CSE P 544: Syllabus

Course Goals
Databases are at the heart of modern commercial application development. Data management techniques are used in many other environments and domains where large amounts of data must be stored for efficient update, retrieval, and analysis. This course is a comprehensive discussion of concepts, tools, and techniques in modern data management. It covers advanced SQL, data models and conceptual design, advanced use of views in databases, theory of transactions, XML data, database internals (indexes, query execution and optimization), parallel databases (including Map/Reduce).
 
Course Format
The class meets once a week for lectures. Lecture slides are in powerpoint and will be made available on the web prior to the lecture. Lecture notes are designed to be clear and selfcontained. But please make every effort to come to class: we will have disucssions in class, and will occasionally use the white board. There will be reading assignments from some blogs and research papers. There are six homework assignments, that involve modest amount of programming. There is one final exam, which is an online, take-home exam.
Lectures
Tuesdays 6:30-9:20 pm, CSE 305
Video
All lectures will be available here
Homework assignments
There are six homework assignments. Usually they will be posted on Monday and will be due either in one week or in two weeks. Every homework is due on a Monday, by 11:00pm. Turn them in using the Catalyst CollectIt Dropbox.
Reading assignments
The are nine reading assignments, which will help you understand the material deeper. For each reading assignment you have to turn in a short review, e.g. 1/2-page long; the review should be a brief summary of what you learned from the paper. Every review is due by Tuesday, before the beginning of the lecture. Turn them in using the Catalyst CollectIt Dropbox.
Exam
The final exam is an online, take-home exam. Time: Saturday, March 15, 12:00am - Sunday, March 16, 11:59pm.
Grading
Homeworks: 50%
Paper reviews: 20%
Final: 30%
Textobooks
Main: Database Management Systems (third edition), Raghu Ramakrishnan and Johannes Gehrke.    (Most of the advanced material is form this book.)
Optional: Database Systems: The Complete Book, Hector Garcia-Molina, Jeffrey Ullman, Jennifer Widom.   (Some of the basic material follows this book; you probably don't need to buy this books, since the powerpoint notes contain all the material you need)
Late Policy
Homework assignments: you are allowed a total of 4 late-days with at most 2 late-days per assignment that you can use in 24-hour chunks at anytime. Once you use-up your late days, no additional extensions are granted for any reason!
Think of late days as a safety net in case of a true emergency, not as a convenience. Normally, you should use no late days during the entire quarter; if you do have an emergency, then you should use 1 or 2 late days. If you end up using all 4 late days, you are doing it wrong.
There are no late days for paper reviews.
Attendance
I hope you will attend every lecture. If you miss a lecture, talk to a friend who was present, and be sure to check the Web site for class messages.
Communication Tools
The course website and mailing list will be used extensively to provide you with course information, such as the schedule mentioned above, homework assignments and solutions, class messages and many other things. Please see the main webpage of the course for details.
Computer Use Policy
Some excerpts from the campus policies. Take them seriously: "You must use all UW [computing] resources in strict accordance with local, state, and federal laws. These laws cover such areas as illegal access to computer systems, networks, and files; copyright violations; and harassment issues... Software and information resources provided through the university for use by faculty, staff, and students may be used on computing equipment only as specified in the various software licenses. Unauthorized use of software, images, or files is regarded as a serious matter and any such use is without the consent of the University of Washington...If abuse of computer software, images, or files occurs, those responsible for such abuse will be held legally accountable."
Academic Misconduct
All work turned in is expected to be your own. Although students are encouraged to study together, each student is expected to produce his or her own solution to the homework problems. Coping or using sections of someone else's program, even if it has been modified by you, is not acceptable. The University has very clear guidelines for academic misconduct and the staff of CSE P 544 will be vigorous in enforcing them.