CSCI 490 .NET and World Wide Web Programming

(a practical and no-nonsense course)
Software/Tool W3Schools W3C C# .NET Visual Studio
HTML & CSS HTML help HTML tutorial CSS help CSS tutorial
ASP.NET ASP.NET help ASP.NET Overview VS Express
SQL Server SQL Server help SSMS help SQL Server TutorialsPoint
General Information Discord EE/CS Wiki EITS UND help Stack Overflow


Syllabus: Fall 2026   Credit hours: 3
Class times: 04:40pm – 05:30pm, MoWeFr Classroom: Harrington Hall 217
Class # (on-campus: 490-04): 36020 Class # (on-line: 490-05): 36021


Instructor: Wen-Chen Hu   (my teaching philosophy) Office: Upson II 366K
: https://und.zoom.us/j/2489867333 Email: wenchen@cs.und.edu
Office hours: 12:30pm – 02:00pm, MoWeFr

Prerequisite: Consent of the instructor

Synchronous class delivery: The class lectures will be delivered synchronously via https://und.zoom.us/j/2489867333, and the Zoom video will be posted on the Blackboard afterwards. Students can watch the video clips anytime they want.

Lecture notes: No textbook will be used. Instead award-winning, interactive, informative, and practical lecture notes (based on W3Schools, Microsoft ASP.NET Core, and other online documents and user manuals) and detailed and precise class instructions will be provided. Collectively, the lecture notes and instructions are more like a small book, which supplies much more information than regular notes do and makes the subject studies much easier. Students will not have problem learning the subjects or taking the exams after studying them and doing programming exercises.


Grading:

Announcements:

Tentative Schedule:


Week

Class Topic Due Where
0 0. Computer Career and Data Research & Technologies    
  0.1 A computer career    
  0.2 Data research    
  0.3 Data technologies    
1 08/26
08/28		 1. Introduction to CSCI 490    
  1.1 Course outline  
  1.2 Tentative schedule    
  1.3 Software to be used    
2 08/31
09/02
09/04		 2. Programming Exercise I    
  2.1 Specifications    
  2.2 ASP.NET Core    
  2.3 SQL Server database    
09/02  Last day to add a course or drop without record — 100% refund
 Last day to add audit or change to/from audit
 Last day to receive a refund on a dropped class
 Drops after the last day to add will appear on a transcript. 		   
3 09/09
09/11		 3. World Wide Web Programming    
  3.1 Technologies for website building    
  3.2 World Wide Web programming    
  3.3 The WISA stack    
09/07
Holiday, Labor Day (Monday) — no classes
   
4 09/14
09/16
09/18		 4. Microsoft ASP.NET Core Programming    
  4.1 Models  
  4.2 Views    
  4.3 Controllers    
5 09/21
09/23
09/25		 5. ASP.NET: A Database Project    
  5.1 Construction steps    
  5.2 Connecting to a database    
  5.3 Database processing embedded in ASP.NET    
6 09/28
09/30
10/02		 6. ASP.NET: Entity Framework (EF) Core    
  6.1 Input fields    
  6.2 Radio buttons    
  6.3 Checkboxes EX I  
7 10/05
10/09		 7. ASP.NET: Multiple Users    
  7.1 Programming Exercise II    
  7.2 User model    
  7.3 Role model    
10/07
(no class)
Exam I (for both on-campus and on-line students; 6:30pm – 8:30pm, Wednesday)
   
8 10/12
10/14
10/16		 8. Databases and SQL    
  8.1 Introduction to databases    
  8.2 SQL Server DBMS    
  8.3 SQL (Structured Query Language)    
9 10/19
10/21
10/23		 9. C# for ASP.NET    
  9.1 Getting started with C#    
  9.2 C# code samples    
  9.3 C# data types and variables    
10 10/26
10/28
10/30		 10. C# for ASP.NET (Cont.)    
  10.1 C# arrays    
  10.2 C# control structures    
  10.3 C# functions  
11 11/02
11/04
11/06		 11. HTML (HyperText Markup Language)    
  11.1 Programming Exercise III EX II  
  11.2 HTML syntax and tags    
  11.3 HTML examples    
12 11/09
11/13		 12. (X)HTML and XML    
  12.1 XML    
  12.2 XHTML    
  12.3 HTML5    
11/13  Last day to change to or from S/U grading
 Last day to change to or from audit grading
 Last day to drop a full-term course or withdraw from school 		   
11/11
Holiday, Veteran’s Day (Wednesday) — no classes
   
13 11/16
11/20		 13. CSS (Cascading Style Sheet)    
  13.1 Programming Exercise IV EX III  
  13.2 CSS basics and syntax    
  13.3 CSS fonts and lists    
11/18
(no class)
Exam II (for both on-campus and on-line students; 6:30pm – 8:30pm, Wednesday)
   
14 11/23 14. CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) (Cont.)    
  14.1 CSS box model and border    
  14.2 CSS pseudo- class and element    
  14.3 CSS navigation bar and images    
11/25
11/26
11/27
Holiday, Thanksgiving Break (WeThFr) — no classes
   
15 11/30
12/02
12/04		 15. The World Wide Web    
  15.1 Introduction to the WWW    
  15.2 Internet addressing    
  15.3 Internet terminologies EX IV  
16 12/07
12/09		 16. Microsoft .NET    
  16.1 Introduction to Microsoft .NET    
  16.2 Microsoft .NET    
  16.3 Web terms  
17 12/16
Final Exam (for both on-campus and on-line students; 6:30pm – 8:30pm, Wednesday)
   
18 12/22 Grades posted before noon, Tuesday    


According to IT Career Finder, Best Computer Jobs for the Future (04/24/2026) are listed as follows:
  1. AI/ML Engineer (average salary: $131,000)
  2. IT security specialist (not developer; average salary: $125,000)
  3.  Mobile application developer  (average salary: $133,000; Check CSCI 457)
  4. Technology manager (average salary: $171,000)
  5. Software engineer (average salary: $131,000)
  6. Computer systems analyst (not developer; average salary: $104,000)
  7.  Web developer  (average salary: $95,000)
  8. Video game designer (including developer; average salary: $99,000)
  9. Health information technician (average salary: $67,000)
  10.  Database administrator/developer  (average salary: $123,000)
If the page below does not show up, click the hyperlink.


However, without a proven track record, a computer/data-science graduate may face one of the highest unemployment rates (6.1%) because companies want employees to start contributing immediately according to Newsweek (05/24/2025). Computer/data science is different from many other disciplines (like electrical engineering). It is more like a professional school (such as culinary schools), which emphasizes practical works instead of subject studies. There are three kinds of computing personnel: Unless you have an impressive resume or a strong connection, practicing tens or hundreds of questions posted at the LeetCode is a must in order to secure a job at corporations (like Google and Facebook). Otherwise, your chance of answering the questions correctly is low because of their high difficulty and time constraint. In addition, you need to create LinkedIn pages to show your achievements, and may consider uploading your projects to the GitHub to showcase them.


Remark I: Definitions, terminologies, and theories will be discussed minimally in this course. Instead practical works and programming knowledge will be emphasized and enforced.

Remark II: This is a fundamental web course using ASP.NET.
Remark III: Numerous web development tools and software have been proposed and keep emerging. The reason of using the latest ones is mainly because of hype since programming languages have no major breakthroughs since 1950s, and the application cores still require about the same level of heavy human works. Unfortunately, many IT managers do not realize this truth, but once you master one specific technology, learning another should not be difficult because all foundations are about the same.

Remark IV: Web, mobile, and database programming is a must for IT developers, and the only effective way to learn software development is practicing, instead of studying concepts or writing some testing programs.
No pain, no gain 😂

Instructor’s qualification: The instructor initiated a database-driven web system by using Perl and Sybase in 1997, when not many people were familiar with the web development. Ever since, numerous software and tools such as ASP.NET, LAMP, and Oracle have been used by him to build various web systems.

University of North Dakota Course Description (CSCI 490) —
An introduction to Microsoft .NET and World Wide Web programming for fundamental web content development. Topics including Microsoft .NET concepts, World Wide Web basics, web system structures, technology survey, client-side languages such as (X)HTML, server-side languages such as ASP.NET and database processing, web-host connection, and web content design and development.

.NET from Wikipedia —
Commonly known as e-commerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks.

Electronic Commerce Technology from IEEE TCEC —
The different technologies reflect the technical, organizational, and legal requirements of the different participants in electronic business transactions. These technologies support one or more of the phases of an electronic business transaction: planning, identification, negotiation, actualization, and post-actualization.

A Generic System Structure of a Database-Driven Web System —

An Internet-Enabled and Mobile Database Course Sequence —
This is part of an Internet/mobile-enabled database course sequence offered by me:

CSCI 490 .NET and World Wide Web Programming
⇓
CSCI 457 Electronic and Mobile Commerce Systems
⇓
DATA 520 Databases
⇓
CSCI 513 Advanced Database Systems
⇓
CSCI 515 Data Engineering and Management
⇓
DATA 525 Data Engineering and Mining
The following platforms, software, and tools used in these courses greatly help students land a decent job: