Module Identifier CS27420  
Module Title COMMERCIAL DATABASE APPLICATIONS  
Academic Year 2004/2005  
Co-ordinator Mr Rhys Parry  
Semester Intended for use in future years  
Next year offered 2006  
Next semester offered 2  
Other staff Mr Rhys Parry  
Pre-Requisite CS27310 , IL33010  
Co-Requisite NONE  
Mutually Exclusive NONE  
Course delivery Lecture   22 Hours  
  Seminars / Tutorials   11 two hour practical sessions  
Assessment
Assessment TypeAssessment Length/DetailsProportion
Semester Assessment Assessment is through 3 pieces of practical work, all of which will involve the use of a commercial DBMS :   
Semester Assessment Practical 1 (mainly formative)  10%
Semester Assessment Practical 2 (mainly formative)  10%
Semester Assessment Practical 3. This will involve a report of 2,000 words reflecting on what was achieved, as well as practical programming work.  80%
Supplementary Assessment This will be through 1 practical assignment equivalent to Practical 3.  100%

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
1. Describe and work through the stages of the database application lifecycle.

2. Describe and work through the stages of the database application lifecycle.

3. Create a logical and physical database design for a database application supporting multiple views, .using advanced database design techniques.

4. Implement a database system using Oracle for a typical commercial database application.

5. Use Oracle PL/SQL to manipulate an Oracle database

Aims

Our present module offerings in database systems concentrate on the practical construction of simple databases in Access (level 1) and on the theoretical aspects of relational databases (module CS27310 at level 2). This module will expand the students knowledge of databases in three directions:?

It will significantly expand their practical experience of building databases, grounding that experience in the application of a commercial database tool (Oracle).

It will provide material that will enable the students to grasp the commercial potential of database technology, and understand how to apply it in specific business situations.

It will advance their knowledge of SQL programming.

Brief description

This module provides the understanding and skills necessary to build commercial database systems. This is done through studying commercial case studies of database systems and through the experience of building database systems in Oracle.

Content

Introduction and business based case studies (3 lectures)

Commercial database application lifecycle: database planning; determining the requirements and defining the system; conceptual, logical and physical database design; application design; DBMS selection; implementation and data conversion; testing and maintenance. (8 lectures; 6 practicals)

Stored procedures; PL/SQl; Java. (1 lecture; 2 practicals)

Standard interfaces: Report generators; form generators; integral web and application servers; Oracle facilities.(2 lectures; 2 practicals)

Functions of a multi-user database management system: concurrency control; recovery services; transaction support; integrity services. (4 lectures)

Performance issues: Monitoring and tuning databases; denormalisation; security of database systems. (4 lectures)

Reading Lists

Books
** Recommended Text
Thomas Connolly and Carolyn Begg. (1998) Database Systems: A practical Approach to Design, Implementation and Management. 3rd. Addison-Wesley 0-321-18105-0
Thomas M Connolly and Carolyn E. Begg. (2003) Database Solutions: A step-by-step approach to building databases. 2nd. Addison-Wesley 0-321-17350-3
David M. Kroenke (2000) Database Processing: Fundamentals, design and implementation. 7th. Prentice Hall, London
Peter Rob, Carlos Coronel (2001) Database Systems: Design, Implementation, and Management 5th. Thomson 0-619-06269-X

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 5