Databases

Presentation

The Curricular Unit (UC) of Databases belongs to the fundamental core of UCs of the Informatics Engineering course. Information storage is fundamental in any organization and it is in this UC that Students learn how to design and implement relational databases and to manipulate their information in order to obtain treated and organized information in its classical form using the SQL language.

This UC is taught in the 2nd year together with the UCs of Software Engineering, Analysis and Design of Systems and Programming Languages ¿¿I  and the students develop a small joint project that integrates knowledge of the four mentioned UCs, allowing the student to understand the complete dynamics of a Small computer project.

Programme

IT Engineering

Level of Qualification|Semesters|ECTS

| Semestral | 6

Year | Type of course unit | Language

2 |Mandatory |Português

Code

ULP452-1792

Recommended complementary curricular units

Discrete Mathematics for sets notions.

Professional Internship

Não

Syllabus

1. Empirical notion of database (DB). Historical models and relational model. BD's design principles. Real Database Management Systems (DBMS): independence of database design.

2. Relational theory. Relations and Attributes. Functional and multivalue dependencies. Keys of Relationship. Scheme of the relationship. Entity-Relationship Diagrams. Cardinality 1: 1, 1: N and N: N ratios

3. Data redundancy and inconsistency. Elimination of redundancy associated with functional dependencies and multivalue dependencies. Normal forms. Data normalization, practical application up to the 3rd Normal Form.

4. The DML and DDL components of SQL.

5. Distributed Databases.

Objectives

This course aims to:

Develop conceptual models of database representation. Understand the conversion of logical models to physical models of Relational Databases (BD-R);

Create and change the structure of a BD-R using SQL language syntax;

Manipulate BD-R existing data using SQL language syntax;

Understand the denormalization of an existing BD-R based on performance arguments.

The Database discipline aims to provide students with the necessary skills to be able to design and build, use and manage relational databases.
In addition to these technical skills the student should also be able to use administration tools associated with the Database Management System (DBMS).

Teaching methodologies and assessment

The lectures are of presentation and explanation of the syllabus and the theoretical presentation always accompanied by illustrative examples. Laboratory practice classes are taught in computer labs and correspond to the execution of practical exercises in database development and interrogation software. The assessment is continuous, based on four evaluation components: 2 frequencies (one practice - 35% during the course of classes, and another theoretical - 30% during the evaluation period); 1 component of attendance and participation in class (10%) and a work that should be prepared out of class and that will be evaluated by the delivery of a report and an oral presentation made in the last class - 25%.

The appeal exam consists of a written test that corresponds to 75% of the grade and the other 25% concerning the work that must be presented during the time to which the exam corresponds.

References

• Damas, Luís (2017). SQL, 14ª edição.FCA

• Gouveia, Feliz (2014). Fundamentos de Base de Dados, FCA.

Office Hours