CMSC461 Administrivia

Prerequisites

CMSC 341 or permission of instructor.

UMBC Catalog

Database management and the different data models currently used to structure the logical view of the database: relational, hierarchical, and network. Implementation techniques including file organization, query processing, concurrency control, recovery, integrity and security.

Textbook

Fundamentals of Database Systems, Elmasri and Navathe, Benjamin Cummings. Additional readings in the form of papers may be required.

Grading Policy

Grades will be assigned on the basis of accumulated points. A tentative weighting is as follows:
• Two mid-term exams 25%
• Final examination 25%
• Homework assignments and projects 50%

Incompletes

As per University policy, incomplete will be granted only under extraordinary circumstances; students who are enrolled after the last day to drop a class should be prepared to receive a grade of A-F.

Homeworks

There will be five or six homeworks plus a special database design case study.

Late Policy

Homeworks will be due at the beginning of the class unless otherwise specified. Homeworks may not be accepted after the beginning of the next class. This will allow timely discussion of homework solutions in the class. Homeworks are expected to be worked on individually. Collaboration in any form will not be tolerated.

Examination Policy

Exams are closed book and fixed duration. Make-up exams will only be given when a student is prevented from taking the exam due to unforeseen circumstances (e.g., sickness), and formal proof will be required to prove the prevailing circumstance.

Academic Honesty

Cheating in any form will not be tolerated. You may discuss programming assignments with anyone. However, any help you receive must be documented. At the beginning of your program, you must include a comment indicating the sources you used while working on it (excluding course staff and text), and the type of help you received from them. If you received no help, say so. Failure to include this comment at the top of your program will result in your program being returned ungraded.

Newsgroup

There will be a local newsgroup named umbc.course.cs461 for this course. We will post messages to this newsgroup and assume that you will read them. You should also feel free to post your own messages to this newsgroup if you feel you have something that would be useful and appropriate to share with the rest of the class. If you do not know how to read news, you should find out by reading the man page for the rn command.