CS1555/1565: Database Systems

Synopsis: This course is intended to cover both the theoretical concepts of modern database systems, and the practical usage of commercial database systems. Students will learn the fundamentals of relational database, SQL, hierarchical database, network database, user interface to database, hypertext and multimedia database concepts, object-oriented database concepts and WWW database programming using WebBase^TM.

Instructor: Prof. S. K. Chang
Office: 6101 Sennott Square Building (MIB), University of Pittsburgh
Telephone: 412-624-8423 Fax: 412-624-8423
E-mail: chang@cs.pitt.edu
Office Hours: 3pm to 4pm, 5:20pm to 6pm TuTh

Teaching Assistant: Yuqing Huang
Office, E-mail, Telephone: 12:30-1:30 Monday, and 11:30-12:30 and 1:00-3:00 Wednesday, 6404 Sennott, yuqiangh@cs.pitt.edu, 624-9129

Classroom: 5502 Sennott Square Building

Lab: 230 Lawrence Hall, University of Pittsburgh. Students registered for the current term can use this lab with valid IDs.

Grading: Grades are based upon exercises (40%), midterm exam (25%) and quizzes (10%) and final exam (25%). There will be six sets of exercises of 5% each, and a mini-project of 10%, and exercises generally require access to PC. In case we cannot have mini-project due to system problems, that 10% will be added to the final exam which then becomes 35%.

Audio-text Lectures: Audio-text lectures are available for some of the lectures. You must first download a speech agent to your PC. Then you can download the audio-text lecture (if available) and feed it to the speech agent. The audio-text lecture is a text file and therefore can be quickly downloaded. The speech agent will use text-to-speech conversion technique to present the lecture. You will be surprised at the quality of the audio-text lecture! You should play the audio-text lecture and read the classnotes at the same time, because they come hand-in-hand. Although not a 100% substitute for live lectures, audio-text lectures offer you the convenience to study at home or at work when you cannot attend a class. Some lectures may also be available in true audio format and can be played using RealPlayer.

For Students who want to register: If you are a senior undergraduate CS major student, the instructor will first consider you to register, even if the section is closed. Next to be considered will be undergraduate student of junior standing, or graduate student, or students from another department. In all cases, please attend the first lecture so that your name can be added to a waiting list. If space becomes available, you will be let in according to above order, on a first-come-first-serve basis. The final decision will be made on Week-2-Lec-2.

If you are a graduate student, you are required to turn in a project report and give a five-minute project presentation and a live demo. If you are an undergraduate student, you are required to turn in a single-page readme file and give a live demo, but not required to turn in a project report.

Course Registration: After you have obtained official approval to register for this course, you should also fill out a registration form, which will enable you to receive e-mail messages from the instructor concerning deadlines and projects, and to retreive your grades using your name and a password selected by you. Course registration is also necessary in order to participate in the discussion group.

Discussion Gruop: For project discussion, you can participate in the discussion group.

Project Submission Schedule and Final Exam Coverage