The overall aim of the course is to cover the fundamentals of database
management systems (DBMSs), paying particular attention to relational database
systems. The course covers modelling techniques, transferring designs
to actual database implementations, SQL, models of query languages,
transactions as well as more recent developments,
including
data warehouses and On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP),
and use of XML as a data exchange language.
The lectures will make use of the open source DBMS, MySQL.
Lectures
Introduction: What is a database system?
Entity-Relationship modelling.
The relational data model.
Relational algebra.
Relational calculus.
SQL and Intetgrity Constraints
Schema refinement: functional dependencies.
Schema refinement: normalisation.
Further Relational Algebra, SQL
Transaction management overview.
On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP).
XML as a data exchange format.
Objectives
At the end of the course students should
be able to design entity-relationship diagrams to represent simple
database application scenarios
know how to convert entity-relationship diagrams to relational
database schemas in the standard Normal Forms
be able to program simple database applications in SQL
understand the basic theory of the relational model and both its strengths and the weaknesses
be familiar with various recent trends in the database area.
Recommended reading
Elmasri, R. & Navathe, S.B. (2000). Fundamentals of database systems. Addison-Wesley (3rd ed.).
Silberschatz, A., Korth, H.F. & Sudarshan, S. (2002). Database system concepts. McGraw Hill (4th ed.).
Ullman, J. & Widom, J. (1997). A first course in database systems. Prentice Hall.
Date, C.J. (2000). An introduction to database systems. Addison-Wesley (7th ed.).
Miszczyk, J. and others (1998). Mastering Data Warehousing Functions. (IBM Redbook DB2/400) Chapters 1 & 2 only. http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg245184.html
Garcia-Molina, H. Data Warehousing and OLAP. Stanford University.
http://www.cs.uh.edu/ ceick/6340/dw-olap.ppt
London Metropolitan University, Department of Computing. Data Warehousing and OLAP Technology for Data Mining. http://learning.unl.ac.uk/csp002n/CSP002N_wk2.ppt