Instructors: Bertram Ludaescher and Shawn Bowers
Lectures: TR 12:10-1:30pm, 127 Wellman
Discussion: W 9-9:50am, 176 Chemistry
Mailing List: ecs-166-fq08 (Google Group)

Course Schedule: See here
We will put the schedule here with links to lecture notes, etc., after the quarter ...

Course Overview:

The goal of this course is to study various topics related to data management for the purpose of facilitating research and application development using open source DBMS packages and large-scale scientific data sets. This course is targeted primarily at non-CS majors. The course is divided into lectures, projects, and a midterm and final exam.

There will be several individual and group projects. In individual projects, students have to use an existing scientific database (such as a Protein DB, Image DB, spatial DB (satellite data), query the database and build simple tools on top of the database. In group projects, students have to install a DBMS package, populate the database with scientific data, and design and implement a complete scientific workflow on top of that database. The projects involve design, implementation and verification of scientific database applications using a variety of public domain and commercial database systems, including Postgres, Oracle, GRASS, and Kepler. The systems and tools used for these projects resemble those that would be found in industry to the extent possible, including the standard database query languages SQL and technologies such as XML, RDF and Ontology description languages. Projects are graded based on the design, performance, and correctness, including documentation. Examination questions are based on scientific (meta) data models and database design techniques discussed in the lecture and from the projects.

Course Grading: Letter; projects (=group projects + individual homework): 60%, midterm: 17%, final: 23%

Course Software:

• MySQL (download, documentation)
• Kepler
• ...