Possible homework assignments:

1. find a lump of src code related to network mgmt and/or network
security and analyze the architecture.  This might include 
ssh/mrtg/big-brother/kernel ipfw implementation or some other 
piece of software that is freely available.  (If this code
it big and gnarly enough, you can argue this into a term-paper
replacement).  analysis of the public-domain tripwire tool is another
possibility.

2. visit the Engineering library at PSU (5th floor).  Find articles on network
security (or network management) in IEEE and ACM journals.  Skim the article.
Make abstracts for said articles (bibliographic form and paragraph description).
Other journals may apply.  

3. p. 76, Stallings.  We find a nice list of SNMP-Related RFCs.
Pick 10 proposed standards and nicely summarize what they are about.
A focus on enterprise MIBS here oculd be of interest too.
The instructor could help you find Cisco enterprise MIBS of interest.
Recent switch-oriented MIBS might be of interest.

4. your idea here.

Possible term paper topics might include

1. Internet-wide traffic analysis.  Find out what is going on in
the IETF in this area ... 

Or see 
http://www.caida.org
for a starting point.  The teacher can provide some clues as well.

2. find something to compare IPSEC to; e.g., Cisco's link-level (L2TP),
and/or Microsoft's PPTP.  Compare and constrast the approaches.
Or take a really close look at two implementations of IPSEC; e.g.,
Cisco and Linux S/WAN, and/or FreeBSD in FreeBSD 4.X.  (summary, linux vs freebsd
or freebsd vs cisco).

3. write up a paper that compares various secure email protocols, including
PGP/PEM and Secure Mime.  

4. search for and find cracker tools (used for security breaches/network
intrusion (as opposed to detection :->) and write up a survey of said tools.
E.g., recent DDOS tools, or rootkits, or just general one attack
based tools.  The instructor can help here.  The recent HACKING EXPOSED book
may be of use.

5. investigate, analyze, and write up various network management
tools as found on: 

http://www.caida.org/tools

RRDtool-based tools may also be of interest.

6. there is this field called "intrusion detection" which includes
tools that look at packets and try to pattern match said packets with
known attacks.  This might be a good venue for a term paper.
Tools here may include tools that analyze systems including
tripwire (file system checksums) or distributed analysis (security hole
checking tools), like satan, nessus (www.nessus.org), saint
http://www.wwdsi.com/saint, or others.  (Thanks to Crispan Cowan
for some hints).   

-6.   There is also an opposite field that looks for
holes in a very different way.  One could checkout nmap and other known
probing tools.

7. tools exist for linux-based routing and firewalls.  E.g., 
there is a linux router project (http://www.linuxrouter.org) 
and a linux-based automatic firewall script project 
(mason, http://users.dhp.com/~whisper/mason).

8. your idea here

--------------------------------------------------------------
note: References in Stallings on p. 603.  
RFC list on p. 76-77.