CS 491 Home News Assignments Class Presentations Syllabus

Instructor:  

Kelly Schultz
Olds-Upton 311, x7379 (home 324-0546)
Office Hours: Tuesday/Thursday 10:30 - 11:30 am (by appointment Tuesday/Thursday 11:30 am - noon or Thursday 3-4 pm.)

Required Texts:  

• Raghu Ramakrishnan and Johannes Gehrke, Database Management Systems, Third Version, McGraw Hill, 2003.
• Hugh Williams and David Lane, Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL, O'Reilly, 2002.

Goals:   At the conclusion of this course, students should have a basic understanding of the issues that surround database design and web database applications. Students should also know how to manipulate a database through a web page and understand some of the issues surrounding web database applications. Finally, students should have a better understanding of PHP and its use in database management.

Prerequisite:   CS 110 (Introduction to Programming) and experience creating web pages.

Topics to be covered (and tentative course schedule):

Weeks 1 - 2:	Introduction to PHP and Database Design Introduction to ER Model Conceptual Design
Weeks 3-5:	SQL
Week 5:	Midterm - Friday, February 6th, 2004
Weeks 6 - 7:	Database and Internet Applications Meet with customers about final project
Weeks 8-9:	Possible topics include Overview of Systems, Normalization or Security
Week 10:	Student Presentations on topics in database design; Evaluation
Exam Week:	Final Project due for Customers; final exam on Thursday, March 18, 8-11 am

Computing Resources and Software:

• Languages: Java , PHP on max.cs.kzoo.edu
• Hardware: unspecified for client side but max Unix workstation for server side.
• Misc: Netscape and Electronic Mail for class communication, HTML or PowerPoint for in-class presentations.

Grades: Grades will be based on:

The format of this class will be tailored to the class and may be run as a seminar instead of as a traditional lecture style course. Since this class will be extremely participatory your attendance is crucial. Please be sure to talk to me in advance if you must miss any class meetings. Also, please note that in a collaborative setting such as this class, it is essential that you be ready with presentations and complete your pieces of team assignments in a timely fashion. Programming projects, in particular, are time-consuming and difficult to predict, but time-management skills are as critical in industry as they are in college.

Reading assignments, announcements, links to class presentations, and other material will be made available on the CS 491 homepage:

Students are responsible for checking this resource frequently.

Collaboration and the Honor System:

This course operates in accordance with the principles of the Kalamazoo College Honor System: responsibility for personal behavior, independent thought, respect for others, and environmental responsibility. In particular, academic integrity is a fundamental principle of scholarship. Representing someone else's work as your own, in any form, constitutes academic dishonesty. Unauthorized collaboration and receiving help from others outside the bounds permitted by the instructor are also violations of the College honor code. You are responsible for working within the permitted bounds, and acknowledging any help from others or contributions from other sources.

Software development projects: The first programming project, focusing on PHP, must be done individually.

All of the other software development in this class will be highly collaborative. You will be assigned to groups for the second programming project, and working effectively as a team will be an important component. Your responsibilities under the Honor Code include contributing to the team in all ways, documenting everyone who worked on any piece of code, and acknowledging all help you and your team receive from any source, including books, articles, classmates, your instructor, etc. Teams will be working on separate assignments, so discussing group assignments with members of other teams is allowed in this class. I may occasionally ask all the members of a group to evaluate the effort and effectiveness of the other members of their group.

Homework assignments: You may discuss the requirements, concepts, and overall strategies related to homework assignments with your classmates, but you should write the solutions individually, using your own words. Organizing and writing up the solutions on your own ensures that you really understand the material. Submitting someone else's work does not help you learn and constitutes academic dishonesty. As always, you should acknowledge your collaborative discussions with your solutions.

Class presentations: These presentations should represent your own analysis and synthesis of ideas drawn from one or more sources. Your presentation should indicate clearly the source(s) you used or about which you are reporting.

Attendance and Participation:

Regular attendance and fully engaged participation is crucial in this course. Active participation in the class means being on time, being prepared, listening to others, contributing ideas of your own, and asking questions as they come up. Student presentations in this course will be as important as presentations by the instructor. You should obviously prepare for your own presentations carefully, but you should also attend to your classmates' presentations thoughtfully and actively.