Learning Outcomes At the end of the course the students should be able to:
describe the components of a database system and give examples of their use;
describe the differences between relational and semi-structured data models;
explain and demonstrate the concepts of entity integrity constraint and referential integrity constraint;
apply queries, query optimisations and functional dependencies in relational databases;
describe properties of normal forms and explain the impact of normalisation on the efficiency of database operations;
describe database security and integrity issues and their importance in database design; and
explain the concepts of concurrency control and recovery mechanisms in databases.
Course Contents Information Management Concepts. Information storage & retrieval. Information management applications. Information capture and representation. Analysis and indexing – search, retrieval, information privacy. Integrity and security. Scalability, Efficiency and Effectiveness. Introduction to database systems. Components of database systems. DBMS functions. Database architecture and data independence. Database query language. Conceptual models. Relational data models. Semi-structured data models. Relational theory and languages. Database Design. Database security and integrity. Introduction to query processing and optimisation. Introduction to concurrency and recovery.
Lab work: Practical exercise on information representation, capture, storage and retrieval. Learn how to analyse data and index for easy searching and indexing. Practical on creating database files and models. How to create and use various database designs. How to query the created database. Methods of concurrency and recovery in database. Learn how to secure the database.
