Download Spring 2012 Professor Emile Chungtien Chi

CSC424
Database Systems
Section 9421
Spring 2012
Introduction to
Syllabus (subject to revision)
Professor Emile Chungtien Chi
CSC424 will be a hybrid course. This means that 50% of the course will
take place in the classroom (f2f)
and 50% online. You are expected to attend all f2f classes and also spend at
least 4 hours per week online
learning and studying the material presented there. Most of the lecture
material will be presented online. The f2f
classes will serve mostly to clarify the more difficult concepts presented in
the lectures and to post and answer
questions on the lectures. We will also solve problems together in the f2f
classes.
The CSC424 class web site is http://www.cs.csi.cuny.edu/~chi/Courses.html
We will also use Blackboard 8, but only for two things: email and the virtual
whiteboard.
f2f classes are scheduled from 6:30 to 8:00 in 5N106 on Monday and in
1N220 on Wednesday
Dates for online classes are 24/7 – i.e. whenever you want to work on the
course.
Course Tools
Required Textbooks:
 Database System Concepts by Silberschatz, Korth & Sudarshan;
Fifth Edition, McGraw Hill, 2005, ISBN 0-07-295886-3
List price $175.75 Available from Amazon for $129.24 to $4.80.
or Sixth Edition, McGraw Hill, 2011, ISBN 0-07-352332-3
List price $162.95 Available from Amazon for $129.24 to $86.78.
Look at http://www.bestwebbuys.com for possible better prices
on all textbooks
 A Guide to MySQL by Philip J. Pratt & Mary Z. Last, Course
Technology, 2006, ISBN # 978-1-4188-3635-1
List price $67.95 Available from Amazon for $49.71 to $35.00.
Recommended Books – supposedly available in the CSI Library:
 PHP and MySQL Web Development by Luke Welling & Mary Z.
Laura Thomson, Addison Wesley, 2009, ISBN # 978-0-672-329166-6
 Concepts of Database Management, by Philip J. Pratt & Joseph J.
Adamski, 6th Edition, Course Technology, 2008, ISBN-10:
1423901479
Software:
MySQL. This open source software is free at
http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/
You need to download the MySQL Community Server and the
MySQL Workbench. Many versions are available at this site. Use
whichever one you are able to install on your own computer. Setup of
MySQL is not difficult and will be demonstrated at the first f2f class. My
instructions for the Windows setup are available on the CSC424 course web
site.
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Course Requirements
Programs
30% Six graded programming
assignments. May be done in groups of at most 2 students
Midterm Exam in class
25% Will test both theory and
programming skills. Individual
Final Exam takehome
30% Will test both theory and
programming skills. Individual
Quiz in class
5% Pop quiz not announced in advance
Project
10% One larger programming assignment
of your own choice. Individual
Course Outline for
CSC424
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Database management systems
The Entity-Relationship model of data
Programming in SQL using open source MySQL software
The relational model of data & relational database management
systems
 Theory of normal forms of relations & database design
 Recovery, Concurrency & Security of databases (optional if time
permits)
 Brief introductions to Object Oriented Databases and XML Databases
(optional if time permits)