GCSE Computing/Computer Communications and Networking

= What you need to know =

Networks

 * (a) explain the advantages of networking stand-alone computers into a local area network
 * (b) describe the hardware needed to connect stand-alone computers into a local area network, including hubs and switches and wireless access points
 * (c) explain the different Client Server and Peer to Peer roles of computers in a client-server and a peer-to-peer network
 * (d) describe, using diagrams or otherwise, the ring, bus and star network topologies
 * (e) describe the differences between a local area network and a wide area network such as the Internet
 * (f) explain the terms IP addressing, MAC addressing, packet and protocols
 * (g) explain the need for security measures in networks, such as user access levels, suitable passwords and encryption techniques
 * (h) describe and justify network policies such as acceptable use, disaster recovery, failover, back up, archiving.

The Internet

 * (i) describe the nature of the Internet as a worldwide collection of computer networks
 * (j) describe the hardware needed to connect to the Internet including modems, routers etc
 * (k) explain the need for IP addressing of resources on the Internet and how this can be facilitated by the role of DNS servers
 * (l) explain the importance of HTML and its derivatives as a standard for the creation of web pages
 * (m) describe common file standards associated with the Internet such as JPG, GIF, PDF, MP3, MPEG
 * (n) explain the importance of compressing files that are transmitted via the Internet
 * (o) describe the differences between lossy and lossless compression