CS411 Fall 2004

Wednesday and Friday, 3:30 - 4:45pm, 1320 DCL

Note: First class will meet on Friday 8/27.

Administration

About the Course

As the first introductory course for databases, this course studies the fundamentals of using and implementing relational database management systems. First, from the user perspective (i.e., how to use a database system), the course will discuss conceptual data modeling, the relational and other data models, database schema design, relational algebra, and the SQL query language. Further, from the system perspective (i.e., how to design and implement a database system), the course will study data representation, indexing, query optimization and processing, and transaction processing.

Prerequisites

Background: CS 225 or CS 300 (current CS400).
Programming: For projects, you will do some significant application programming, with both SQL and some host languages of your choice (e.g., C, C++, or Java). We will not cover programming-specific issues in this course.

Textbook

Database Systems: The Complete Book, by Hector Garcia-Molina, Jeffrey D. Ullman, and Jennifer D. Widom. See the book's home page for errata, selected solutions, and other reference materials.

Course Format and Activities

This course will draw materials from the textbook as well as recent database literature. Students will study the materials and complete a project.

Lectures and Class Participation

While the class lectures will be recorded for distant students, we strongly encourage (and appreciate!) on-campus students to attend classes, because effective lectures rely on students participation to raise questions and contribute in discussions. Although we probably will have a large class, we will strive to maintain interactive class discussions if possible.

We will provide lecture notes before class. If ready in time, these lecture notes will be posted on the course Web by 6pm of the day before (in which case please print and bring them for yourself). Otherwise, we will bring copies to class.

Questions, Discussions, and Help

If you have any questions or clarification of class material, what to do? First, try to discuss with your project group peers-- This way, you can get immediate help, and also learn to communicate "professionally" with your peers. You will know the material better by discussing with and explaining to your peers.
Next, if you do not get a satisfactory answers, try to post your question to the newsgroup (class.cs411 at news server news.cs.uiuc.edu) whenever possible, or otherwise email your section TA. Note the newsgroup is for you and your peers to discuss class-related materials and to help one another. The TAs will monitor the newsgroup and try their best to help. But please be aware that the TAs may not be able to answer all questions on the newsgroup in a timely manner, due to the overwhelming number of questions that such newsgroups sometimes generate. Also, there are obviously things that are not appropriate for the newsgroup, such as solutions for assignments as well as comments or requests to the staff.
In any case, for more thorough discussion, come to our office hours (see here for schedule) if you can! The TAs and the instructor will have office hours for all weekdays. Don't be shy. Use our office hours to their fullest extent to help your study.
Any announcements will be posted on both the newsgroup and the Announcements page. Make sure to check either place frequently enough to stay informed.

Reading

Read the textbook for the required reading before lectures, and study them more carefully after class. Please note that all the required readings are fair materials for exams. These materials may not be fully covered in lectures. Our lectures are intended to motivate as well as provide a road map for your reading-- with the limited lecture time we may not be able to cover everything in the readings.

Assignments

There will be four written assignments, spaced out over the course of the semester.

Projects

There will be a semester-long project, which involves significant database application programming. The project will be structured with several milestones due in the course of the semester, leading to a demo and write-up near the end of the semester.

Examinations

There will be two exams: midterm and final. We will not normally give make-ups for missed exams; please see the policies.

sample midterm: Fall 02 Solution Fall 03

Extra Quarter-Unit Work (Optional for Graduate Students)

Graduate students MAY take this course for one unit instead of .75 unit. (Undergraduates take this course for three hours credit.) Those taking the class for more credit are expected to do more work. In this case, the one unit students will do an extra project. More details will be posted at the quarter-unit project page.

Evaluation

We plan to determine final grades of the course in the following way:

Homework assignments: 20%
Project: 30%
Midterm exam: 20%
Final exam: 30%
Extra-project for one-unit students: 25%. The overall scores will be scaled proportionally.