Design and Use of Database Systems

The course covers the upper levels of a database management system (DBMS), i.e. the conceptual and external or view levels. Specifically, the course provides students with an overview of databases; database history; the different conceptual models used to design a database, in particular the Entity-Relationship (E-R) model; the translation from the E-R to the Relational Model; Functional Dependencies and Normalization; the Relational Model; the Structured Query Language (SQL) to access and manipulate databases, the Query-By-Example language (QBE), Views and Constraints; Relational Algebra; the design and development of web applications to interface with databases using e.g., python, PHP, JDBC.