Web Development Certificate Program | Northwestern SPS - Northwestern School of Professional Studies

This course introduces students to the current tools and technologies used for designing and developing interactive websites. Students will explore the basic design principles of page layout and navigation. Students will also learn how to develop webpages using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML5), describe page presentation using the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) language, and develop facility with useful web development applications such as Adobe Dreamweaver. The primary focus of this course will be on client-side technologies. In addition to learning webpage components, structures, and design, the course will discuss the JavaScript programming language and the Document Object Model (DOM) and their role in creating interactive webpages. Through the use of JavaScript and its jQuery library, students will be introduced to programming concepts, event-driven programming, and entry-level object-orientation. Other Web technologies such as DHTML, XML, and XSLT will be briefly introduced.

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is an area of research that encompasses usability, design, information architecture, psychology, ethnography, and software engineering. In this course, we draw on these disciplines to understand how people interact with technological systems in everyday life. The main focus of this course will apply a user centered design approach to iteratively develop and evaluate a prototype. Course topics include: contextual interviews, design process, prototype construction, and evaluation techniques. While no prior programming experience is required the student will benefit from experience with computing conventions as well as appreciation and willingness to learn.

This course introduces students to the concepts, foundations and components of information architecture (IA) in the digital environment of the World Wide Web. The focus will be on understanding user needs for creating and structuring content and developing interactive solutions that best address these needs. Through case studies, activities, and projects, students will learn various strategies for representing, organizing, retrieving, and managing structures of large-scale website information. Core topics include website organization and navigation schemes, search systems, evaluating various aspects of information representation and usability of existing websites, and using IA strategies for designing effective and usable information systems that maximizes the user experience. At the end of the course, students are expected to design, diagram, and document an enterprise Information Architecture for a large website based on user requirements, and implement this design using a contemporary Content Management System (CMS). Prerequisites: CIS 110, CIS 130. Students should have familiarity with at least one programming language (Java, Python, etc) before taking this course, as well as familiarity with HTML and CSS.

In this project-based course, students gain an understanding of how to build a modern full-stack web application using the MEAN framework (MongoDB, Express, AngularJS and Node.js). Students also learn how to deploy their web applications to both Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure, the two largest cloud hosting providers. Finally how the npm package manager and third-party and open source modules can extend their web applications will be covered. Collaboration is paramount to a successful product, website and/or mobile application. However, students will be responsible for completing their own project/web application and submitting independent assignments.

Prerequisite: CIS 110 Introduction to Programming or CIS 323 Python for Data Science, or equivalent. Enrollment restricted to students who have completed CIS 110 or CIS 323. Instructor consent (permission number) is required for all other students.

May not be audited or taken P/N.