EECS 485: Web Systems

The University of Michigan
Summer 2026

A holistic course of modern web systems and technologies, covering front end and back end. Build an Instagram clone in the first half of the semester and a Google clone in the second. Syllabus

Welcome to EECS 485, Summer 2026!
  • This is a Summer term course, taking place from July-August.
  • All components of the class can be completed remotely except the final exam.
  • The final exam will be in-person on Thursday, August 20 from 1:30-3:30pm.
  • Read the syllabus

Schedule

Day Lecture Lab Deadline
Week 1
July 1 - 3

L01 Introduction

L02 Static Pages

Project 1 Intro, Python
Week 2
July 6-10

L03 Server-side Dynamic Pages

L04 Sessions

L05 Encryption

L06 Web Security

Project 2 Intro and Databases, Flask and Sessions
Project 1 due Fri Jul 10 8:00pm
Week 3
July 13 - 17

L07 REST APIs

L08 Client-side Dynamic Pages

L09 Client-side Applications

L10 Asynchronous Programming

P3 Intro and Rest APIs, Asynchronous Programming and React
Project 2 due Fri July 17 8:00pm
Week 4
July 20 - 24

L11 MapReduce

L12 Google File System

L13 OS and Parallelism

L14 Networking

Project 4 Intro and MapReduce, Multithreaded Debugging
Project 3 due Fri July 24 8:00pm
Week 5
July 27 - 31

No Lecture

No Lab

Midterm Quiz (remote), Tue Jul 28, flexible time
Week 6
Aug 3 - 7

L15 Text Analysis for Web Search

L16 Link Analysis for Web Search

L17 Scaling Search

L18 Scaling Static Pages

Project 5 Intro and MapReduce Pipelines, Inverted Index Servers
Project 4 due Fri Aug 7 8:00pm
Week 7
Aug 10 - 14

L19 Scaling Dynamic Pages

L20 Scaling Storage

L21 Recommender Systems

L22 Ads and Auctions

No Lab
Project 5 due Fri Aug 14 8:00pm
Week 8
Aug 17 - 20

L23 Blockchain

L24 Dark Web

No lab
In-person Final Exam Thu Aug 20, 1:30-3:30PM

People

Reach us at eecs485staff@umich.edu

John Kloosterman head shot
John Kloosterman

jklooste@umich.edu