When & Where? MonWed 10:00-11:15AM MSC E208
Piazza Course Page: Please use Piazza to ask questions about course material and assignments, so that everyone would benefit! http://piazza.com/emory/spring2024/cs377
Professor: Nosayba El-Sayed (website)
TAs: The course has 2 TAs who will be holding office hours and organizing the grading for each section. The TAs are your best resource for extra help outside of lecture, and will be monitoring the Piazza page for student questions. The TAs and their e-mail addresses are:
Kevin Qin (see Canvas for contact info)
Labdhi Mehta (see Canvas for contact info)
What's this course about?
Data is everywhere -- but you already know that! To properly store, manage, retrieve, and analyze large data sets, we need something called database systems.This is an introduction course on database systems. It introduces the fundamental concepts of the design and use of database systems.
The main focus of the course will be relational database systems where we will study the relational data model and the SQL query language for accessing the data maintained by relational database systems. We will also learn about NOSQL (Not-Only SQL) systems and modern large-scale processing frameworks like MapReduce.
Prerequisites: CS 171 or equivalent
Logistics: Assignments and official course communications will be made here on Canvas.
Our Piazza page is where students can ask each other questions about the material and homework assignments.
TA's will monitor Piazza to answer questions as well. When possible, lecture slides will be posted on Canvas after each lecture is delivered.
Textbook:
[Recommended] Fundamentals of Database Systems (6th or 7th edition), by Ramez Elmasri & Shamkant B. Navathe
[Supplemental] Database Systems: The Complete Book, by Hector Garcia-Molina, Jeffrey D. Ullman, & Jennifer Widom
[Supplemental] The online mini-courses by Professor Jennifer Widom at Stanford University.
Course Grading:
Assignments: 40%
Midterm: 20%
Final: 20%
Quizzes / Class Work: 15%
Lecture Preparation: 5%
Assignment Submission:
Assignments will be turned in via Canvas, unless stated otherwise. More information will be included on assignment handouts. Unless stated otherwise, assignments are expected to be completed individually. Online resources may be consulted for guidance or debugging purposes, but students may not look up how to explicitly perform the task at hand. Students may discuss high-level problems together, but when it comes to writing down the solution, each student must work alone. Students should never consult with each other's solutions. Solutions which are not your own should never be copied and pasted (from online or from a peer). This is typically a form of plagiarism.
Late Assignments Policy: Each student receives one 24-hour "late day" token that can be used on any of the assignments throughout the semester. After you have used your token, assignments will still be accepted up to 24 hours late, but with a 10% penalty. Assignments turned in more than 24 hours late will NOT be accepted. Additional extensions on assignments will be granted with appropriate documentation from the Office of Undergraduate Education (OUE).
Bonus opportunities: Piazza participation award: The top 3 students writing the largest number of endorsed answers on Piazza will receive 3 bonus points in their class participation marks.
Some assignments may have an "early submission" bonus. It will be indicated clearly on the assignment handout; keep an eye out for those!
EXAMS:
Midterms must be taken on the stated date and time.Midterms may only be rescheduled in the case of emergencies with appropriate documentation from OUE. Final Exams may only be rescheduled in the event that a student has 3 final exams in the same calendar day. In this case, arrangements for an alternative test time must be made BEFORE November 15, 2019. If the professor has not been contacted by November 15, 2019 the exam must be taken as scheduled.In the event of an emergency (with proper documentation from OUE), arrangements will be handled on a case by case basis between the instructor, the student, and OUE.
Plane tickets that you have purchased are not an appropriate excuse to miss an exam. Do not plan on leaving the city before your exam period is complete.
Final Exam time for CS377 Section 001 is: (See Canvas for details)
Honor Code: All class work is governed by the College Honor Code and Departmental Policy. It is acceptable and encouraged to discuss assignments with other students. However, all code should be written by yourself. Any code and writeup that is found to be similar is grounds for an honor code investigation. Every program assignment must have the following comment included at the top of the file./* THIS CODE IS MY OWN WORK, IT WAS WRITTEN WITHOUT CONSULTING CODE WRITTEN BY OTHER STUDENTS. _Your_Name_Here_ */An assignment will not be considered turned in without the comment.
Lecture Schedule (tentative): See our Canvas page.