This Online Database Design and Management Course
 is Different in Many Ways

The heart of the course is a term-long database design on a topic each student chooses.  All work will be posted in cyberspace available for inspection by the prof and all students taking the class (usually around 12). This will give all students a large variety of good and bad examples of database design from which to learn.  Part of the learning is from seeing (and helping) a bad design improve. In fact, as a significant part of their grade, students are required to review the progress on the databases of other students. Because each student's database topic is unique, the issue of cheating is solved. Students are encouraged to get as much help from one another as possible and to offer the same.  You probably are not concerned with pedagogical (the study of teaching) theory, but it says that "you learn the most that which you teach!"

This course will probably be different because all students will share their work with fellow classmates. Assignments will NOT be a dialog between student and teacher.  Rather they will be the basis for class discussion that will take place on a Bulletin (Message) Board. The best way to learn database design is to study many different database designs. Learning from the good ideas of others that you intend to use yourself and also from the bad, errors to avoid.  Business has been complaining that college graduates have not learned to work in teams.  That will NOT be true of this course!

Real database designers design for other people, their clients.  Thus, there is someone inspecting their handiwork who says "this will work and that won't."  For the database you design in class, you usually don't have a real client.  The next best this is to have several of your fellow classmates act as your clients. 

Students, as well as the professor, will help each other to improve the data base designs.    Each student will submit his/her design iteratively, as more and more is learned about database design from the text and web site selections.  Available textbook and web sites on database design have an abundance of theory and a dearth of examples.  Students will learn about database design by seeing many example designs of students and seeing what is admirable and lacking about each.  They will learn from the other students' and professor's directed praise and from constructive criticism both of their own project and other students projects.  Students, as well as the prof,  will create FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) and answers. All work will be posted on the Bulletin Board.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Sam Leveinson,  who said

 "You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can't possibly live long enough to make them all yourself." 

Course grades will be based upon each student's

Plan to spend 8 or more hours each week on course material.  This is about the same you would spend in a classroom course considering:

Plan to log on 4 or more times per week.  

Two quizzes may be given, including one at the end of the term (final?).  They are open book, open notes, open Internet.  The main purpose of quizzes is for the student to identify, mostly for themselves,  how well they have mastered the material.  These quizzes in total will count 15% of the grade.

Assignments have been constructed so that they will appeal to different learning styles - some will like some and not others.  Permitting each student to select her/his own topic for the term long project lets students work on something that is personally relevant to them. Potentially the database topic selected could be something useful to the student at work.  Database design and management is a highly sought after skill, so employed students might be able to produce a prototype of a database needed by their employer.  Full-time students could find a relative or friend who operates a small business who would appreciate an Access database.  This would provide an excellent source of feedback.

This course teaches database design, not programming and not Microsoft Access.  The prerequisite is Union County College's CIS 116 (Access) or CIS101, Introduction to Computers, which has a approximately 3 week module on Access.  Students are not expected to be Access experts, however, they are expected to be familiar with the basic menus and facilities of Access, which is all that is used in the class.

Online classes require as much (some say more) work as face to face.  They require much more self discipline. Without fixed times that you have to "be in class" there can be a tendency to put it off the task so much that it just doesn't get done.  Schedule your study time just like coming to class time.  Don't fall behind!

You will work hard in this course.  And you will master database design.

Now it is your turn.  Please tell me about you.