COSC 304 Introduction to Database Systems

Fall (Winter Term 1) 2009 - University of British Columbia Okanagan

Overview

The COSC 304 course was successful this semester (instructor rating: 4.78 out of 5). The course content was nearly identical from prior years except some content on normalization and other less important content was dropped. An attempt was made to cover object-relational mapping, but that was a mistake and not tested.

The course had 9 students. The course involved the lab assignments, two midterm exams, a final exam, and a major project. The marks were better than the previous year and on par with the years before that. The project was to build an online auction site, MyBay, although only one of the four groups did that.

On-line Resources

• Syllabus

Student Performance

Of the 9 registered students who started the course, all got a C or above with one withdraw. The average GPA was 3.37. Charts showing the mark breakdown are below.

Comments

This class is well-tuned. The labs went well. The programming labs and project were very interesting to most students.

Strengths of the Course

• "Excellent prof ; fun environment ; useful, condensed notes ; CANDY!"
  


• "Candy ; It was also my favorite class, project was great."
  


• "Important part of my academic experience ; Notes were very well done and expectation made clear"
  

Weakness of the Course

• "Labs varied wildly in difficulty"
  

Most Enjoyable Part of the Course

• "Good teacher ; learning about its application and usefulness"
  


• "Lectures were actually engaging"