CPSC 404 Advanced Relational Databases

Winter 2011 Term 2

Brief Course Description:

In CPSC 304, you learned about designing a relational database application, writing SQL queries and updates, and database programming. You primarily learned to use an RDBMS as a black box. In this course, we will open the black box. Click here for course notes as well as for course outline, marking scheme, policy, and tentative schedule.

Time & Place:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday 11:00-11:50 am, DMP 301, 6245 Agronomy Road.

Office Hours:

Office hours will be held in my office, at 315-2366 Main Mall. Normally office hours will be held in a one-on-one mode. When there is crowd and interest, they will be held in a group mode. Office hours held in group mode may switch to a meeting room, which will be posted on my office door (ICICS Rm. 315) whenever the switch occurs. Office hours will be held according to the following schedule:

Fridays 1-2 pm.

Special office hours may be held before quizzes and the final. Stay tuned.

Assignments:

Assignment Submission:

All assignments are due NO LATER THAN 5 P.M. on the day of the deadline and are to be placed in Assignment Box 10 at the basement of the ICICS/CICSR Building (2366 Main Mall), next to Lab 015..

TAs:

Shahed (Mohammed) Alam (malam@cs.ubc.ca) -- Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 12-1 pm; Demco Learning Center, ICICS Rm. X150.
Teng Kin (James) Lo (tklo@cs.ubc.ca) -- Office Hours: MW: 12-1 pm; Demco Learning Center, ICICS Rm. X150.

Online Discussion of Course Material:

We do NOT use WebCT for this course. Instead, we will use the Piazza system for all online discussion of course material. Piazza is a next generation Question & Answer system specifically designed to help you get answers to your questions fast. The best way to get an answer to a question about 404 is to post it on Piazza. Piazza allows both instructor, TAs and students to answer questions, and makes it easy to edit both questions and answers to improve them.

To join the Piazza group for 404, please email James (tklo@cs.ubc.ca), indicating your name, student ID, and the email address that you want to be registered on Piazza (for this course) with.

Please note that Piazza is a service that is hosted in the United States. (It is a startup that originated at Stanford University.) Some of you may wish to preserve your anonymity on Piazza, so that none of your personal information is stored in the United States. If you wish to do so, you can create a new anonymous email account and request James to use that email account for registering you. (If you already use a gmail, hotmail or other US hosted email account, this is essentially moot.)

Beyond the classroom :

There are two reading groups in Data Management and Mining. Of them, DB Talks focuses on core issues related to data management, while Social Networking Reading Group (SNRG) focuses on the analysis and mining of social media and networks, personalization, and recommender systems. While reading groups are typically attended (and led) by grad students, interested undergrad students are very welcome! This is a great opportunity for you to catch up with cutting edge research happening in our DMM Lab.

Quiz and Final Exam Policy:

A valid UBC student ID must be presented before you will be allowed to take the quiz.

You must sign an honor code that says you are aware of what constitutes academic misconduct and that you agree not to cheat.

Only non-programmable calculators will be allowed.

The quiz will be closed-book, closed-notes.

We may require you to take preassigned seating. Please watch this page for details.

Simply missing a quiz does NOT automatically entitle that person to a "makeup quiz". Absence must be explained with proper and authentic documentation, e.g., doctor's certificate if it's health related.

Material Covered for quizzes and final:

Coverage for quizzes is incremental. Final will cover the whole course.

Quiz and Final Samples:

DISCLAIMER: The sample quizzes/final (with solutions) are being posted as a study aid in preparing. They come with ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEE about whether the actual quiz/final will or will not be similar either in content or in style to what is posted here.