Database Use and Design (Spring 2024)

Abstract

In this course, students learn to design and build a database and to make use of databases in business applications.

Description

In the era of the data revolution, data are everywhere and have become a key resource for many organizations. Although the abundance of data creates new possibilities for organizations, harnessing many of these possibilities requires foundational skills in analyzing data structures, designing and building databases of various types, and designing and building programmes that make use of databases. 

This course is designed to help students acquire these foundational skills. While the course will emphasize business informatics skills such as conceptualizing organizational data structures through entity-relationship models, the students will also have the opportunity to expand technical skills acquired in the Introduction to Programming by building database-enabled business applications. The students will also learn about contemporary database design issues such as cybersecurity and architecture of database-enabled cloud-based applications. 

Formal prerequisites

Python programming is a prerequisite.

This course is part of the second semester in the bachelor's degree in Global Business Informatics.

Intended learning outcomes

After the course, the student should be able to:

• Explain the difference between the relational and non-relational data models for various use cases
• Describe the architecture and components of a database system
• Design an ER model and a relational model for a concrete use case
• Define SQL queries in a concrete use cases
• Design and build a database-based program
• Design database architecture using cybersecurity best practices
• - Identify and evaluate how emerging technologies (e.g., IoT) can be integrated into databases and dataflows to help achieve sustainable development goals

Ordinary exam

Exam type:
D: Submission of written work with following oral, External (7-point scale)
Exam variation:
D2G: Submission for groups with following oral exam supplemented by the submission. Shared responsibility for the report.