The Home Page of the
Undergraduate Database Course COSC 3480
Spring 2006

Basic Information COSC 3480 Fall 2005

instructor: Dr. Christoph F. Eick (Associate Professor)
Office hours (PGH 589): TU noon-1p; TH 4-5p
class meets: TU/TH: 10-11:30a
cancelled class: Th., April 6, 2006>
makeup class: Th., March 2, 8:45-10a in 550 PGH

Lab Instructor: Huiyuan Ma (e-mail: huiyuan_ma@yahoo.com)
Lab Homepage Spring 2006
Lab meets: TU/TH 8:30-10:00a
Some Information about the Lab

Textbooks

Required Textbook
Raghu Ramakrishnan and Johannes Gehrke, Data Management Systems, Third Edition
McGraw Hill 2003
Call number:
Link to Textbook Homepage
Other Decent Textbooks
by Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe, Fundamentals of Database Systems, Fourth Edition
Addison Wesley 2003
Link to Textbook Homepage

Hector Garcia Molina, Jeffrey D. Ullman and Jennifer Widom , Database Systems: The Complete Book,
Prentice Hall, 2002.
Call number:
Link to Stanford's "First Course in Database Systems" Homepage

News COSC 3480 Spring 2006

  • The letter grades for COSC should be available on this webpage no later than Friday evening, and more detailed grade reports will be posted no later than May 16, 2006.
  • The weights of the course components for Spring 2006 are as follows: Exam1: 18%, Exam2: 18%, Final: 29%, Assignment, Labs, Homeworks: 35%.
  • Solutions for Homework2 have been posted. Check Cindy's Lab homepage!!
  • The final exam (Review List Final06) is scheduled for Tuesday, May 9, 11a in our classroom (Last Year's Final --- note that the material covered in this final is different from the 2006 final exam). The final exam will not be returned to students: However, you can see your final exam at the following dates: Tuesday, May 23, 10:30a-11:30a, Thursday, August 24, 10-11a, and Monday, August 28, 4-5p.
  • Homework2 has been posted. Replace 'and' by 'or' in the SQL-query. It is due on May 2, 11p (electronic submission). The Project5 report is due in Thursday, April 27, 2006.
  • This webpage is an evolving document, and students that take the course should look at it regularly. The current webpage contains lecture transparencies, homeworks, lab projects that were used in the Fall 2005 semester. The lecture transparencies will not change a lot, but all other information will.

    Prerequisites

    The class prerequisites are COSC 2320 or equivalent and MATH 3336 (taking MATH 3336 and COSC 3480 concurrently is okay).

    Material Covered in COSC 6380

    I Basic Concepts of Database Management (2 classes; Chapter 1, 2.1,2.2, 2.3; instructor teaching material)
    II Introduction to the Relational Data Model (1.5 classes; Chapter 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.6)
    III Introduction to the Relational Algebra and SQL (3 classes; Chapter 4 and 5)
    IV Conceptual Schema Design using the Entity Relationship Data Model (2 classes; instructor material; Chapters 2.4, 2.5)
    V Relational Database Design and Normalization (2 classes; instructor material, Chapter 19)
    VI Introduction to KDD and Data Warehousing (1.5 classes; instructor material, Chapter 26)
    VII Disks, Files, Storage Structures, Index Structures and Physical Database Design (4 classes, Chapter 8, 9, 10, 11.1, 11.2, 13, 20)
    VIII Spatial Data Management (1.5 classes; chapter 28)
    IX Internet Databases and XML (2.5 classes; Chapter 7 and 27 and additional material)
    X Summary: Where Do We Stand? (0.5 classes; instructor material)

    Summary: 21 classes regular lectures; 2 classes are allocated to exams; 3 classes are allocated to reviews, discussing homework problems and lab projects.

    Oracle 9i

    If you are interested in installing Oracle on your own computer go to the Oracle website, register as a user, and click the download button, and follow our Installation Instructions. Moreover, Oracle 9 is also installed on some machines in the 3rd and 5th floor labs in the PGH building. Each student receives an account number that allows him/her to use the departmental version of Oracle.

    Spring 2006 Lab Projects

    Project1
    Project2
    Project3
    Project4 (complete version)
    Project5 (initial draft)


    Remark: at least 40% of the available Lab-project points are allocated with Project5, and at least 20% are allocated with Project4.

    Fall 2005 Lab Projects for COSC 3480

    Project1
    Project2
    Project3
    Project4 (final version; due Oct. 25, 2005)
    Project5 (last updated on Nov. 14, 2005; due Nov. 14/30, 2005)


    Tentative Weights for the 5 Projects and the lab sessions: Project1: 5%; Project2:5% Project3:8% Project4:22% Project5:45% Labsessions: 15%

    Fall 2003 Graded and Ungraded Homeworks

    Homework1
    Homework2 (graded; due Tu., October 28 in class)
    Homework3
    Homework4 (graded; due Tu., December 2 in class)

    Solutions of Homework Problems Solution Set1, Solution Set2, Solution of Homework4 Problem (updated on December 5, 2003).

    Oracle 9i

    If you are interested in installing Oracle on your own computer go to the Oracle website, register as a user, and click the download button, and follow our Installation Instructions. Moreover, Oracle 9 is also installed on machines in the 3rd 5th floor labs in the PGH building. Each student receives an account number that allows him/her to use the departmental version of Oracle.

    Elements of COSC 3480 in Spring 2006

  • 3 Exams (Tu., Feb. 28, 2006; Tu., April 4, 2006; final on date listed in UH course schedule)
  • 2 Homeworks
  • 5 Projects and approx. 12 lab exercises The final grade will be computed using a weight of 18% for the first two exams, a weight of 28-30% for the final exam, and a weight of 34-36% for the projects and the two homeworks --- these weights are subject to change.

    Class Transparencies Fall 2005

  • I Basic Concepts of Database Management
  • II The Relational Data Model
  • III SQL and Relational Algebra
  • IV The Entity Relationship Data Model and Conceptual Schema Design
  • V Relational Database Design
  • VI Data Warehousing and Data Mining
  • VII Disks, Files, Storage Structures, Index Structures and Physical Database Design
  • VIII Spatial Databases
  • IX XML and Semi-Structured Data
  • X Object-Oriented Databases (not covered in 2006)
  • XI Last Words about Data Management and Databases

    Grading

    The final grade will be computed using a weight of 19% each for the first two exams, a weight of 31% for the final exam, and a weight of 31% for the 5 projects and the two graded homeworks.

    Translation number to letter grades:
    A:100-90 A-:90-86 B+:86-82 B:82-77 B-:77-74 C+:74-70
    C: 70-66 C-:66-62 D+:62-58 D:58-54 D-:54-50 F: 50-0

    Only machine written solutions to homeworks and assignments are accepted (the only exception to this point are figures and complex formulas) in the assignments. Be aware of the fact that our only source of information is what you have turned in. If we are not capable to understand your solution, you will receive a low score. Moreover, students should not throw away returned assignments or tests.

    Students may discuss course material and homeworks, but must take special care to discern the difference between collaborating in order to increase understanding of course materials and collaborating on the homework / course project itself. We encourage students to help each other understand course material to clarify the meaning of homework problems or to discuss problem-solving strategies, but it is not permissible for one student to help or be helped by another student in working through homework problems and in the course project. If, in discussing course materials and problems, students believe that their like-mindedness from such discussions could be construed as collaboration on their assignments, students must cite each other, briefly explaining the extent of their collaboration. Any assistance that is not given proper citation may be considered a violation of the Honor Code, and might result in obtaining a grade of F in the course, and in further prosecution.

    CS lab: you are responsible to protect your own files. If you leave files on computers and other students turn in these files as their solution for course project, you are violating the university's academic honesty code. One way, to prevent that your solutions are copied by other students, is to edit and save all your sql files into your floppy disk (and run the system from using the data on the floppy). Alternatively, you could create local folders with your files on the hard drive and remove all files from the folder before you logoff (you could even write a script that does the cleanup).

    Communication with the teaching staff

    We strongly encourage students to come to my office hours or to talk to me directly after class. If a homework clarification is posted after a student has completed an assignment, the student should contact us as soon as possible to check if the assumptions s/he made are going to be accepted.

    Please do not e-mail us with grading questions. If you want us/me to explain why I took points off, you can talk to me/us during our office hours.

    Course Exams

    UG Material Review Exam

    Review list for Exam0
    Feb. 17, 2000 Review Exam (in Word)
    Solutions Exam0 (in Word)

    Useful Links


    last updated: May 9, 2006, 7p