CS460 Course Description

CS460 is an undergraduate introduction to the principles of the relational database management systems (DBMSs). The goal of the course is to investigate the main issues on the design and implementation of a database system and to present how it can be used effectively. Major topics of this course include:

ER and Relational Data Models
Query Languages (SQL, etc.)
Storage and Indexing
Query Optimization
Database Design
Concurrency Control and Recovery

CS660 Course Description

CS660 is a graduate introduction to the database management systems (DBMSs). Students must attend the CS460 lectures and are expected to complete additional work on the assignments and the exams. Furthermore, students in CS660 will attend and participate in a weekly database seminar and will have to present a research paper during this seminar.

Instructor

Prof. George Kollios, gkollios@cs.bu.edu
Office: MCS 288
Office Hours: Wed 11:00am - 12:30pm and Thu 2:00pm - 3:30pm, or anytime I am in my office.
Phone: 617-358-1835

Teaching Fellow

Panagiotis Papapetrou, panagpap@cs.bu.edu
Office Hours: Wed 4:00pm-6:00pm and Thu 11:00AM-12 noon at the Undergrad CS Lab.

Required Textbook

Raghu Ramakrishnan and Johannes Gehrke, "Database Management Systems", McGraw-Hill, Third Edition. 2002.

Workload

Four written assignments
Three programming assignments
Two exams; one midterm and one final

Prerequisites

Working knowledge of C++ programming and data structures (e.g., CS 112).
CS 350 is highly recommended.

Important Dates:

Last day to drop the class without a W grade is Thu 2/21/08

Last day to drop the class with a W grade is Fri 3/21/08

Exams

Midterm: Thu, March 6, 2008 (in class)
Final: Sat, May 10, 2008 at 9:00 AM

Lectures

Tue/Thu 11:00am-12:30pm in CAS 222