CS2013-final-report

CS430: Database Systems, Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO
Indrakshi Ray, Russ Wakefield and Indrajit Ray
iray@cs.colostate.edu, waker@cs.colostate.edu, indrajit@cs.colostate.edu
http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~cs430
Knowledge Areas that contain topics and learning outcomes covered in the course
Knowledge Area
Information Management (IM) 52.5
Information Assurance and Security (IAS) 3.5
Total Hours of Coverage
Where does the course fit in your curriculum
This course is an elective for senior undergraduates and first year graduate students offered twice a year in the spring
(on-campus) and summer semesters (both on-campus and online). Typically about 45-55 students take this course
during each offering period. The prerequisite for this course is the third year Software Development Methods
course – CS 314.
Course topics:
• Introduction to DBMS concepts
• Data modeling and database design
• Relational database design
• Query languages
• Storage and indexing
• Query processing
• Transaction processing
• Recovery
What is the format of the course
Colorado State University uses a semester system: this course is 15 weeks long with 2 one and a half hour of
lectures per week and laboratory session for a total of 4 hours per week on an average. Some of the topics in this
course are covered via projects during the lab sessions. There is a 16 th week for final exams. In the past, this course
has been only on campus, but starting in Summer 2011 we are providing it also as a concurrent on-campus and
online course.
How are students assessed
Students are assessed based on written homeworks, programming projects, and midterm and final exams. The
projects involve a large-scale relational database design using a commercial DBMS such as PostgreSQL, designing
different index structures, query processing and transaction processing, and require written project reports to be
submitted. Students work on the projects individually. Class participation typically contributes around 10% towards
the final grade and wrap up the assessment. We expect students to spend approximately 6-8 hours each week outside
of the classroom on the course.
Course textbooks and materials
The required textbook for this course is Database Management Systems by Ramakrishnan and Gehrke, 3 rd edition,
McGraw-Hill 2003. Two textbooks are recommended: (i) Database Systems Concepts by Silberschatz, Korth and
Sudarshan, 6 th edition, McGraw-Hill, 2010 and (ii) Database Systems – The Complete Book by Garcia-Molina,
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