COURSE PRESENTATION FORM - INTRODUCTION TO DATABASES - 2009/2010
COURSE NAME: Introduction to Databases
COURSE CODE: 70148
LECTURER: Werner Nutt
TEACHING ASSISTANT: Michail Kazimianec, N.N.
TEACHING LANGUAGE: English
CREDIT POINTS: 8
LECTURE HOURS: 48
EXERCISE HOURS: 24
TIMESPAN: 28.09.2009 - 23.01.2010
TIMETABLE: see
Timetable Page
OFFICE HOURS LECTURER: To be determined when the timetable is ready
OFFICE HOURS TEACHING ASSISTANT: To be determined when the timetable is ready
PREREQUISITES
Courses: Algebra, Algorithms and Complexity.
OBJECTIVES
The course aims at providing a thorough introduction into theory and usage of Database Management Systems (DBMSs). Specifically, the aims of this course are
- to familiarise students with the basic concepts underlying a DBMS;
- show how they are realized in a specific system, with PostgreSQL as an example;
- give students hands-on experience in using a DBMS.
SYLLABUS
- Fundamental database concepts
- The Entity-Relationship Data Model (E/R)
- Elements of the E/R model
- Modeling of constraints
- Weak entity sets
- The Relational Data Model
- Basics of the Relational Model
- Integrity constraints
- Translation of ER schemas into relational schemas
- Relational Algebra
- SQL: Querying and manipulating data
- Single Block Queries
- Aggregation
- Joins and Outer Joins
- Nesting
- Negation
- Views
- Basics of Transaction Management and Concurrency Control
- Database Access from a Programming Language: JDBC
- Data Storage and Indexing
- File Organisation and Indexes
- Tree-structured Indexing: B+-trees
- Indexes in PostgreSQL
- Query Evaluation
- Sorting
- Evaluation of Relational Operators
- Query Optimisation
- Physical Database Design
- Query Plans in PostgreSQL
- Functional Dependencies and Normalisation
TEACHING FORMAT
Frontal classroom lecture for the theoretical part plus laboratory exercises plus project conducted in groups of 3 students.
ASSESSMENT
The final mark will be based on coursework (project milestones) and on a written exam.
Students who do not submit coursework will be assessed on the exam alone.
For students who do submit coursework, the final mark will be based on both, the exam mark and the exercise mark. In this case, a weighted average of the exam mark (70%) and the exercise mark (30%) will be computed. If this average is greater than the exam mark, the average will be the final mark. Otherwise, the exam mark will be the final mark.
The coursework will always be taken into account, independently of when the student takes the exam.
READING LIST
Textbook:
- First Course in Database Systems.Jeffrey D. Ullman, Jennifer D. Widom. Prentice Hall. ISBN: 0-13-035300-0
Additional readings:
- Database Systems: The Complete Book. Hector Garcia-Molina, Jeffrey D. Ullman, Jennifer D. Widom. Prentice Hall. ISBN: 0-13-031995-3
- Database Systems - Concepts, Languages and Architectures. Paolo Atzeni, Stefano Ceri, Stefano Paraboschi and Riccardo Torlone. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0077095006
SOFTWARE USED
PostgreSQL, PGAdmin
LEARNING OUTCOME
A student completing this course unit should be able:
- to specify data requirements of an application and to represent them in a conceptual model;
- to translate data requirements and conceptual models into a relational schema;
- to formulate queries in relational algebra;
- to create and manage relational databases using SQL both as a data definition and as a data manipulation language;
- connect a database to an application written in Java using JDBC;
- explain the different ways in which an SQL query can be executed by a query processor;
- identify possible indexes to speed up the execution of a query;
- normalise a relational schema with respect to a set of functional dependencies.
COURSE PAGE
http://www.inf.unibz.it/~nutt/IDBs0910/