ADVANCED DATABASE MANAGEMENT

College of Business Administration, University of Cincinnati

IS 323, Spring Quarter, 1995

22-485-323-001

To: My students

From: Dr. Allen S. Lee, Associate Professor of Information Systems

Subject: Course syllabus and course policies

Date: March 28, 1995

                                                                                 
OFFICE:                              OFFICE HOURS:               
   331 Carl H. Lindner Hall               Thursdays, 2 P.M. to 5 P.M.        
   (Mailbox is in 301 Lindner Hall)
                      
PHONE and VOICE MAIL:556-7195

MAILING ADDRESS:                                   
   P.O. Box 210211                                                      
   College of Business Administration                                    
   University of Cincinnati                      
   Cincinnati, OH 45221-0211              

E-MAIL:
   Internet: Allen.Lee@UC.edu
   Student Access Network: LEEAN      

This course is about databases and database management systems (DBMS's). The course is a continuation of IS 321, "Principles of Database Management," which is a prerequisite for this course. The objectives of the course are:

• to develop a grasp of additional principles which govern (more or less) the analysis, design, building, and maintaining of a database with the help of DBMS's, and

• to develop a grasp of the meanings that these principles have for managers (whether IS managers or general managers), as well as for database analysts and programmers.

The tentative list of topics that the course will cover, after a brief review of the topics covered in IS 321, includes:

• functional dependencies and normalization for relational databases
• relational database design algorithms and further dependencies
• the database design process
• the system catalog
• query processing and optimization
• transaction processing concepts
• concurrency control techniques
• recovery techniques
• database security and authorization
• advanced data modeling concepts
• object-oriented databases
• distributed databases and client-server architecture

Although the course involves the use of software, the focus of the course is not on any particular software product, but on database principles, which are constant across different software products. DBMS software products will always be changing. A focus on any particular DBMS software product would impart a skill that would obsolesce quickly. For this reason, the course emphasizes database principles, rather than the syntax of any particular database software product.

Your grade for the course will depend mostly on the quizzes to be given throughout the quarter. So far, four quizzes are scheduled. Each quiz will last from to 45 to 60 minutes. There will also be a database project. Each quiz and the database project will contribute towards 20% of your grade for the course. Professional, courteous, business-like behavior is expected and required.

To study for a quiz, do the following, in decreasing orders of priority: (1) be able to answer all of the assigned review questions (which will be questions at the end of the chapters), where you also use these questions as guides to the specific parts of the chapter that you will need to study in detail; (2) be able to re-do all of the exercises that were covered in class; and (3) do a general reading and gain a general understanding of the assigned chapters. Hence, there is no need to memorize the textbook. Don't even try it! You are done studying for a quiz when you have done (1), (2), and (3).

REQUIRED TEXTBOOK:

Ramez Elmasri & Shamkant B. Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Second Edition, Redwood City, CA: Benjamin/Cummings, 1994. ISBN: 0-8053-1748-1.

IS 323 - Advanced Database Management - Spring 1995

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE FOR LECTURES, READINGS, AND QUIZZES

                                                                                               Advanced Data             
                Review of Basics            Database Design          System Implementation         Models                
                                                                          Techniques                                     

  Week        1          2         3          4          5         6          7         8          9         10       Finals   
                                                                                                                       Week    

           Mar   Mar   Apr   Apr  Apr   Apr   Apr   Apr   Apr  Apr   May   May   May   May  May   May   May   May   May  Jun              
           28    30    4     6    11    13    18    20    25   27    2     4     9     11   16    18    23    25    30   1                

Chapters* 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, appendix B       21, 12, 13, 14        15, 16, 17, 18         19, 20, 22, 23                 

*Unless assigned in class, skip the chapter's subsections that are marked with the five-pointed star symbol.        
Note that there will be quizzes on the shaded dates.  Each quiz will last 45 to 60 minutes.                         
The quiz on April 20 will cover chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and appendix B.                                           
The quiz on May 9 will cover chapters 21, 12, 13, and 14.                                                           
The quiz on May  23 will cover chapters 15, 16, 17, and 18.                                                         
The quiz on June ?, during finals week, will cover chapters 19, 20, 22, 23.