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CSC 432: Database Management Projects

(Section 001; Call Number 220720)
TH 5:00 PM - 6:15 PM, Withers 328

Munindar P. Singh
Email address: singh@ncsu.edu
Office hours: TH 2:30PM-4:15PM; TH 6:15PM-7:00PM
Office: Daniels 131C

TA: Pinar Yolum
Email address: pyolum@eos.ncsu.edu
Phone: 515-
Office hours: TH 1:30PM-3:30PM
Office: Withers 402 (Desk 20)

Prerequisites

The following are the prerequisites. Students failing to meet the prerequisites will be dropped administratively. If you don't have the prerequisites, please drop yourself to avoid losing an opportunity to take an alternative course.

Here is a (partial) list of topics that will be assumed: elementary set theory, relations, partial orders, functions, concept of a theorem, propositional logic, predicate logic. These topics are covered in CSC 222: Applied Discrete Mathematics. You may review Chapters 1 to 6 from the following book, which is sometimes used as the CSC 222 textbook:

Kenneth H. Rosen, "Discrete Mathematics and its Applications", McGraw-Hill, fourth edition, 1999. ISBN 0-07-289905-0.

Textbooks and software

Topics

This course will address the issues in building applications using database management systems. The focus will be on conceptual database design. The course will use a commercial DBMS (Sybase). The host languages used in the class will be Java (students may use other languages for their project). If things work out, we may also use a commercial data modeling tool.

The following topics correspond to chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, and 24 of the textbook. The indicated class times are approximate estimates! I might be able to arrange a guest lecture by a database professional in industry.

  1. Introduction to Database Concepts (0.5 weeks)
  2. Database Environment (0.5 weeks)
  3. Project (0.5 weeks)
  4. ER Modeling (1 week)
  5. The Relational Model (1.5 weeks)
  6. Normalization (1 week)
  7. Relational calculus (1 week: section 8.1)
  8. SQL (2 weeks)
  9. Advanced SQL (1.5 weeks)
  10. Integrity and Transactions (1.5 weeks)
  11. Relational algebra (0.5 weeks)
  12. Query processing and optimization (0.5 weeks)
  13. Advanced Topics (1 week)

Self-Study Responsibilities

You will need to familiarize yourself enough with database and user interface tools to carry out the project. A few of the less important theoretical subjects are also identified as self-study responsibilities. These are tested on the homework and project assignments, but never on exams.

Grading

+/- grades will assigned. There will be a lot of work - please plan to spend about 11-13 hours for this course (outside of class) each week. Some of the homework assignments may involve also programming. The programming project is an important part of the course.
Component Points
Exams 40%
Homework 20%
Project 35%
Class participation 5%

Important Dates

The official dates are provided here only as a courtesy. I don't accept responsibility for any errors in those dates.
Event Date
Last day to drop with refund January 20
Project teams finalized January 28
Academic difficulty reports due February 1
Last day to drop without grade February 17
Last day of classes April 30

Watch the page (http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/faculty/mpsingh/local/432/) for updates.

singh@ncsu.edu