Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Objectives At the completion of this subject students should be able to understand the features of databases in a commercial environment; carry out retrieval and update on a relational database using SQL; implement integrity features on a database; tune a database for optimum performance; and understand possible future directions of database technology.
Synopsis Structures and techniques underlying databases: file organisations, data structures, index structures. The database concept: data sharing, related data, data independence, data integrity, data dictionary. Data models: hierarchical, network, relational. Relational databases: relational algebra, relational calculus, referential and entity integrity, SQL data definition, creating and amending tables and rows, data manipulation.
Assessment Examination (2 hours): 60% + Practical work: 40%