CS215--Databases--Fall 2011
Tuesday, Thursday, Period L (8:00-9:15 PM), Room 122





The Textbook


Course Description


Course Objectives


Course Policies


Grading System


Course Schedule
         

Prof. Thomas A. Easton


Photo of Professor Easton 		        
OFFICE: Rm. 108

OFFICE HOURS: 12-3 PM MW, 9:30-10:45 AM TTh 

OFFICE PHONE: 859-1331

HOME PHONE: 338-1074

CANCELLATION PHONE NUMBER: 859-1140

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THE TEXTBOOK

Database Processing: Fundamentals, Design and Implementation, 11th Edition
David M. Kroenke
Prentice Hall, 2010 (ISBN 9780132302678)


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COURSE DESCRIPTION


The most important component of any business system is the data that is available to the system and the end user. This course teaches the student the principles of effective design of database systems.



See "Course policies" below for details on testing and grading.

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COURSE OBJECTIVES


Upon completion of this course, students will understand the role of databases and database applications in business environments. Students will have gained some proficiency in:
  1. Using basic SQL.
  2. Normalization of relations.
  3. Modeling data using the entity-relationship approach.
  4. Designing a simple database.
In addition, students will have gained specific understanding of:
  1. The special needs of multi-user database processing and techniques for controlling the consequences of concurrent data access.
  2. The issues involved in enterprise data sharing.
  3. The nature of data warehouses.
  4. The technology relevant to Internet-based database processing, including XML, ODBC, OLE DB, and ADO.
Assessment will be by means of six homework assignments, three exams, and a final as specified below.

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COURSE POLICIES


Students should always read their assignments and come to class prepared to discuss and/or work on the material. Each student may be absent twice without penalty. Each additional two absences without a medical excuse (no others are acceptable) will cost the student three points on the course grade.

Twenty percent of the student's grade will come from a class project, performed in stages, three of which call for reports, forty percent from two exams (the lowest one will be dropped), and forty percent from a comprehensive final.  If you do well on the summary reports, please consider polishing them up and putting them in your e-Portfolio. They may serve later on as more useful evidence that you understand databases than a grade.

Exam questions may come from the text, the lectures, and the questions at the ends of the chapters. See the Course Schedule for details.

Students who plagiarize tests and projects will receive zeros for the work in question, with no makeup opportunities.
 

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GRADING SYSTEM

A (94 - 100)      A- (90 - 93)
B+ (87 - 89)     B (83 - 86)    B- (80 - 82)
C+ (77 - 79)     C (73 - 76)     C- (70 - 72)
D+ (67 - 69)     D (63 - 66)    D- (60 - 62)
F (below 60)



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COURSE SCHEDULE

CAUTION: COURSE SCHEDULE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT WARNING!


DATETOPICASSIGNMENT
  
Tues Aug 30 IntroductionRead Chapter 1: Introduction
  Download sample database
 Class Project: Cemetery Database: Step 1 What data must be included?  What data might be included?  Where do the data come from?  How will the data be used?  After in-class discussion, prepare a summary report. Due next Tuesday.
 
Thurs Sept 1 Introduction to SQLRead Ch. 2
  Do exercises for sample database
    
Tues Sept 6 Marcia's Dry Cleaning, p. 86
Morgan Importing, p. 89
 
Thurs Sept 8 The Relational Model Read Ch. 3, pp. 94-106
 
Tues Sept 13 Normalization Read Ch. 3, pp. 106-121
 
Thurs Sept 15 Marcia's Dry Cleaning, p. 142
Morgan Importing, p. 143
 Class Project: Cemetery Database: Step 2 What relations must the cemetery database have?  How do functional dependencies help us decide?  After in-class discussion, prepare a summary report.  Due next Tuesday.
 
Tues Sept 20 Exam #1 on Chh. 1-3
 
Thurs Sept 22 Database Design Using Normalization Read Ch. 4
 
Tues Sept 27 Marcia's Dry Cleaning and Morgan Importing, pp. 142-143
 In-class exercise: Let's normalize a small database: stories.mdb  
 
Thurs Sept 29 Data Modeling with the Entity-Relationship Model Read Ch. 5, pp. 144-156
 
Tues Oct 4 Data Modeling with the Entity-Relationship ModelRead Ch. 5, pp. 156-180
 Class Project: Cemetery Database: Step 3 How do we diagram the entities and relationships for the cemetery database?
 
Thurs Oct 6 Ch. 5 Project Questions 5.59, 5.60, 5.62, pp. 184-187
Marcia's Dry Cleaning and Morgan Importing, p. 191
 
Tues Oct 11 COLUMBUS DAY
 
Thurs Oct 13 From Data Model to Database Design Read Ch. 6, pp. 192-214
 
Tues Oct 18 From Data Model to Database Design Read Ch. 6, pp. 214-229
 
Thurs Oct 20Class Project: Cemetery Database: Step 4 Given the entities and relationships for the cemetery database (see Step 3), how do we produce a database design?  We will use Access, so bring your laptops. 
 
Tues Oct 25 SQL for DB Construction Read Ch. 7, pp. 236-265
 
Thurs Oct 27 SQL for Application Processing--Views Read Ch. 7, pp. 266-283
 Class Project: Cemetery Database: Step 5 Now that we have a database design for the cemetery database, let us use SQL to define three views and three queries for the cemetery database.  We will use Access (so bring your laptops!) to see how it works (and since Access doesn't do views, we'll have to fake it a bit).  As homework, prepare a summary report, due next Tuesday.
    
Tues Nov 1 Marcia's Dry Cleaning, p. 293  
 Morgan Importing, p. 294
    
Thurs Nov 3 Database Redesign Read Ch. 8
   
 
Tues Nov 8 Marcia's Dry Cleaning, p. 317  
 
Thurs Nov 10 Exam #2 on Chh. 4-8 Using your cemetery database, modify it as instructed.
 
Tues Nov 15 Multiuser DB Processing Read Ch. 9
 
Thurs Nov 17 Marcia's Dry Cleaning, p. 349
  Morgan Importing, p. 350
 
Tues Nov 22 The Web Server Environment Read Ch. 11
 
Thurs Nov 24 THANKSGIVING
 
Tues Nov 29 Database Processing with XML Read Ch. 12
 
Thurs Dec 1 DB Processing for Business Intelligence Systems Read Ch. 13, pp. 526-549
 
Tues Dec 6 DB Processing for Business Intelligence Systems Read Ch. 13, pp. 549-557
 Morgan Importing, p. 564
    
Thurs Dec 8 Take-Home Final (I will be speaking at Florida State College!)
 I will provide a data scenario. Your job will be to create a database, suitably normalized, input sample data, write queries to serve as views, write more queries based on those queries, and prepare suitable reports. Hand in screenshots of Design View screens for each table, SQL code and results for each query, and results of each report. We will go over the results on Final Exam Day.
    
Mon Dec 13 FINAL EXAMS BEGIN
 
EXAM DAY FINAL EXAM DUE
 




Syllabus last modified August 8, 2011.