Spring 2002
Instructor:
Dr. Susan B. Davidson: 278 Moore, 898-3490, susan@centralPrerequisites: CIS 550 or equivalent
Textbook: A bulk pack of papers will be handed out in class.
Time and Location: MW 10:30-12, Moore 222
Description:
Traditionally, a database is thought of as a relational system (or object-oriented, IMS, Codasyl, etc) that has been designed for a particular application. The advent of the internet and more recently the Web has given a more global sense to this term: Initially, the term was extended to include federations of heterogeneous databases, and the issues considered included mapping to a global model, decomposing a global query against local databases, and global query optimization. Issues of replication management and view maintenance also arose as data warehouses were formed for performance and ownership reasons. Researchers then considered
other types of information sources: application programs, web pages, and data formats accessible through various forms of interfaces. As the web has grown in popularity, XML has become a standard of data exchange and database issues associated with XML have arisen: storage strategies, query languages and optimization, indexing structures, and the expression and management of constraints. XML has also increasingly been used for federating heterogeneous databases and issues of querying ``streaming'' data have been considered.This course will cover these topics using selected papers from the database research literature. The first two weeks of the course will be lectures covering background material. By the end of the second week, each student is expected to choose a paper from the bulk pack (to be handed out Monday 1/14) to present during class. From week 3 on, each student who is not presenting is required to prepare a one-page critique of the paper being presented that day, describing the topic of the paper and listing questions, problems or issues.
Students will also be expected to choose a project topic by February 5, and to present their project to the class during the last two weeks of class.