CSI 3317 -- Announcements

CSI 3317 -- Fall 2005

NOTE: the most recent announcements are on top of this page

13/01/06: BEST PROJECT: The team formed by Mohammed Mansour and Yohanesse Tadesse from Section A.

02/01/06: Unofficial course marks and grades.
NOTE: You have 1 week to handle any eventuel concern. Please do carrefully check ALL your term marks to report any missing items.

14/12/05/: Anyone willing to see Assignments 2 and 3 solutions can drop by tomorrow at the office hours to copy them.

12/12/05/: An old exam for you to see what to expect.

06/12/05/: PROJECT DEMOS and Marking scheme

04/12/05/: Notice that I am still making arrangements regarding the demos of the projects. Just be patient. I will announce times when TAs will be available when I book a lab tomorrow. I will try to avoid Dec 7 and 8 where you have exams.

30/11/05/: New due date for Assignment 3: Wednesday Dec 7 at 5:00PM.

28/11/05/: Marking scheme used for A2 (for your info).

23/11/05: Assignment 3: Do Exercise 17.2 (Consider only the following classes of schedules: serializable, conflict-serializable, and recoverable). Due date is the last day of classes at 5:00PM. Do it in groups of two people.

23/11/05: On Friday we will do several administrative tasks:
1) You will do the student evaluation for the course. For this try to come as early as possible to your section to allow us to cope with the second admin task we have on that day.
2) I will bring my mark file and will fill the missing gaps in it. There are still a few people with missing marks for part of the course work (A1, midterm and Project part 1). I need to do this before posting the new version of the mark file.

17/11/05: Marks for Assignment 1, midterm, and the first part of the project.

17/11/05/: Marking scheme used for the midterm (for your info). A similar scheme will be used for the final exam.

15/11/05: New due date for A2: Tuesday Nov 22 at 6PM. For Exercice 14.2, you may replace "linear hashed index" by "static hashed index".

09/11/05: For remarking issues and questions regarding Assignment marks, please send a message to

Zhiyong (zweng069@site.uottawa.ca) for A1, Section B, and Project, Section A
Taeho (tjo018@site.uottawa.ca) for A1, Section A, and Project, Section B

The TAs will make arrangements with you for meeting times.
07/11/05: Solution and Marking scheme for Parts 1 and 2 of the project.
1/11/05/: Assignment 2 (due date: 18/11/05): Do Exercises 8.4, 10.10(1), 12.4, 14.2. Do these in groups of 2 persons.
28/10/05/: Solutions for the midterm: p1, p2, p3, p4, p5.
26/10/05: A1 and midterm Marks (xls document). Note that there are a several people in Section B who wrote the midterm but whose assignment 1 marks are missing. Should this be an omission on the part of the TA who recorded the A1 marks please let us know.
26/10/05: Please submit your SQL script in the appropriate assignment box on Friday by 6PM. Any delay will cost you 10% of the marks on this script for each day you are late. No electronic submission is required for this script. The script contains your CREATE TABLE statements. Make sure the script runs!
20/10/05: Marking scheme for A1.
19/10/05: A1 trigger.
14/10/05/: Solutions for Assignment 1: p1, p2, p3, p4, p5, p6, p7, p8, p9, p10 (GIF).
Solutions for Assignment 1: p1, p2, p3, p4, p5, p6, p7, p8, p9, p10 (TIF).
13/10/05: Here are important announcements about the midterm:
For the exam, learn: Chap 2: Sections 2.1--2.5; Chap 3: Sections 3.1--3.5, and 3.7; Chap 4: Sections 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3.2 (domain relational calculus ONLY for students that are CSI students); Chap 5: Sections 5.1--5.5, and 5.7.
Break down of questions: Concepts: 10%; ER diagram: 30%; Rel. model: 20%; SQL Queries and constraints: 20%; Rel. algebra and calculus: 20% (The rel. calc. will be short, and non-CSI student will get only algebra questions).
I will leave hard copies of A1 solutions in front of my office tomorrow morning (Friday). Please go and make copies for yourself. They are hand written.
12/10/05: An old midterm exam with solutions: p1, p2, p3, p4, p5.
10/10/05: Since Sept 23, accounts have been generated on the SITE postgresql server. Please read the online doc.
06/10/05: New due date for Assignment 1 is Thursday Oct 13 at 6PM. This is a firm deadline.
01/10/05: PROJECT (pdf document)
01/10/05: HOMEWORK -- As a good and progressive preparation for the exams, I recommend you (So you're not obliged !) to do the following exercices (some have answers in the student center at http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0072465638/57158/ans3edoddonly.pdf, others don't, and I mix both kinds of exercices.):

Chapter 2: 2.2, 2.3, and 2.7;
motivation: to learn how to capture information with different different levels of complexity in ER diagrams, showing the basic and advanced features we have seen in class.
Chapter 3:

3.8, and 3.19;
motivation: to learn how to write SQL statements about creating tables, modifying their instances, and manipulating views.
3.12, 3.13, and 3.17;
motivation: to help you to define relations corresponding to the ER diagrams that you got in the conceptual modelling phases in Exercices 2.2, 2.3, and 2.7.

Chapter 4: 4.5;
motivation: to learn how to formulate queries in relational algebra and calculus (for the later, use DRC).
Chapter 5: 5.1, 5.8, and 5.10;
motivation: to learn how to write SQL statements for creating tables by including appropriate ICs, and learn how to express complex ICs and triggers in SQL.
Moreover, always do the review questions to remember the most important concepts seen in each chapter.

20/09/05: The midterm will be held on Sat Oct 15, in MNT 203, 1-3PM. (MNT = Monpetit)
13/09/05: Assignment 1.
05/09/05:

The first courses start on Friday September 9, 2005.
I will make the lecture notes for each week available at the start of the week. You may still have a preview of the notes from last year's course. However, I may change these old notes to be in phase with current trends. To print the notes with 3 slides or so on a page, go to the appropriate print menu of MS Powerpoint.
I strongly recommend you to buy the course text book. The lectures closely follow that book. Exam questions will assume all the chapters and sections that we will cover in the book.
The course has no lab hours. Therefore the TAs assigned to the course will only mark the assignments.
Practical assignments and the course project will assume the knowldge of PostgreSQL, the most sophisticated open source DBMS available to date. I urge you to consult the appropriate webpages to get used to that system. See the tutorial page for more details.