COSC 304 Introduction to Database Systems

Fall (Winter Term 1) 2007 - University of British Columbia Okanagan

Overview

The COSC 304 course was successful this semester (instructor rating: 4.89 out of 5). The course content was unchanged from the previous year, except that all 2 hour labs were re-written. Labs now contain a practice part and an assignment part. The assignment part is intended to be mostly done in lab, and there is little formal lab instruction. Each lab took 1 week and closely followed the lectures.

The course had 11 students. The course involved the lab assignments, two midterm exams, a final exam, and a major project. The marks were higher than the previous year. The project was to build an online auction like EBay called MyBay. Course workload was slightly reduced due to the shortening of the labs to help deal with the co-offering of COSC 310 Software Engineering.

The class was in Science 396 from 10:30-11:30 a.m. Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays with a 2 hour lab on Mondays from 11:30 to 1:30 p.m.

On-line Resources

• Syllabus

Student Performance

Of the 11 registered students who started the course, all got a C or above. The average GPA was 3.52. This significantly improved GPA reflects the universal student engagement (everyone attended class) and the positive impact of the shortened and more focused labs. Charts showing the mark breakdown are below.

Comments

This class is well-tuned. Some material may need to be cut or edited (specifically the XML), but overall there are few changes expected in the future. The labs and the lab instructor were very good. The programming labs and project were very interesting to most students.

Strengths of the Course

• "Excellent presentations. Best instruction I have received so far at UBC-O!"
  


• "The assignments and the lecture slides were very straightforward and understandable which helped to learn the material very easily. The teacher's teaching method and demeanor kept us interested and wanting to learn more."
  


• "Lectures followed labs closely ; Lab instructor very helpful ; Overall very happy with what I have learned."
  


• "Great pace. Excellent "textbook", very clear and good study. In-class examples."
  

Weakness of the Course

• "Exams [are] too long, though extra time given to complete exams [was] appreciated. Assignment, lab, project workload [was] way too high. [It] does not leave any time for any other courses. Some of the labs could be a little clearer (normalization)."
  

Most Enjoyable Part of the Course

• "Teacher's lecture, assignment, and the project! (albeit challenging, somewhat) and being in class and learning! :-)"
  


• "Learned whole range of database use (design, query, common implementation)"
  


• "Almost everything. Thanks for teaching me."