MIS 321
Database Systems I
Winter 2007,
Section 1
|
Instructor |
Edward J. Williams |
|
Office |
B-14 FCS |
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Office
Phone |
(313)-583-6553 |
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Department
Phone |
(313)-593-5248 |
|
Day
Phone |
(313)-441-4460 x1031 |
|
Fax |
(313)-593-5636 |
|
Email |
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|
Web
Site |
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Course
Schedule |
6:10pm-9:00pm Thursday |
|
Office
Hours |
3:00pm-6:00pm Tuesdays; 5pm-6pm Thursdays |
E-Mail Address: williame@umich.edu, the preferred method of contact, and checked daily except when I am attending a conference. Questions explicitly pertinent to the course material and hence of likely interest to the entire class (e.g., how to undertake a certain task in Access®) should be posted on the VLT web site Question Board). More individual questions or issues (e.g., notifying me of a problem such as illness, business travel, or bereavement) should be handled via electronic mail or a message to my daytime telephone number.
Course Description
This course examines the processes and tools used
to design and implement database systems in business. The goal of this course is to provide
adequate technical detail while emphasizing the organizational and
implementation issues relevant to the management of computerized data in an
organizational environment. A class
project involving the design and implementation of a database using a
microcomputer database management system is performed. Topics include concepts of data systems,
conceptual database design, logical database design, physical database design,
database implementation, and data retrieval.
Credit cannot be given for both MIS 321 and CIS 421.
Prerequisite:
MIS 310 or ACC 380.
MIS 321
contributes to the following BBA Desired Student Outcomes:
Have a basic knowledge of economics, accounting finance, marketing, workforce management and organizational behavior, operations management, information systems, statistics and decision analysis, strategy development and implementation and the legal environment of business.
Communicate effectively verbally and in writing. (Writing a required term project and presenting results orally in class.)
Develop effective interpersonal skills that will enable them to work with other individuals and within teams as either leaders or participants. (Homework assignments, plus the term project, will be done in self-selected teams.)
Know how to gather, use, and critically evaluate electronic and other information. (Design of an Access® database to use and analyze business data. Preparing the term paper will require interviewing businesspeople on their data-processing needs within an overall business context.)
Use critical thinking skills to solve real or hypothetical business problems. (Design of relational databases to analyze and mine business data.)
Develop a knowledge and appreciation of ethical principles as applied to business. (Students are introduced to ethical issues and responsible action relative to the design, implementation, and usage of relational databases.)
Course Goals and Objectives
Students in this course will learn about the
design, implementation, use, and management of database management
systems. The course material is divided
into three related components. During
the first part of the course we will focus on concepts of information
management, database management and conceptual database design. We will also
discuss ethical, cultural, and global issues in information management. At the end of this part of the course, you
will understand the advantages and disadvantages of the database approach to
data management, the components of a database system, the evolution of database
systems, and the constructs of the entity-relationship model. You will also be able to draw an entity-relationship
model showing the structure and meaning of the data used in a business
organization.
In the second component of the course, we will
discuss logical and physical database design.
This component of the course will emphasize relational databases. After completing this part of the course, you
will understand the constructs of the relational data model, the principles of
normalization, and techniques for enhancing the retrieval of data from
relational databases such as denormalization and
indexes. You will also be able to design
a relational database.
The third component of the course addresses
database creation and data retrieval.
After completing this part of the course, you will understand how to
write SQL to create databases and retrieve data from relational databases.
Communication skills will be emphasized in this
course. You will verbally present and
defend your ideas during each class session.
A group project will encourage you to practice your written and oral
communication skills.
Skills needed to
work effectively in small teams will also be emphasized in this course. In addition to the group project, you will
work in ad-hoc groups to complete in-class exercises.
Required Course Materials
1.
Hoffer, J.A.,
Prescott, M.B, & McFadden, F.R.
2007. Modern Database Management, 8th Edition.
2.
Adamski, Joseph J.,
& Kathleen T. Finnegan. 2006). New Perspectives Microsoft Office Access
2003. (Introductory
edition).
Be sure to purchase both books during the first
week of the semester. The bookstore will
return books that they do not sell early in the term.
Recommended reference:
Elmasri, Ramez, and Shamkant B. Navathe. 2007. Fundamentals of Database Systems, 5th
ed.
Course
Web Site
Lecture slides and other course materials are
available on the course web site under VLT (Virtual Learning Technology).
Course
Format
The class is designed to provide a forum where
issues related to the design, use, and management of database systems are
discussed. Such a forum requires that
each student be prepared to be an active participant in the discussion.
The course material will be discussed in both
large and small groups. A variety of
small group exercises will occur during class sessions to provide the
opportunity for all participants to actively assimilate the course
material. Instruction related to the
development of team building skills will be provided to ensure that small group
exercises provide an opportunity for all students to learn the course material.
Students will demonstrate their understanding of
the course material in four ways: class
participation, homework assignments, a group project, and exams.
1. Class Participation. Some
of the factors that will be considered in the evaluation of class participation
include presence in class, preparation for class, enthusiastic and thoughtful
participation in class activities, and persistence while working on class activities. Participation that helps other people learn
the class material is especially valued and rewarded. The general description of what constitutes
A, B, C, D, and E work in the class will be applied to the evaluation of class
participation. (Please see the section
of the syllabus titled “Grading” for more information.)
Helpful comments and questions are always
welcome. However, please do not feel
that you need to frequently interrupt the lecture portion of the class sessions
in order to receive a good mark for class participation. If you must miss part or all of a class, it
is important to avoid asking questions about material that has already been
covered once you return to class.
2. Team Homeworks. Homework
will be assigned approximately weekly and is to be done in teams of your
choice.
3. Group Project. The group
project allows you to demonstrate that you have synthesized the materials
covered in the course. The group project
is an opportunity for you to design, build, implement, and document a working
database system using Microsoft Access.
The database system you develop in the course should support a subset of
the activities of an actual organization.
Your system could provide support to a department within a large
business organization, a student organization on campus, a recreational
organization, a home-based business, etc.
You are encouraged to create a database system that might actually be
used by someone (or perhaps enhanced and then used) after you have completed
the course.
We will use a philosophy called “student-managed
groups” in this course. This means that
you have the freedom to select your group members and to determine your group
size. Additionally, you have the freedom
to determine and implement strategies for managing problems that may develop
while working on the project.
Occasionally a student may be “fired” from a
group for a reason such as freeloading.
Any student in this predicament may complete the group project
individually for a maximum of eighty percent of the usual credit.
Groups will present their systems in a written
paper and in a presentation to the class.
The class presentation should highlight those aspects of the system
likely to be of greatest interest to the class. The class presentation should
probably not summarize the entire written report. Additional guidelines for the presentation
will be discussed a few weeks before the presentations are scheduled.
An individual’s grade on the group project will
be a function of the quality of the project, a set of peer reviews, and an
individual project journal. Each project
will be assigned a grade based on the quality of the work. This grade will be the maximum grade that
group members may receive on the project.
A set of peer reviews and an individual project journal will be used to
evaluate each individual’s contribution to the group project. An individual’s grade on the group project
may be lowered if these materials indicate problems with the quantity or
quality of the individual’s work on the project.
Peer
Reviews. Each member of the group will write a peer
review paper in which he or she describes and evaluates the contribution of
each member of the project group.
Individual
Project Journals. Each member of the group will keep an
individual project journal throughout the course. The following are guidelines for the project
journal.
1.
Make a
journal entry whenever you work on the project individually or in the
group. What was accomplished? What did you do? What did your teammates do?
2.
At least
once a week, make an entry reflecting on your experience working on the
project. What is going well? What is not going well? What do you like about the project? What do you dislike? How might you participate more effectively as
a member of the group?
3.
At least
once a week, make an entry about a technical problem that your group
faced. What was the nature of the
problem? What process was used to solve
the problem? What was the solution? These entries will probably address design
problems in the early stages of the project and system problems in the later
stages of the project? Your objective in
these entries is to demonstrate that you have an excellent understanding of the
technical details of your group’s project work.
4.
Please be
sure to date each journal entry.
5.
The
individual journal may be typed or handwritten (if your handwriting is easy to
read).
4.
Examinations. There will be two examinations, a midterm and a
final. The examinations will consist of
short-answer essay questions and problems.
I will announce examination coverage before each examination and post a
review-sheet guideline on VLT.
Grading
Your performance will be evaluated in four
areas: class participation, homeworks, the group project, and the examinations.
|
Class Participation |
5% |
|
Homeworks |
15% |
|
Group Project |
25% |
|
Midterm Examination |
25% |
|
Final Examination |
30% |
The letter grading system (A, B, C, D, E) used in
the
A
= Excellent work. (Assigned work is
clearly presented, thoughtful, insightful, and creative. The student has demonstrated that the course
material has been thoroughly learned.
The student has demonstrated the creative application of the course
material to novel situations.)
B
= Good work. (Assigned work is clearly
presented and thoughtful. The student
has clearly demonstrated that the course material has been learned.)
C
= Acceptable work. (Assigned work is
completed and course standards are met.
The student has clearly demonstrated that much of the course material
has been learned.)
D
= Marginally acceptable work. (Most of the
assigned work is completed in a way that meets the course standards or all of
the assigned work is completed in a way that almost meets the course
standards. The student has clearly
demonstrated that some of the course material has been learned.)
E
= Unacceptable work. (The student has
not clearly demonstrated that the course material has been learned.)
Grades of + and - may be used to recognize
performance slightly different than these interpretations.
All of your work in this course will be compared
against an absolute standard. Your work
will in no way be compared to that of your peers when grades are assigned. The objective of this approach is to
encourage all students to concentrate on both their individual learning and the
learning of their classmates.
Course Administration
Accommodations
for Students with Disabilities. The University will make reasonable
accommodations for persons with documented disabilities. Students need to register with Disability
Resource Services every semester they are taking classes. DRS is located in Counseling and Support
Services, 2157
Course
Attendance. An underlying assumption of this course is
that students will attend and actively participate in all classes. Please plan to arrive on time and remain in
class until the end of the class session.
Late
Assignments. A ten percent penalty will be imposed for
every day that the group project is late.
Group projects turned in more than a week late will receive no
credit. I retain the right to make
ad-hoc adjustments to these rules in the face of circumstances I deem
sufficiently extenuating.
Examination Procedures. Students
should plan to remain in the classroom until they have completed their
examinations. Students who arrive late
will be permitted to take the examination provided
no one has completed the examination and left the examination room. However, such a student will be given no
extra time. Students should refrain from
communicating with other people during the examination. Electronic devices (e.g., cellular phones,
calculators) known to be useful for illicit collaboration during examinations
must be inaccessible during examinations.
Additional procedures (e.g., seat assignments) may be added at any time
in response to perceived threats to the integrity of the examinations.
Make-Up Examinations. If a student
is unable to take the midterm examination because of a severe medical problem,
he or she should submit documentation of the problem. If the medical documentation is accepted, a
comprehensive make-up examination will be offered immediately following the
second examination. The comprehensive
make-up examination will include items from all of the course material. There is no guarantee that the difficulty of
the make-up examination will be identical to the difficulty of the first
examination.
If a student is unable to take the final
examination because of a severe medical problem, he or she should submit
documentation of the problem. If the
medical documentation is accepted, the student will be offered the opportunity
to take an “X” in the course. A make-up
examination will be offered at a time mutually convenient to the professor and
the student, subject to the University proviso that “X” grades must be resolved
quickly. There is no guarantee that the
difficulty of the make-up examination will be identical to the difficulty of
the final examination.
Statement of Academic Integrity. The
Grade Changes. Once grades are submitted to
the registrar, a grade change is permitted only to correct an error in
computing or recording the grade. There
are no opportunities to redo work or to do extra work in order to receive a
higher grade. Also, a student’s work
cannot be reevaluated after the grades for the class have been submitted.
A great deal of
care is taken in calculating final grades.
Mistakes are, therefore, very rare.
However, if you believe a mistake may have been made, please request
that the calculation of your final grade be rechecked. Please do not request a grade change for any
other reason. Please also recognize that
certain elements of the final grade in any course are subjective. It is normal to believe that your course
performance is better than or worse than your instructor’s evaluation of your
work.
Cancelled
Classes. The university may occasionally close because
of inclement weather. If a class session
is cancelled because of a university closure, all assignments, activities, and
examinations will be postponed until the next regular meeting of the class. The University of Michigan-Dearborn maintains
an “Inclement Weather Campus Closure Information Line” at 313-436-9157.
Class
Schedule and Assignments
The readings listed for each class should be
completed prior to the beginning of that class session. Homeworks must be
completed by the beginning of class on the due date.
|
Class |
Topic |
|
Themes |
|
Class 1 (January 11) |
Introduction to the course. |
H – Chapter 1 |
Importance of databases. |
|
Class 2 (January 18) |
Introduction to database systems. |
H – Chapter 2 A – Tutorial 1 |
Database development: the people and the process. |
|
Class 3 (January 25) |
Entity-relationship model. |
H – Chapter 3 A – Tutorial 2 |
Terminology of E-R model. Basic concepts. |
|
Class 4 (February 1) |
E-R model continued |
H – Chapter 3 continued A – Tutorial 3 |
Details and examples of relationships. |
|
Class 5 (February 8) |
Enhanced E-R model. |
H – Chapter 4 |
Business rules; supertypes
& subtypes |
|
Class 6 (February 15) |
Logical design and the relational model. |
H – Chapter 5 A – Tutorial 4 |
The basics of the relational model. |
|
Class 7 (February 22) |
Review. |
|
Review for midterm. |
|
Class 8 (March 8) |
Midterm examination |
|
|
|
Class 9 (March 15) |
Logical design and the relational model
continued. |
H – Chapter 5 continued, plus Appendix B A – Tutorial 5 |
Relations and normalization. |
|
Class 10 (March 22) |
Physical design. |
H – Chapter 6 A - Tutorial 6 |
Physical design, time vs. space, denormalization. |
|
Class 11 (March 29) |
Database creation. Data retrieval. |
H – Chapter 7 A - Tutorial 7 |
Introduction to SQL. |
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Class 12 (April 5) |
Database creation. Data retrieval. |
H – Chapter 7 |
Continuation of SQL. |
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Class 13 (April 12) |
Project workshop. |
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Class 14 (April 19) |
Project presentations. Review. |
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Group Project due. Peer Reviews due. Project Journals due. |
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(April 26) |
Final examination |
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Note:
H = Hoffer, Prescott, and McFadden; A = Adamski and Finnegan.