Topic 1h
Communication Errors

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this topic students should be able to:

  • Explain communication errors.
  • Explain how parity bits can be used to detect communication errors.
  • Explain the difference between error detection and error correction.

 

Learning Materials

  • Readings
    • Section 1.10 - pp 83-87
  • Videos
    • While there are no videos related to the learning outcomes, there are two videos we STRONGLY encourage you to watch at this point on the history of computing.
    • Please see the "Further Information" section at the bottom of the page.

Checking for Understanding

Answer the following questions from your textbook. The answers to all Q&E questions are in the back of your book in Appendix F.

  • p87, #1
  • p87, #2
  • p87, #3

 

Answers & Guidance

The answers to the CFU questions above are provided in the back of the book. The following videos explain how we would arrive at some of those answers.

Further Information

The following videos are a good introduction to the discipline of computer science. While none of this material is directly assessed during this course, the content helps frame many of the things that are.

We used to use these at the start of the course, but we discovered that some of the "great connections" between what is in these videos and what is in chapter 1 simply flew right over students' heads because they didn't have enough knowledge to start to see the connections. Now we try it here at the end so that you can make some connections between some of the historical things in the videos and what you have been studying in the last two weeks.