CMSC 508 Information


I have finished grading the midterms. If you don't want to wait, you can come by and pick yours up tomorrow (Thursday). I should be in the office from about 11am onwards.

The prerequisite for this course is CMSC 401. It will be strictly enforced. Graduate sudents in Bioinformatics can use BNFO 501 in place of CMSC 401. Please note that this class can not be used towards the Masters in Computer Science or the Ph.D. in Engineering Computer Science track.

Class meets in Engineering West room 103. Here is the syllabus.

Note: All homework and project assignments are due at 10 pm on the day they are to be completed. You may slide assignments under my door (Engineering West 412). Homework (NOT projects) may be submitted via e-mail. See the rules concerning sending homework via e-mail on the syllabus. All phases of the project, except the specified part of Phase 3, MUST be submitted as hard copy.

Here is a bunch of definitions that you might find useful throughout the semester.

Here is a handout on E/R diagrams that you may want to download.

Project Information
This course involves a semester long project. It counts for a substantial portion of the grade. Part of the project involves implementing your database design. If you want to get a headstart on the project you can play around with Access or MySQL now. I will not be teaching Access or MySQL - I will expect you to figure that out on your own.

The project is to be done in teams of 2 people. If you are not a computer science major then you must pair with a computer science major. Both members of the team must work on all portions of the project.

Project proposal
Phase 1 Now due Feb. 18
Phase 2
Phase 3
Phase 4

Presentation schedule


Homework
There will be 7 or 8 homework assignments. These links will become active as I write the assignments:

Homework 1
Homework 2 Hint: Fractions are your friend. Correction! For question 2, the probability that you will have 5 parts should be 10%.
Homework 3
Homework 4
Homework 5
Homework 6
Homework 7
Homework 8

Tests
The midterm will be March 2.

The final exam will be on May 4. The final will be cummulative.

Reading
I am not requiring a textbook this time. I usually recommend the classic database book by C. J. Date, An Introduction to Database Systems. This is the best reference book possible. Unfortunately, Date is a little dry to read!! If you have access to it, you can read chapters 1, and 2, 14, 3, 6, 7, 11, 12, and 13. You may also want to look at Appendix D. Here is a link to the ER to 4th Normal Form paper.

Here are the IMS Notes. And here are the Network Model notes.

A basic and cheap SQL reference book is Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes by Ben Forta. It is published by SAMS, a division of Macmillan.

Send me e-mail at lparker@vcu.edu

Last updated 12/2/2014.