Information Architecture (Course and Lab)

The title of this course can, and should, be understood in a twofold way. On the conceptual level, mastering the rapidly growing volume and complexity of information in industry, science, and society requires improved modelling and design methodologies. On the implementation level, existing storage, retrieval, and delivery techniques have to be revisited and new ones have to be designed in order to meet the challenges formulated conceptually. While these issues largely fall into the fields of databases, information retrieval, and Internet technology, the questions arising clearly transcend these fields and call for interdisciplinary research on more efficient and effective methods.

The course, therefore, starts with an overview of existing knowledge in the core fields and then covers selected themes in more depth. Among the candidate themes are non-standard applications such as spatio-temporal databases and sensor networks, distributed databases, XML databases, multimedia databases, streams, raster databases, storage structures, and query optimization. Goal is to make students familiar with the state of the art in Web-enabled information systems so that they will be successful database/Internet professionals in IT industry and also have a sound knowledge base to specialize towards a scientific career in the field.

The course is subdivided into lecture (5 credit points) and lab (4 credit points). The lecture is prerequisite to the (optional) lab). Due to this reorganization, the essay which formerly was part of the course has been dropped; there will only be homework assignments to reinforce material taught in lecture.

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Slides

• Introduction

• Part I: [ Disk storage | DB storage | Indexing | Spatial indexing | Query processing | Sorting | Query Evaluation I | Query Evaluation II | Query Optimization ]

• Part II: [ OLAP I | II | III | Deductive Databases | XML Databases | Parallel Databases | Peer-to-Peer | Array Databases ]

• Wrap-up

Assignments

Assignments are sent out by the teaching assistant weekly. Answers have to be handed in to the teaching assistant one week after by email as PDF or plain ASCII file.

Sample Exam

Information Architecture Lab

In this lab, projects are carried out providing hands-on experiences with state-of-the-art array database technology, including work on scientific applications embedded in international collaborations and our standardization work. It can be taken standalone, although a combination with the Information Architectures course makes sense.

Beginning of the semester students will choose a project. Depending on the topic, teaming is possible and sometimes recommended. Over the semester the project will be carried out, starting with a project plan (including a time plan). Regular progress meetings and exchange With close interaction and support the implementation will be performed, leading to a final presentation and handover by semester end. Our group collaborates with research labs (NASA, U Bologna, NCAR, ...) and industry (ERDAS, BAE Systems, EOX, ...) worldwide, and lab students will get actively involved and these people's visibility. Submission of a peer-reviewed publication may mean a grade point bonus (see startup lecture for details) and a conference trip.

Work will center around the open-source rasdaman array DBMS local copy of documentation).

In the first lecture unit project topics will be presented, giving ample opportunity to discuss all your questions.

Presentation

Presentations will be evaluated according to the following criteria (in no particular order):

• Presentation skills (50%)
  • Duration and timing (homogeneous timing: not slow start nor rush at end)
  • Slides presentation (complete info, font size, structure, quality of graphics and figures, science ethics, English)
  • Didactic clarity (are the contents understandable?)
  • Liveliness, presence (facing audience, body language, etc)
• Quality (50%)
  • Embedding and penetration (understanding of the topics)
  • Exhaustiveness (are all topics covered? Omissions? )

Literature

• Raghu Ramakrishnan, Johannes Gehrke: Database management systems. McGraw-Hill, 2003.
  DBWA course database textbook.
• Hector Garcia-Molina, Jeff Ullman, and Jennifer Widom: Database System Implementation. Prentice Hall, 2000.
  There is a newer, comprehensive book by the same authors: Database Systems: The Complete Book.

Finally, you may also want to take a look at the literature list of my Database and Web Applications course.

More...

This section contains some unordered, incomplete bits and pieces.

• XML databases: Well, there is eXist, MarkLogic, and several more.