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CMSC 321: Database Theory and Practice
Description: An introduction to the design,
implementation, and uses of databases. Topics include database design, database models, integrity,
concurrency, security, and database query languages. Students will be expected to take an active
role in the development of a major online project with a significant and complex database back end.
Professor:
Robert W.
McGrail
Class Meeting: Monday and Wednesday, 9:00-10:20 AM, Reem-Kayden 100
Text:
A First Course in Database Systems, Second Edition.
Jeffrey D. Ullman and Jennifer Widom. Prentice Hall. 2002. ISBN: 0-13-035300-0. |
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Course Policies
Class Meetings: The intent of this course is to harness the
tools of database systems in order to solve a knowledge management issue of significant
proportion. The natural classroom style will subsequently be a combination of group
discussion and progressive classroom exercise. However, databases is one of the few areas of
computing in which very abstract mathematics has had such a fundamentally profound impact upon
pragmatics. Hence a healthy proportion of the class meeting will be conducted via traditional
lecture. Students are expected to deliver some portion of the lecture presentations.
Homework: There will be regular weekly homework
assignments in support of the course project. Written work will be handed to me on paper by
the deadline. Programming assignments will either be left on the database or posted
online. Homework will also involve the preparation of classroom presentations.
Exams: There will be two exams. Both exams will carry the
same weight toward the final grade.
Grading: The grading breakdown will be as follows.
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Syllabus
The following topics will be covered in this course.
- HTML and XML
- The Links Web Programming System
- The Entity-Relationship Data Model
- The Relational Data Model
- The Structured Query Language (SQL)
- PostgreSQL Data Definition Language
- PostgreSQL Data Manipulation Language
- Relational Algebra
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News
Course Project
12/2/07 - The final four homework assignments will comprise a course project. Details are inside.
Homework Assignment 8
11/27/07 - Exercises 6.1.3, 6.1.5, and 6.2.2. Due: Monday, December 3rd.
Homework Assignment 7
11/3/07 - Complete exercises from the course text. Due Monday, November 12 at Noon.
Homework Assignment 6
11/3/07 - Construct some more links functions. Due Friday, November 9th at 12 Noon.
Homework Assignment 5
10/15/07 - Construct some Links functions. Due Wednesday, October 24th.
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