ISBN #: 9781119386247

Cover

Chapters

• Chapter 1, Computer Fundamentals: basic hardware concepts
• Chapter 2, Spreadsheets: crunching numbers & visualizing the results
• Chapter 3, Databases: storing and retrieving information
• Chapter 4, Writing computer programs: Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)
• Chapter 5, Web pages: Designing and publishing web pages using html tags

For several years the enrollment in this course has been in a serious decline (semester to semester registrations would halve in the course of just one year). The creation of this book was the capstone to what was the complete redesign of CPSC 203. Instead of teaching concepts or even teaching computer skills (e.g. Python programming) for it's own sake, every part of the course was included with practicality in mind. A motivator that was used to filter content was the question: Does the discussion of a particular bit of knowledge or development of a skill help the typical undergraduate student need both in their academic/professional careers and perhaps even in their everyday life? Because the student body in this course is very diverse (some students only have minimal computer knowledge while others have used many complex applications such as databases or even tried their hand at writing their own programs) it won't cater to each and every individual student's needs. However every effort was made to target the content to as wide a group of students as possible.