Suggested Syllabus for a One Semester Applications Oriented Course

The following syllabus is designed for a course where the goal is to teach students how to use databases to construct applications. Details of database internals are kept to the minimum.

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Relational Model
• Chapter 3: SQL
• Chapter 4: Advanced SQL
  Sections 4.6 onwards may be omitted.
• Chapter 5: Other Relational Languages
  Sections 5.1 (Tuple Relational Calculus), 5.2 (Domain Relational Calculus) and 5.3 (QBE) may be covered very briefly, to give an introduction to students, and Section 5.4 (Datalog) may be omitted entirely.
• Chapter 6: Entity-Relationship Model
• Chapter 7: Relational Database Design
• Chapter 8: Application Design and Development
• Chapter 9: Object-Based Databases (may be omitted if desired)
• Chapter 10: XML
  Section 10.4.3 (XSLT) may be omitted
• Chapter 11: Storage and File Structure
  Sections 11.3 (RAID), 11.4 (Tertiary Storage) and 11.5 (Storage Access) may be omitted if desired.
• Chapter 12: Indexing and Hashing
  Cover only Sections 12.1 through 12.3 (B+-tree Index Files) with a brief outline of Section 12.5 (Multiple Key Access) and 12.6 (Static Hashing), and the idea of Dynamic Hashing.
• Chapter 13: Query Processing
  Section 13.1 (Basic Concepts) should be covered. We suggest you cover Section 13.2 (Measures of Query Cost) as well as Section 13.5 (Join Operation)as far as time permits.
• Chapter 15: Transactions
• Chapter 18: Data Analysis and Mining and Chapter 19: Information Retrieval
  We do not recommend covering these chapters in detail, but students should be to the concepts covered here, and the chapters may be used as self-study material.
• Assignments/Project
  The course should be supplemented by assignments and a project. The assignments are to get students familiar with using databases, running queries and using application development tools.

  The project could involve the design of a schema for a realistic application, and the implementation of the entire application using SQL and other development tools such as Java servlets or JSP/ASP/ColdFusion/etc. See Chapter 8 for some suggestions on project topics.

Last updated April, 2005.