javascript, State & Handlers |
| 2 | Jan 19 | 1d - Debugging React 2a - Rendering collections |
| 3 | Jan 26 | 2b-2d - Forms and working with data on a server |
| 4 | Feb 2 | 2e - Adding styles to React 3a-3b Express and Deploying an app to the internet |
| 5 | Feb 9 | 3c-3d - Saving data to MongoDB and Validation |
| 6 | Feb 16 | 4a-4b - Testing the backend |
| 7 | Feb 23 | 4c-4d - User administration & Token Authentication |
| 8 | Mar 2 | 5a-5b - Frontend logins and props |
| 9 | Mar 9 | 🌞🌴😎🌞🌴😎🌞🌴😎🌞🌴😎🌞🌴😎 |
| 10 | Mar 16 | 5c-5d - Testing React and end-to-end |
| 11 | Mar 23 | 6, 7, 8 Redux, Custom Hooks, TypeScript |
| 12 | Mar 30 | Redux, Custom Hooks, TypeScript continued |
| 13 | Apr 6 | Final Project Activities |
| 14 | Apr 13 | Final Project Activities |
| 15 | Apr 20 | Final Project Activities |
| 16 | Apr 27 | Final Project Activities |