Professors and TA's |TA Schedule | Newsgroup | New Stuff (Important) !! | Course Information | Important Dates

CS 4400 Sections A, B, C
Introduction to Database Systems
Spring 2009
  
Section A:      CoC 17          (TuTh     1:35pm –  2:55pm)           Navathe
Section B:      KACB 1447   (MWF 10:05am – 10:55am)            Mark
Section C:     KACB 1456   (TuTh 9:35am – 10:55am)              Navathe

Professors  
Sham  Navathe (sham@cc.gatech.edu).  Phone: (404) 894-0537
KACB (Klaus Advanced Computing Building) room 3320
Office Hours: TuTh 11:00am – 12:00pm

Leo Mark (leomark@cc.gatech.edu).  Phone: (404) 385-7560
KACB (Klaus Advanced Computing Building) room 3324
Office Hours: MWF 11:00am – 12:00pm

Teaching Assistants  
(All TA office hours are in the CoC Commons area)
NOTE: Please include [CS4400] in your email subject line.

Akshay Phadke akshay.phadke@gmail.com
Matthew Hagen: matthew.hagen@gmail.com
Ruban Monu: rubanm@gatech.edu
Balaji Palanisamy: balaji@cc.gatech.edu
Yanjun Zhao: zhao@gatech.edu
Ketan Kalgaonkar: ketan@gatech.edu

Newsgroup:  git.cc.class.cs4400 (Monitored by TAs Monday through Friday)

• Check the newsgroup often.  It will contain important Q/As related to the project!
• Setting up newsgroup. ThunderBird  WindowsMail

New Stuff:

• Check this section of the web page often (especially close to quiz and project due dates) for updates and information!
• (January 12) Setting up newsgroup. ThunderBird  WindowsMail
• (January 18) If you have not formed your team yet and are looking for team members, post the messages on the newsgroup.
• (January 21) Project Proposal is Updated. Project Proposal PDF
• (February 1) How to write database applications using Java and JDBC Notes/Slides
• (February 11) Phase 1 Submission: Section A and C should turn in the phase 1 in Deborah Mitchell's office (Room no: KACB 3342) latest by 4pm on Friday. Section B students should submit it in the class on Friday.
• (February 17) Quiz 2 will cover chapters 5 and 6 (except section 6.7 Domain Calculus).
• (February 19) Phase 1 Solutions: ER Diagram    IFD    Task Decomposition
• (February 19) Section A and C students can collect the project phase 1 in the TA hours on Friday.
• (February 20) If the graded projects you have received do not contain any comments, please return them to the TA who graded it in their office hours. You can collect it during that TA's next office hours.
• (March 8) Good Instructions to setup ACME and Oracle. Link
  
• (March 9) Sample Airline Database. Download
• (March 9) If your going to take quiz in section other than the one you belong to, kindly email the professors and TA Akshay.
• (March 9) Prof. Navathe will give Quiz3 in the morning class (Sec C) on Thursday during 9.45am - 10.45am.  The room needs to be cleared for a faculty talk that starts at 11:00 sharp.
• (March 11) Important: Project Description Revision and alternate solutions to phase 1
• (March 11) Revised Project Description
• (March 31) Normalization Slides
• (April 02) Graded Phase 2 can be picked up on Friday during the TA office hours.
• (April 7) Test Data for phase 3. Please read the notes given in the folder.
• (April 17) Grading Guidelines for phase 3.
• (April 17) Students can signup for demo on the swiki.
  You can email your TA to get the username and password. Only 1 person per group should email the TA.
• (April 20) IMPORTANT: You must do all of these if you do not want to lose points:
  1. Phase 3 must be emailed to you respective TA's by 11.59pm on April 21st. You are not permitted to make changes before the demo once you submit it on tuesday.
  2. You must populate the database before coming to the demo.
  3. You must return back your phase 1 and phase 2 when you come for your demo.
• (April 20)If you have problems regarding username / password for oracle, you will need to contact the OIT to get it resolved.
• (April 20) Final Exam Schedule (for those who do lightweight project):
   Sec A (Navathe - afternoon) Exam on Mon 27th: 11:30-2:20
  Sec C (Navathe - morning) Exam on Wed 29th: 8:00-10:50
   Sec B (Mark) Exam on Friday May 1: 2:50-5:40.
• (April 23) There will be no class on Friday.
• (April 23) Quiz 3 and Quiz 4 will be kept outside Prof. Navathe's Office (KACB 3220) tomorrow after 12pm.

Lecture Notes:       Slides for Text     Leo Mark's Slides

Database Design Methodology:   Database Design Methodology Notes

Oracle, SQL, Java, JDBC:    Oracle, SQL, Java, JDBC information

Sample Quizzes:   Quiz 1   Quiz 2   Quiz 3   Quiz 4  (Updated Quiz 4)

Class Project: To be posted

Prerequisite(s):  Basic Java programming skills.

Grading:
4 quizzes; 15% each
Project (PhaseI 10%,PhaseII 10%, PhaseIII 5% (Light) or 20% (Heavy))
Final Exam 15% (only for students doing light weight project)

PROJECT:
You will design and implement a database application using the ORACLE relational database system available on ACME. The Project can be done in groups of 3-4 students.  We will follow a typical database design methodology for this project. Notes describing the methodology will be available via the class web page. The project will consist of 3 phases (deliverables) as well as a final demonstration to the TA. Phase I and Phase II of the project are worth 10% credit. Phase III of the project is worth 5% credit without/GUI and 20% credit with/GUI.  All members of a group get the same grade for each phase of the project.  If a member of a group does not carry his/her weight, then the group may kick out that member at the end of phase I or Phase II, only. The course professor should be notified of this.

COURSE CONTENT:
We introduce the fundamental concepts necessary for the design and use of modern database systems. We examine the concepts in the order that we encounter them in the actual database design process. We start with the problem of conceptually representing data that is to be stored in a database. From there, we see how the data in a conceptual data model can be converted to a database specific model (e.g., the relational data model). We also discuss various forms for relations that possess good properties. We see how to use the relational database language SQL to define the relations and to write SQL statements to insert, delete, retrieve and update the data. We also examine some of the fundamental storage structures that are used in relational database systems. We end the course with a discussion of some advanced topics in the database management area.

 IMPORTANT DATES:
(These dates will not be changed, so please schedule interviews and other personal business around these dates).
All Quizzes are of one hour duration and Open Book, Open Notes.
Navathe will have a 25 minute Q and A session in class before administering each quiz.