Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Guenther Pernul

Description

The principal goal of the course is to teach the fundamental concepts necessary for analysing, modelling and designing efficient database applications. We present and compare different modelling paradigms from classical structural modelling to business process re-engineering. Logical design of databases is included by mapping the Entity-Relationship Model to the Relational Data Model.

The course will also include new and challenging developments in the database and Information Systems field. However, Database Management Systems internals are not covered. The focus is mainly on applying database technology.

Students will learn how to design and implement an efficient database application by using real world cases and database management system products.

Outline

1. Basic Concepts
   1.1. Databases and Database Users
   1.2. Database Systems Concepts and Architecture
2. Requirements Collection and Analysis Techniques
3. Paradigms to Conceptual Modelling
   3.1. Structural Design - Entity Relationship Modelling
   3.2. Joint Data/function driven Design
   3.3. Object Oriented Database Design
   3.4. Business Process Re-engineering
   3.5. Formal Database Design
         3.5.1. The Relational Data Model
         3.5.2. Functional Dependencies and Normalisation
         3.5.3. Relational Database Design Algorithms and further Dependencies
   3.6. View Integration and Schema Consolidation
4. Logical Database Design using ER-to-Relational Mapping
5. Database Querying, SQL
6. Data Warehousing and OLAP

We use our own material and additionally the following textbooks:

Batini, C., Ceri, S., Navathe, S. B.: Database Design: An Entity-Relationship Approach. Benjamin/Cummings, 1992.
Elmasri, R., Navathe, S. B.: Fundamentals of Database Systems, 5th ed.. Addison-Wesley, 2006.

As the exercises are partly based on the latter one (ISBN 0321369572), the course participants are suggested to use this book for self-studying.

Learning Objectives

After attending this course students will have gained knowledge about how to design and use a cooperative database. This includes collecting and analyzing the user's requirements, constructing a conceptual representation of the application, and implementing that representation. Students will also gain experiences with using the Structured Query Language (SQL) to create, access and manipulate databases.

Method of teaching

This course has features of both: a video (type 1) and hypermedia (type 2) course. The course is conducted as a sequence of lectures available as hypertext. Each lecture is introduced by a video which explains the content and the goal of the specific lecture.

Lectures are accompanied by weekly exercises to be solved by the students and online discussions between students and lecturer.

Communication between students and instructors is based on electronic media like discussion forum, bulletin board, chat room, and e-mail. The examination consists of two take-home exams covering the reading material and the lectures.

Requirements

No formal prerequisites. However, some experiences and a general understanding of the problems involved in management and administration of large interrelated data is helpful. Students must have access to an SQL-based relational database base management system product, such as MS Access, Oracle, Informix, Ingres or the freeware product MySQL (http://www.mysql.com).

Credits

6.0 credit points