Introduction |
Hans Philippi (hansp@cs.uu.nl), CGN-A102, 030-253 2819.
This course will be taught as a seminar. We will study the course material together. Traditionally, every participant gives at least one presentation. If the number of students is too high, some students will write an essay as an alternative.
Every participant studies the relevant parts of the literature in advance. Two of the students will take care of the presentations for that day. These presentations will be based on questions that are mailed to the speaker and the teacher. Because everybody knows what the story is about, the speakers focus on the questions and possibly hard topics.
Kind request for email subject format: if you mail a question for a session, let's say 2, please use DBA question 2. Send the questions for the session to both speakers. Always cc the teacher. The deadlines are: friday 17:00 for the tuesday presentation and tuesday 17:00 for the thursday talks.
At the current edition of DBA, we have 21 participants, but 19 questions are too much to handle. The protocol for reduced submission of questions is explained on the schedule page. Of course, when you give a presentation, you don't have to submit questions (only answers ;-) ).
The first four sessions deal with the classical knowledge with respect to query processing. We will refer to the textbook of the basic course on Database Systems during the current year: Database Systems, the complete book (2nd ed) by Garcia-Molina, Widom and Ullman. You might buy this book (it's a bargain), but it will be used only during session 1-4. You might also lend it from a current first year student.
For the later sessions, the papers will be available online.
During the last two weeks of this course, you will be working on a practical exercise or write a paper. In case you will do the exercise, you are supposed to work together with at most one other student. Further details will follow.
The final grade is calculated as the weighted average of the following partial results:
To get a final result of 6 or higher, each of the partial results should be at least 5.
To be a candidate for re-examination, your overall average grade should at least be 4.