Computer Science Dartmouth College

Computer Science 33 Information Systems Amit Chakrabarti

Spring 2010 Under Construction

Course Description

In this course we shall study the management of large bodies of data or information. During the first half of the course, we shall study on schemes for the representation, manipulation, and storage of complex information structures as well as algorithms for processing these structures efficiently and for retrieving the information they contain. In particular, we shall spend considerable time on relational algebra, SQL, database normalization, indexing and hashing.

In the second half of the course, we shall study — at a high level — the issues raised when databases are shared by several users and/or several computers. This includes such topics as transaction processing, robustness guarantees against failure, security and data integrity guarantees from unauthorized access, privacy. Time permitting, we might also consider data mining, warehousing and object-oriented schemes for multimedia data.

It is expected that a student who enrols for this course already knows how to program and is comfortable working within a UNIX-like environment. Some degree of mathematical maturity will be required for the more theoretical aspects of the course.

Announcements

• [May 4] Basic info about the final exam has been added.
• [Apr 6] Office hours have been announced. These might be adjusted at some point, and if they are, there will be a new announcement here.
• [Mar 28] All homework in this course must be submitted electronically; there will be no hand-written submissions. I strongly suggest that you learn to use a suitable typesetting system to prepare the non-programming part of your homework submissions. My personal favorite is LaTeX, which is also the de-facto standard in many academic disciplines, but MS Word or its equivalents would also be okay.
• [Mar 28] You will need an account on the CS department UNIX servers for some of your work in this course. Make sure you have one.

Administrative Basics

Lectures	Sudikoff 115 | 10 hour | Mon-Wed-Fri 10:00-11:05, X-hr Thu 12:00-12:50
Instructor	Amit Chakrabarti | Sudikoff 107 | 6-1710 | Office hours: Thu 4-5pm, Fri 1:30-2:30pm, or by appointment
Teaching Assistants	James Hughes | Sudikoff 157 | 6-8743 | Office hours: Wed 6-8pm, Sun 7-9pm, or by appointment
Textbook (Required)	"Database System Concepts," Fifth or Sixth Edition. Avi Silberschatz, Henry F. Korth, S. Sudarshan.
Prerequisites	CS 23
Work	Homeworks, roughly one a week [20 points] Three in-class quizzes [30 points] Class project [25 points] Final exam [25 points] Please take note of the late homework policy. It will be enforced, strictly.

Schedule and Homeworks

This schedule will be updated frequently, depending on our pace during the lectures. In particular, required readings before each class may need to be updated. Please do keep up with these readings from the textbook, because there is plenty of material in the textbook that I won't get to cover directly in class, but that you will be responsible for, in your homework, quizzes and final exam. The chapter and section numbers below refer to the Sixth Edition of the textbook, and not the Fifth Edition.

Please make it a habit to check this website often, and please remember to hit the RELOAD button to get the latest version.

Any part of the schedule that is greyed out is tentative and subject to change.

Homework Submission Form and Grades Database

All homework is to be submitted electronically, using a homework submission form. Click here to get to that form.

The homework submission system is still experimental. Please use it only as instructed, for everyone's safety!