Faculty Contact Information:
Robert S. Christeson
rchristeson@faculty.ed.umuc.edu
christeson@incirlik.net
DSN 676-6608
Comm 90-322-326-6608
Class meetings: Oct 23/24, Nov 6/7 & 20/21, Dec 4/5
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Consultation:
prior to and after class meetings
via e-mail (rchristeson@faculty.ed.umuc.edu)
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Required Texts and Readings:
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Rob, P., and Coronel, C. (2004). Database Systems: Design, Implementation, and Management (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Course Technology.
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Supplementary Readings:
The standard for papers in the graduate program is the APA style. All participants in this course and all graduate INSS, MGMT, PUAD, and ECON courses should have a copy of the style guide:
American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th Edition. Washington DC: Author. All graduate students should be prepared to utilize the UMUC online library at http://www.umuc.edu/library/. The library contains a large number of full text academic journals that are free of charge and immediately available. The library homepage also contains a number of links related to improving students' research and writing skills.
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Recommended Journals:
Publications of the various professional societies (such as ACM -- the Association for Computing Machinery, the IEEE Computing Society, and the various management professional societies) are strongly recommended. In addition, there are many trade journals (such as eWEEK) that MIS professionals should become familiar with, many of these being published both weekly and on-line.
In addition, you may find the following links useful:
Database Journal http://www.databasejournal.com
Up to the Minute News on Databases
http://www.newsnow.co.uk/newsfeed/?name=Databases
Experts Exchange on Databases http://www.experts-exchange.com/Databases/
Data Management Web Magazine http://www.dmreview.com
Data Management Association http://www.dama.org
Data Warehousing Institute http://www.dw-institute.com
Intelligent Enterprise Web Magazine on Databases
http://www.intelligententerprise.com/info_centers/database/
The Data Administration Newsletter http://www.tdan.com
CIO.com Data storage and mining http://www.cio.com/research/data/
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Course Description:
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3 semester hours credit. Prerequisite: Either INSS 510, INSS 520, INSS 530, or permission of the Program Director. Examines database concepts and practices as they relate to business environments. Various database structures including relational and object-oriented are discussed. Concepts of distributed database architecture are explored. Design, development, and implementation of databases are examined. Organizational issues concerning the implementation of databases and the role of data in the decision-making process are examined. Decision support system architecture is reviewed with emphasis on the database component. Issues of intelligent databases are discussed. A database project is required.
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Course Goals:
Upon completion of the course, participants should:
1. Understand and apply database concepts and practices
2. Understand relational and object-oriented database models, and how they compare to "traditional" models such as hierarchical and network.
3. Design and implement a relational database.
4. Understand and discuss issues associated with Internet database development.
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Course Objectives:
At the conclusion of this course the student will be able to:
1. Describe, compare, and use tools of database design development and implementation, such as: Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERD), Relational schema, Table normalization, Structured Query Language (SQL), and ANSI/SPARC 3-level architecture - subschemas.
2. Discuss the advantages and issues of distributed database architecture and two- and three- tier database architectures,
3. Concurrency control and transaction management, .
4. Compare and contrast approaches to Security of databases
5. Define organizational issues and the responsibilities associated with database administration.
6. Discuss the role of data and information in decision making, and techniques such as data mining and data warehousing as used for decision support.
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Grading Information:
Grades for this course will be assigned as follows:
A 90%
B 80 – 89%
C 70 – 79%
F Below 70%
Please note that Bowie State University does not use "D" for graduate students. The grade F(a) is used to designate academic failure. F(n) is used to designate failure for non-completion. Grades of Incomplete or Withdrawal are governed by UMUC-Europe policies. For further details, please refer to the UMUC-Europe Graduate Catalog, available in your local Education Center or online at http://www.ed.umuc.edu/general_info/publications/catalogs.
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Course Requirements:
Graduate school at the masters level focuses on helping students obtain the education needed for success as professionals in their chosen fields. Thus, UMUC-Europe Graduate Programs and Bowie State University share the common goals of promoting excellence in academic scholarship through thoughtful inquiry and the skillful application of knowledge and theory for the betterment of society.
In order to maximize your graduate educational experience in general and this course in particular, you are required to:
Complete a Graduate level paper and presentation
Complete a Database design and implementation project w/presentation
Maintain good attendance and actively participate
Grades for this course will be determined as follows:
20% midterm
25% final exam
20% paper and presentation
25% database, documentation and presentation
10% active and constructive participation, in-class work
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Description of Course Requirements:
Participate in classroom discussions: You are expected to come to class prepared to engage in all discussions in a professional and informed manner. Usually this requires two to three hours for every hour of class time.
Complete graduate level projects or programming assignments, write graduate level papers or case studies: You are required to conduct professional-level research, including appropriately citing works of others and avoiding plagiarism. Resubmission of course work from previous classes (whether or not taken at UMUC, UMUC-Europe or BSU), partially or in its entirety, is not acceptable in this course and will result in an automatic failure on the assignment.
Orally/visually present prepared material: You are required to present your results in a professional manner. This typically means an oral presentation accompanied by appropriate visual material.
Complete one or more written examination(s): The examination process in this class will assist you in developing the writing and critical thinking skills necessary for successfully passing the comprehensive exam required of all graduate students. The examination questions used for this course will either be taken directly from past comprehensive exams or written as though to be included on a comprehensive exam.
Graduate Project:
NLT 30 October, provide (via e-mail) a one-paragraph proposal describing the database you intend to design, and telling what software you will use to implement it. While awaiting approval, continue working on the design, under the assumption that the project is likely to be approved with possible scope adjustments.
If you do not have database software at home, please try to make plans to do the actual implementation in a UMUC computer lab. Most of your design work, the most critical part of the project, will not require use of the database software.
First of all, select something you're interested in doing for your project. For example, if you have an extensive collection of CDs, you might want to design a database to keep track of them, and of which friends have borrowed which of them.
The goal is for you to get at least a prototype of your database working, but please remember that the heaviest emphasis is on the DESIGN (which we'll be seeing in detail in chapter 8 and Appendices D and E).
Once you get it working, please remember that this is not a data entry project -- a few carefully selected rows in your tables will be plenty -- illustrating your project with entries for 5 or 6 CDs would be just as good as putting in the data for all 500 of them, for example.
A good rule of thumb regarding project size is to have a minimum of 5 tables, 5 forms, 5 reports, 5 queries. Note that these should not just be trivial variations of basically the same query/report/form. Don't just put these items in for the sake of having them there; they should actually fit "naturally" into the project
Paper and Presentations:
On the third weekend of class, be prepared to provide a power point presentation on your database project. This should be a short presentation (~10 Minutes) with only a few (less than 10) slides. More details will be given during the first weekend.
A research paper will be required of all graduate students in the course and will be due the last weekend. You must use three outside references and the paper should go beyond what is in the textbook itself. Topics will be assigned from the list of topics on the schedule for the last weekend of the class. In addition, the paper will be presented (using a power-point presentation) to the rest of the class.
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Course Schedule:
This schedule presents 16 units or modules, with each unit corresponding to a regular three-hour weekday meeting, equivalent to a half-day on weekends.
Weekend 1 - 23/24 Oct- lecture, discussion, and in-class work
Sat - Initial meeting:
Introductions
Review of syllabus
Clarification of goals, objectives and requirements
Orientation to subject
Ch. 1 - Database Systems
Ch. 2 - Data Models
Ch. 3 - The Relational Database Model
Sun - Ch. 4 - Entity-Relationship (ER) Modeling
Ch. 5 - Normalization of Database Tables
During the two weeks between meeting weekends read and use as model for work on project:
Ch. 8 - The Database Design Life Cycle
Apdx D - The University Lab: Conceptual Design
Apdx E - The University Lab: Conceptual Design Verification, Logical Design
And Implementation
Assignment of paper topics during the weekend of 23/24 October
Note - the paper is to be presented in conjunction with coverage of the related topic the weekend of 4/5 December.
Project proposals due via e-mail by noon, Saturday 30 October,
approval/disapproval by noon Monday 1 November
Weekend 2 - 6/7 November - lecture, discussion, in-class work, and midterm exam
Sat - quick review of/questions regarding Ch. 8, Appendices D and E
Ch. 6 - Introduction to Structured Query Language (SQL)
Apdx H - Hierarchical Database Model
Apdx I - Network Database Model
Sun - Midterm Exam - in the morning, after a question/answer period
Midterm exam covers chapters 1-5, 8, Appendices D and E
evaluation of project work to date takes place during midterm exam
Note that for students registered in the graduate course there will be a take-home portion of the midterm which will be a free-response question. It should be responded to according to the guidelines for responding to comprehensive examination questions.
Ch. 7 - Advanced SQL
Ch. 9 - Transaction Management and Concurrency Control
Weekend 3 - 20/21 November - lecture, discussion, in-class work, project design documentation due, and presentations
Sat - Ch. 10 - Distributed Database Management Systems
Apdx F - Multi-Tier Client/Server Systems
Apdx G - Client/Server Network Infrastructure
Sun - Database Presentations
Ch. 11 - Object Oriented Databases
Ch. 12 - The Data Warehouse
Weekend 4 - 4/5 December - lecture, discussion, in-class work, project presentations, final exam, course evaluations
Sat - Paper/Project Presentations - in the morning
Ch. 13 - Databases in Electronic Commerce
Ch. 14 - Web Database Development
Course Evaluations
Sun - Ch. 15 - Database Administration
Apdx C - Database Performance Tuning
Final Exam - in the afternoon, after a question/answer period
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Academic Policies:
The University has a license agreement with Turnitin.com, a service that helps prevent plagiarism from internet resources. I may be using this service in this class by either requiring students to submit their papers electronically to Turnitin.com or by submitting questionable text on behalf of a student. If you or I submit part or all of your paper, it will be stored by Turnitin.com in their database throughout the term of the University's contract with Turnitin.com. If you object to this temporary storage of your paper, you must let me know no later than two weeks after the start of this class. Please Note: If you object to the storage of your paper on Turnitin.com, I may utilize other services to check your work for plagiarismThe official university policy on Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty can be found at http://www.umuc.edu/policy/aa15025.shtml. Section I.C. states: "Faculty may determine if the resubmission of course work from previous classes (whether or not taken at UMUC), partially or in its entirety, is acceptable when assigning a grade on that piece of course work. Faculty must provide this information in their written syllabi. If the resubmission of course work is deemed to be unacceptable, a charge may not be brought under this Policy and will be handled as indicated in the written syllabi."
Please refer to Description of Course Requirements for specific information on how resubmissions will be treated in this course and to the UMUC-Europe Graduate Catalog for information on the following:
Academic Integrity
Course Load
Exception to Policy
Grade Appeal Process
Make-up Examinations
Nondiscrimination
Students with Disabilities
Hard copies of the catalog are available at your local Education Center.
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Faculty Bio:
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Rob Christeson is a full-time Communications/Computer Systems Project Manager with the United States Air Force. He received his Bachelors of Science in Computer and Information Science from the University of Maryland, and his Masters of Science in Management and Information Systems from Bowie State University.
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