Topic outline

  • Course Textbook: (Required Reading)

    Jeffrey D. Ullman and Jennifer Widom. A First Course in Database Systems, Third Edition, Pearson Education Limited 2014. 

    Aalto University Library has an e-book, using the Proquest platform, which can be read by at most 10 students simultaneously. The textbook is required reading and we plan to follow the book chapters each week, so please read the sections assigned in advance. To access it choose Aalto University as the institution via "Shibboleth login".

    Note: Students are reminded that after using the "Read online" functionality, it is best to leave that screen e.g. via the "more" link under the book information on the left, so as to free the copy for the next reader - just closing the tab might make others wait out a timeout period.

    If you do not need more than 26 pages on any particular day, avoid requesting a "Full download" (which basically means 7-days loan with the help of an external reader software - good for temporary offline use), open the book in the Online reader and use the "Print PDF" button (little printer image) to extract the desired pages as PDF. A PDF obtained that way will NOT expire in 7 days, in contrary to the "Full download". Then leaving the reader (as told above) allows others to access the copy of the book. 

    Software:
    SQLiteStudio: Create, Edit, Browse SQLite Databases [Can be used to practice A+ SQL exercises]
    SQLiteStudio can be downloaded for Mac, Windows and Linux (open source)

    DBSchema: Visual Database Designer & GUI Tool [Not required to complete the course]
    DbSchema can be downloaded for Mac, Windows and Linux for free and evaluated for 15 days.
    DBSchema software UI

    Please note DBSchema is not required for this course. All exercises and projects can be done without using this tool, however we feel it maybe helpful to learn the course concepts and try creating UML models and databases more easily. We are currently checking to see if Aalto University can provide an academic license for students to use this software at a discounted fee or at no charge.