CS 4660 Fall 2003 Home Page
CS 4660 Fall 2003 - Databases - 4 Credits 

Instructor: David Yang (Science South 433, dyang@csuhayward.edu)
Time: Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays 10:40-11:50 AM
Location: Science North 336 

Blackboard will be used for submission of assignments and posting of course material, while email to the class will go to your Horizon account.

Text:
Various web pages and web sites.
For those who want a text, I've made Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan, Database Systems Concepts with Oracle CD , 4th ed., McGraw-Hill, 2001, ISBN 0072554819 the "recommended" text. However, you will not be required to read or use anything from this book. Some of the lecture notes were developed from the Elmasri and Navathe text. A former colleague really disliked this book, but it does have an excellent procedure for converting an entity-relationship model into a relational database.

Goals:

  • to develop an understanding of the concepts and techniques of of designing the organization of data with an emphasis on supporting data consistency.
  • to model data organization using the entity-relationship model and display the model with an entity-relationship diagram
  • to check and improve the model using normalization
  • to practice these concepts and techniques using a relational database
  • to learn how to use SQL to create, modify and, most popularly, query a relational database

Calculation of your grade: 
In-class assignments 10%
Homework 20%
Individual project 20%
Exams 15% each
The comprehensive final exam will count for 20%.

[grading note: Your exams must average (using the relative weights above) out to a C- or better in order to get at least a C- in the course.]

Final grades will be given according to the following scale:

93-100 A, 90-92 A-, 87-89 B+, 83-86 B, 80-82 B-, 77-79 C+, 73-76 C, 70-72 C-,67-69 D+, 60-66 D, 0-59 F 

Attendance:
Remember that standard policy dictates that students who do not attend can be removed in favor of students on the waiting list who do show up. Also, note that you need to be in class to do the in-class assignments and to take the exams.

Academic Honesty: This course will follow the University's standard policy on academic dishonesty. In particular, note that regardless of whether you copy work from another student or allow another student to copy your work on an exam, you are both equally guilty and equally penalized. Copying text/files off the internet without properly giving credit is also cheating. Any cheating on an exam results in an F for the course. Cheating twice also results in an automatic F. All instances of cheating will be reported to the Dean's office.

Remember that the University may inflict further penalties than listed here under the provisions of the published Academic Dishonesty Policy. 

Office Hours: My office is in room 433 of the South Science Building. My tentative schedule for office hours is: 

  • Monday noon-1 PM, 2:45 PM-3:45 PM 
  • Wednesday 2:45 PM-3:45 PM


I will also be available at other times. You can make an appointment, though stopping by to see if I'm around is fine. It is better to ask questions before the exams. 

Tentative Schedule All days in red are mandatory. Days in green are holidays

    Week  Monday  Wednesday  Fridays
    Week 1 09/22/2003 
    Intersession -- no classes
    09/24/2003 
    Intersession -- no classes
    09/26/2003 
    Introduction -- databases vs. regular files, database management system architecture
    Reading: Example of a poor data organization
    Notes:
    Introduction
    Week 2 09/29/2003 
    Entity-Relationship model

    Reading:
    Informix tutorial, chap. 8, first 3 pages
    Notes:
    Entity-Relationship Model

    10/01/2003 
    Entity-Relationship diagrams
    Notes:
    Entity-Relationship Diagram
    10/03/2003 
    In-class assignment
    Week 3 10/06/2003 
    Relational model
    10/08/2003 
    Relational model (continued)
    10/10/2003 
    Relational algebra
    Week 4 10/13/2003 
    Converting E-R model to relational model
    Reading:
    A concise description of relational algebra (the author uses a capital pi for join)
    10/15/2003 
    Review for exam 1
    10/17/2003 
    Exam 1
    Week 5 10/20/2003 
    Functional dependencies, Normalization
    10/22/2003 
    Normalization (continued)
    10/24/2003 
    In-class assignment on normalization
    End of ch. 8 of the Informix tutorial (unfortunately, the diagrams have been messed up)
    Week 6 10/27/2003 
    SQL
    10/29/2003 
    SQL (continued)
    10/31/2003 
    In-class assignment on SQL
    Week 7 11/03/2003 
    SQL inclass assignment
    Script to create Company database
    Company data
    11/05/2003 
    Exam 2
    11/07/2003 
    XML
    Week 8 11/10/2003 
    Storage, indexes
    11/12/2003 
    Indexes (continued)

    Last day to withdraw

    11/14/2003  
    Query optimization
    Week 9 11/17/2003 
    Views
    11/19/2003 
    ODBC
    11/21/2003 
    JDBC
    Week 10 11/24/2003 
    Implementing databases
    11/26/2003 
    Concurrency control
    11/28/2003 
    Thanksgiving  
    Week 11 12/01/2003 
    Recovery
    12/03/2003 
    Security
    12/05/2003 
    Review for final
    Week 12 12/08/2003 
    Final exam, 11AM-12:50 PM
       

     
    This webpage's layout is originally from Bill Parkinson, who used to teach in the evening program at St. Joseph's University.