General Information

Lecture times:  2:00 - 3:20 pm   TTh
Location: OHE 100

People

Instructor: Prof. Dennis McLeod

• Office: PHE 406
• Phone: (213) 740-4504
• Email: mcleod@usc.edu
• Office Hours:  TTh 1:00pm-2:00pm and by appointment
  

Teaching Assistant: Seokkyung Chung

• Office: SAL 229
• Phone: (213) 740-4521
• Email: seokkyuc@usc.edu
• Office Hours: TTh 1:00pm-2:00pm and by appointment

Teaching Assistant: Vijayakumar Gopalakrishan

• Office:  SAL 211
• Phone: (213) 740-4508
• Email: gopalakr@usc.edu
• Office Hours: TTh 3:30pm-5:30pm and by appointment

Grader: Adish Solanki

• Email: asolanki@usc.edu

Grader: Seongwook Youn

• Email: syoun@usc.edu

Course Summary

This course covers the essential concepts, principles, techniques, and mechanisms for the design, analysis, use, and implementation of computerized database systems. Key information management concepts and techniques are examined: information modeling and representation; information interfaces - access, query, and manipulation, implementation structures, and issues of distribution. The database and information management system technology examined in this course represents the state-of-the-art, including traditional approaches as well as recent research developments. By providing a balanced view of "theory" and "practice," the course should allow the student to understand, use, and build practical database and information management systems. The course is intended to provide a basic understanding of the issues and problems involved in database systems, a knowledge of currently practical techniques for satisfying the needs of such a system, and an indication of the current research approaches that are likely to provide a basis for tomorrow's solutions.

Announcements and FAQ

• The exam dates are fixed and everybody will take the exams on these days (see the class schedule below). There will be no make-up exams, except in the case of certified personal emergency.
• You have two weeks after you receive your graded exam or homework to contact the TAs with questions about the grading.
• You have two weeks after you receive your graded exam or homework to contact the TAs with questions about the grading.
• Dr. Roger Zimmerman's lecture slides have been added.
• Sample exams have been posted (see related web sites section).
• Homework 1 sample solutions have been posted.
• NOTE -- Special office hours: Friday October 10 10am-12pm Seokkyung Chung; Monday October 13 7pm- 10:00pm Vijaykumar Gopalakrishnan. Please send an email or call before coming in the evening hours, as we may need to let you in the SAL main entrance (may be locked afer 5pm).
• The midterm will be conducted in the following rooms: SGM 101 and GFS 216, from 2:00pm-3:20pm on Tuesday, October 14. Students whose last name begins with A-L please go to SGM101; those with last name beginning with M-Z please go to GFS216.
• Since Seokkyung Chung is out of town during November 1st - November 7th, he will backup his office hour on November 10th (Monday) 10am-12pm
• The grader will have office hours, for grading issues with Homework 1 on 10/28 Tuesday (1pm to 2pm) with Seokkyung, 10/30 Thursday (3:30pm to 4:30pm) with Vijay. Please be nice to the grader he is a student just like us.
• For the students who did not pick up homework 1/Midterm in class, please stop by Seokkyung's office during his office hour.Remote students will get their graded HW1 and midterm paper through DEN.
• Questions regarding midterm grading please visit the TA's during their office hours. The grading has been divided as shown below. Please visit the appropriate person for any questions you have. Question 1).Seokkyoung ,Vijayakumar Question 2 & 3). Vijayakumar Question 4). Seokkyung
• Homework 1 average is 84
• Midterm average is 91
• Homework 3 posted
• Grader will hold extra office hour next Tuesday (Nov. 25th) 10am-12pm with Seokkyung for Homework 2
• There is no televised lecture on next Tuesday, but you need to turn in homework 3 to Seokkyung on next Tuesday class or during his office hour
• Students who lost 6 points from hw2 problem 1 (a) (who did not make email of customer and city of a service provider as a primary key), please stop by Seokkyung's office hour on next Tuesday. We have decided to give 6 points back since CIOM spec. were not clear
• Exam 2 hours (2:00-3:20pm) on 12/04/2003 in room 101 of Mudd Hall (MHP)
• You may use two 8.5 by 11 inch sheets of your own notes (double-sided) for exam 2. No other book or material can be used.
• IT IS COMPULSORY TO SUBMIT ALL HOMEWORKS.FAILING TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN FAILURE OF THIS COURSE!!!!!
• Your final grades are available on den.usc.edu,go to tools and click on View grade.You can pick your finals and hw3 from Sal 211 from 1:00 to 2:00 pm Dec 16th. You can pick them also on Sal 229 from 10:00 to 11:00 am Dec 17th.Have happy holidays
• Please check the website regularly for updates.

Prerequisites

As stated in the university catalog, a passing grade in CSci485 or departmental permission is required to register for this class. Knowledge of relational databases and SQL is required.

Required Reading Materials

The official textbook for the class is "Fundamentals of Database Systems" by Ramez Elmarsi and Shamkant B. Navathe (Fourth Edition, The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, Inc.). The book is available at the USC Bookstore.

Selected Readings (SR). The papers below are required reading for all students in this class. The material covered in lectures should be considered the main definition of the scope of the course. However, the textbook and readings are important to supplement lecture material. Assignments and exams will be based on the topics presented in the lecture, and may also involve issues addressed in the textbook and readings.

Selected readings follow:

1. H. Afsarmanesh, and D. McLeod. The 3DIS: An Extensible Object-Oriented Information Management Environment. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 7(4):339-377, 1989.
2. B. Chandrasekaran, J. Josephson, and V. Benjamins. What are Ontologies, and Why Do We Need Them? IEEE Intelligent Systems, 14(1), 1999.
3. D. Connolly, R. Khare, and A. Rifkin. The Evolution of Web Documents: The Ascent of XML. World Wide Web Journal, 2(4):119-128, 1997.
4. M. Hammer, and D. McLeod. Semantic Database Model. ACM Transactions on Database Systems, 6(3):351-386, 1981.
5. J. Hammer, and D. McLeod. An Approach to Resolving Semantic Heterogeneity in a Federation of Autonomous, Heterogeneous Database Systems. International Journal of Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems, 2(1):51-83, 1993.
6. J. Gray. Evolution of Data Management. Computer, 29(10):38-46, 1996.
7. D. L. Lee, H. Chuang, and K. Seamons. Document Ranking and the Vector-Space Model. IEEE Software, 14(2):67-75, 1997.
8. D. McLeod, and S. Gao. CIOM Classified Interrelated Object Model. http://www-scf.usc.edu/~seokkyuc/CIOM.doc.
9. N. Noy, and C. Hafner. The State of the Art in Ontology Design: A Survey and Comparative Review. AI Magazine, 18(3):53-74, 1997.
10. M. Stonebraker, Object-Relational DBMS-The Next Wave. Informix white paper.
11. J. Widom. Data Management for XML. IEEE Data Engineering Bulletin, 22(1):44-52, 1999.
12. XML 1.0 (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml).
13. XML Latest Specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml).
14. XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language (http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-xquery-20030502/).

Lectures

(SR refers to Selected Readings , EN refers to the textbook)

Exams and Assignments

There will be two exams in this course: a midterm and a second exam (not a final). Both exams will be given during scheduled class time. There will be three assignments. Remote login access is required for the assignments.

Grading scheme:

Assignment Descriptions

Homework 1 (due 10/02/2003)

http://www-scf.usc.edu/~gopalakr/homework1.doc

Changes made in Homework 1 to make the questions clearer are marked in quotes and RED font

Sample solution for homework 1

Homework 2 (due on 11/06/2003)

http://www-scf.usc.edu/~seokkyuc/homework2.doc

NOTE : Cardinality between phone and call-info is m:1, not 1:1

Sample solution for homework 2

Homework 3 (due on 12/02/03)

http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~seokkyuc/585/hw3.doc

Academic Integrity

All homework and exams must be solved and written independently, or you will be penalized for plagiarism. The USC Student Conduct Code prohibits plagiarism. All USC students are responsible for reading and following the Student Conduct Code, which appears on pp. 76-77 of the 2003-2004 SCampus.

In this course we encourage students to study together. This includes discussing general strategies to be used on individual assignments. However, all work submitted for the class is to be done individually.

Some examples of what is not allowed by the conduct code: copying all or part of someone else's work (by hand or by looking at others' files, either secretly or if shown), and submitting it as your own; giving another student in the class a copy of your assignment solution; consulting with another student during an exam. If you have questions about what is allowed, please discuss it with the instructor.

Students who violate University standards of academic integrity are subject to disciplinary sanctions, including failure in the course and suspension from the University. Since dishonesty in any form harms the individual, other students, and the University, policies on academic integrity will be strictly enforced. We expect you to familiarize yourself with the Academic Integrity guidelines found in the current SCampus.

Violations of the Student Conduct Code will be filed with the Office of Student Conduct, and appropriate sanctions will be given.

Related Web Sites and Links

• Distance Education Network at USC
• USC Integrated Media Systems Center
• Stanford University Database Group
• University of Wisconsin Database Group
• University of Maryland Database Group
• Excellent tutorial on XML, XSL,..
• XML Query Language
• XQuery Tutorial
• Semantic Web
• Semantic Information Research Group
• RDF
• Protege
• Reference on Daml and Oil
• Elements of Style
• Page 1 differences between 3rd and 4th edition
• Page 2 differences between 3rd and 4th edition
• Sample Exam 1
• Dr.Roger Zimmerman's lecture
• The CS 585 website Fall 2002
• Table of contents of 4th edition
   

The content of this web site is subject to change.