CIS650: XML and Web Services
Fall 2004
Instructor:
Susan B. Davidson: 572 Levine
North, 898-3490, susan@cis.upenn.edu
Prerequisites: CIS 550 or equivalent
Textbook: Research papers will be made available over the web, linked to the course syllabus.
Time and Location: TTh 4:30-6, Moore 212
Description:
“XML and Web services are revolutionizing the automatic management of
distributed information, somewhat in the same way that HTML, Web browsers and
search engines modified human access to world wide information.” In this course, we will start by
studying XML from a database perspective:
how to store XML data using relational and native storage engines, how
to query it using XPath and XQuery, optimization techniques, schema design and
update. We will then consider how Web
Services (SOAP, WSDL, UDDI) can be used to create active objects which provide
distributed services, and will study how the combination of XML, XQuery/XPath and
Web Services can be used to create a “golden triangle” for distributed information
management in a P2P environment.
In particular, we will study issues such as how to program XML and Web
Service applications, when to instantiate intensional data, how to specify and match the capabilities of client
applications, and how security can be handled in this environment.
The 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 detailed
syllabus 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 October 12 and to
present their project to the class during the last two weeks of class.
9/7/2004