Spring 2027

Foundations of Mobile Systems and Applications

Foundations of Mobile Systems and Applications covers designing and implementing mobile apps under platform constraints like limited energy and bandwidth while leveraging features like GPS and touchscreens.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 8

Past student reviews · Mouna Kacem

The course used autograders for lab projects without providing documentation, forcing students to guess feature implementations in Android development.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Understand the mobile ecosystem.

  • Understand basics of mobile system design and constituents, including wireless communication, location services, energy management, use of cloud services, and mobile device interface design.

  • Demonstrate the fundamentals of mobile app development: setting up the development environment, creating an app from scratch, and understanding the app lifecycle.

  • Understand the various app components, strategies for optimizing app performance, and use of mobile features.

  • Construct end-to-end applications that use server backends.

  • Demonstrate strong teamwork capabilities including collaborative working, task distribution, and conflict resolution.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
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Prerequisites

Course map

COMP SCI 400 or graduate/professional standing

COMPSCI 407 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

MOUNA AYARI BEN HADJ KACEM is recorded teaching in Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

SUMAN BANERJEE is recorded teaching in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

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SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Suman Banerjee

Students described the group project as the best part of the class, noting that it allowed them to learn a significant amount of Android Studio.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.81 GPA, 91.1% A/AB (n=271 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.76 GPA, 93.4% A/AB (n=317 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.59 GPA, 83.3% A/AB (n=264 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Mouna Kacem

The course used autograders for lab projects without providing documentation, forcing students to guess feature implementations in Android development.

Past student reviews · Suman Banerjee

The class was disorganized, which frustrated students preferring step-by-step instruction, though others enjoyed the freedom to work on personal projects.

Topics

  • The mobile ecosystem
  • Mobile system design constituents: wireless communication, location services, energy management, cloud services, and interface design
  • Platform constraints: limited processing, memory, energy, interfaces, variable bandwidth, and high mobility
  • Platform features: touchscreens, cameras, electronic compasses, GPS, and accelerometers
  • End-to-end application construction with server backends

Skills

  • Mobile system design including wireless communication, location services, energy management, cloud services, and interface design.
  • Fundamentals of mobile app development, including environment setup, app creation, and lifecycle management.
  • App component analysis, performance optimization strategies, and utilization of mobile hardware features.
  • Construction of end-to-end mobile applications integrated with server backends.
  • Teamwork skills including collaborative work, task distribution, and conflict resolution.

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 3 recent terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

4 earlier forecasts · 0.11 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1316 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "0025cb33e3c4a09a8d7ed09833f3e242850324ca94776c37385d4cafc4efc2ee",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}