CS 561 Course Syllabus

CS561 - Advanced Database Systems

Course Syllabus - Spring 2004
http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~cs561/s04

Professor: Elke A. Rundensteiner
Office: WPI, Fuller Bldg, number 238.
Homepage: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~rundenst
Email: rundenst@cs.wpi.edu

Course homepage: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~cs561/s04
Class meetings: Thursdays at 6:00 pm - 8:50 pm, in WPI, Fuller Labs 311.
Office hours: Directly after class on Thursdays at 9:00pm. I'll stay as long as you may need me. And, I also have office hours Mondays 12noon - 1:00pm in my office.

How To Contact Me and Office Hours:

Contact me via email at "rundenst@cs.wpi.edu" with CS561 in the subject line. I get lot's of email every day, but I'll look out for that subject line and then will aim to respond to your messages within 24 hours, whenever possible.
Second, I will be available directly after class on Thursdays at 9pm until no questions remain.
Third, I'll be in my office at WPI all days 9am-5pm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and most days as well on Fridays. If it is a brief issue that you need an answer for, please feel free to drop by my office at any time and interrupt me and I'll try to answer your question.
Or, if none of above works for you, please make an appointment by emailing or by dropping by, so that we can set aside a longer meeting time.
I may also post additional office hours here, once the semester is in full swing AND I find that there is demand for it.

Mailing List for Course

Note that an email mailing list for this course has been set up. It is called "cs561-all" at the address "@cs.wpi.edu". You need to subscribe yourself to this list asap in order to receive messages related to the course (by sending an email message to "majordomo@cs.wpi.edu" with message "subscribe cs561-all").
You are encouraged to send questions to the entire class via our mailing list for items of general interest. Since if you are having a problem, it is likely that others have or will encounter the same problem. Who knows, someone may have already found a solution to your problem and will be willing to share it.

Goals and Intended Audience

This course will provide you with an overview of a selected set of the advanced topics in database systems. The goal is to expose you to the current active areas in databases of interest to both academia and industry by reading book chapters as well as papers from the recent literature and discussing them in class. You will also get an in-depth look into one set of technologies by conducting a team project in an area of your choosing (as long as related to databases in some form and agreed to by the instructor) and into a second topic by preparing a tutorial on a second database topic and then presenting this to the students in the course (again selection of topic with guidance and approval by the instructor).

This course is for you if you are interested in learning about the state-of-the-art in database systems. This course could also serve as starting point for you to begin to conduct research in the field of databases. Your course project, if selected carefully, could in some cases be extended to lead to a publication, though typically after further effort beyond the 14 week time period of the class. Hence, in some cases, it could also be a start into a Master's thesis or a first step towards Ph.D. level research work.

Recommended Background

You should have a basic familiarity with relational databases, the equivalent of a beginning course in databases. Instead if you have used a database system before in practice, you may also have sufficient basic understanding required for the course. If you are in doubt, you get permission from the instructor.

Some programming experience in a high-level programming language (such as java or C++ or C) will be necessary for the course in order to pursue a course project.

Text Book

There will not be an assigned textbook in the course, since there is no good book available covering this diversity of current DBMS topics. Instead, we will be reading selected chapters from books and papers from the literature. I will hand copies of these papers out directly in class, link them onto our course webpage, or make them available for copying in the department.

Optional Readings

If you need to brush up on your basic relational database knowledge, then below are some books (some have newer editions) you may want to look over:

Raghu Ramakrishnan and Johannes Gehrke, DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS McGraw-Hill Publisher, third Edition Pub date: 2002, ISBN: 0-07-246563-8. ( This book is typically used for our first DBMS CS542 course.
Fundamentals of Database Systems, R. Elmasri, and S. Navathe, Benjamin Cummings.
Principles of Data and Knowledge Base Systems, Volume 1, J.D. Ullman, Computer Science Press.
Database System Concepts, 2nd Edition, H.F. Korth and A. Silberschatz, McGraw-Hill.
A First Course in Database Systems, J. Widom and J. D. Ullman, Prentice-Hall.

Information about Database System at WPI (Oracle).

This link Getting-started-with-Oracle contains information to get you started with Oracle as prepared by several folks at Stanford University, including setting up connections to oracle, Web interfaces to Oracle, Java interfacing to Oracle with JDBC, etc. This would be one potential platform to try out your course projects out.

Topics

There will be a core collection of readings in selected topics in databases around which our discussions will be centered. These may include:

Database modeling (relational, object-oriented models, web models).
Object-oriented/object-relational databases.
Active database systems (i.e., databases and rule management).
View materialization
Data warehousing.
On-line Analytic Processing (OLAP).
Database Mining and Knowledge Discovery.
Information integration and mediation.
New data types: unstructured, textual, etc.
Databases and the WWW.
Web Site Management Systems.
Multimedia database systems.
Stream management systems
Continuous query processing
Advanced database tools, such as schema evolution managers, middle layer engines, etc.
Heterogeneous, distributed databases and client-server systems.
Data management problems and solutions for non-traditional applications, such as E-commerce, engineering, internet, intranet, etc.

Grading Policy

Final grades are computed based on 100 points:

15 points: Assignments (Written critiques of our readings, discussions, and possibly other written homework)
20 points: Student Presentations
15 points: Mini Course Projects (2 projects)
30 points: Final Course Project ( Ideas, Implementation, Demonstration, Report, and Presentation)
20 points: Final Examination.

If you are between two grades, then active participation in the course discussions will be weighed positively. This may possibly be helping you to reach the higher of the two grades.

In general, each assignment will have a basic objective for the majority of the assignment points and an extended objective for demonstrating additional work and understanding. Final grades will reflect the extent to which you have demonstrated understanding of the material, and completed the assigned projects. The base level grade will be a ``B'' which indicates that the basic objectives on assignments and exams have been met. A grade of ``A'' will indicate significant achievement beyond the basic objectives and a grade of ``C'' will indicate not all basic objectives were met, but work was satisfactory for credit. No incomplete grades will be assigned unless there exist exceptional extenuating circumstances.

Late Policy

You are strongly encouraged to turn in any assignments on-time. Unless otherwise noted for a particular assignment, the following late policy holds. Late assignments will be penalized by subtracting 25% of the total achievable points of that deliverable, if turned in within the first 24 hours after the due date. Between 24 to 48 hours late turnin will result in a reduction of 50% of the total achievable points. Certain deliverables may not have ANY LATE day, as announced. Most importantly, late point reductions cannot be made up by later improvements.

A Note on Plagerism and Cheating

Unless explicitly noted, all work is to be done on an individual basis. Note in particular that copying of any material, may it be a single sentence or a figure, from any location (including the internet) without proper acknowledgement of the source constitutes plagerism. Any violation of the WPI's guidelines for academic integrity will result in no credit for the course and referral to the Student Affairs Office for disciplinary action.