Syllabus
and Course Information
CSC 451 Database Design
Section 801 (Thursdays 6:00pm-9:15pm,
Lincoln Park Campus)
Section 810 (Online Learning)
DePaul
University College of CDM
Winter 2014
Instructor:
Eric J. Schwabe
Office:
CDM Building Room 739 (Loop), Student Center Room 332 (Lincoln Park)
Phone/Voicemail:
(312) 362-5943 (Loop)
Email:
eschwabe@cdm.depaul.edu
Office
Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:00pm-5:30pm (Lincoln Park)
Required
Text: Database Design using Entity-Relationship Diagrams (Second Edition),
by Sikha Bagui and Richard Earp, ISBN 1493861765 or 978-1439861769.
Recommended Text: Fundamentals of Database Systems, by Ramez
Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe, ISBN
Prerequisites:
None.
Course Material: This course serves as a general introduction to database systems for database designers; we will discuss the full database system life cycle but will focus on data modeling and database design. Specific topics to be covered include:
Introduction to Database Systems
The Entity-Relationship Model
Entity-Relationship Mapping
The Relational Model
Functional Dependencies and Normalization
SQL for Database Implementation
We will cover most chapters of Bagui and Earp's book; additional topics will be covered in lecture notes or can be found in Elmasri and Navathe's book (which I highly recommend).
Grading: There will be homework assignments given most weeks; assignments (with associated readings) will be posted on the course web site and will be due one week after the day they are posted, unless otherwise noted. Details of the submission process will be discussed in class; it is your responsibility to verify that your submitted files are readable and submitted in the correct locations. Grades and comments will be returned through the course web site. No late assignments will be accepted, but your lowest homework score will be dropped in the computation of your course grade.
The homework assignments will be worth a total of 40% of the course grade. There will be a midterm exam given on Thursday, February 13th that will be worth 30% of the course grade. There will be a comprehensive final exam given on Thursday, March 20th that will be worth 30% of the course grade. (I will contact Online Learning students by email after the first lecture regarding exam scheduling and procedures.) If you do not take both the midterm and final exams, you will automatically receive a grade of F for the course. Furthermore, everyone must take the midterm and final exams at the scheduled times – as a rule, no make-up exams will be given. If you wish to petition for a make-up exam in an emergency situation, you must contact me in advance and provide written documentation of the emergency.
Regarding Email Communication: Please begin the subject line of any email to me with "CSC 451", so that I can easily identify your messages. I will reply to email messages within one business day after the day I receive them; therefore questions that are only received by me on an assignment’s due date are not guaranteed replies before the assignment is due. Please plan accordingly and begin the assignments early enough to ask questions and receive answers. If you are having problems, send me a detailed description of the problems you are having; I will try to guide you in locating and solving your problems yourself, rather than simply solve your problems for you. Please do not use the comment field of the assignment submission system to send me questions.
Policy on Electronic Devices in the Classroom: In order to not distract your fellow students, please turn off and put away all electronic devices not used for course work during class. Laptops, tablets, et cetera., that are used exclusively for note-taking or other course-related activities are of course allowed; however, please refrain from emailing, instant messaging, game playing, web browsing, and other activities not related to course work during class.
Regarding Academic Integrity:
You are expected to be familiar with and to adhere to DePaul’s Academic
Integrity Policy, which is available on-line at
http://academicintegrity.depaul.edu/AcademicIntegrityPolicy.pdf. Violations of the Academic Integrity Policy will be dealt with
decisively; penalties may range up to an automatic F in the course and possible
expulsion.
Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to: Turning in another person’s work as your own (including hiring someone else to complete an assignment for you); Starting with another person’s work and modifying it to turn in as your own; Cutting and pasting, or otherwise copying, sections of another person’s work into your assignment; Allowing another person (such as a tutor) to write any part of your assignment; and so on. (Obviously, any examples that I post qualify as “another person’s work”.) Supplying such assistance to another student or working closely enough with another student that identical solutions are reached and submitted are also considered violations of the policy. In general, you may feel free to discuss the assignments with other students at a general level. However, when it comes to actually completing your assignment, you must work independently. Your assignments must be entirely your own individual work. If you have any questions or doubts about what plagiarism entails, you should consult me.