A database-driven website

4-week project, November 24 to December 19, 2003.

Project description

This project is intended for students who have taken one of the introductory courses in databases ("Databasesystemer" or "Introduction to databases"). Its aim is to build a substantial application with a DBMS as the key component, using web technologies to supply a multi-user interface.

NB. If you are more interested in programming or web technology aspects than in database aspects, you might be more interested in one of these projects.

Project groups are free to decide what kind of application they would like to build, and what software they wish to base the application on. However, it should meet some core requirements:

Optionally, project groups may look at other aspects, e.g.

Groups and project agreements

Groups should have 3 or 4 members. In case you need people for your group, you may use the newsgroup it-c.courses.IDBI to advertise or look for other students to do the project with. It is the responsibility of each group to formulate a suggestion for a project agreement, e-mail it to the teacher for preliminary approval well in time, and enter the final agreement in the UCS project database no later than Monday Nov 17.

What is expected from you

Prerequisites

The students doing the project should have taken an introductory course in databases and have experience corresponding to the Introductory Programming course. Experience with web programming is not a prerequisite. There will be a lecture telling you what you need to implement the interface using Java Servlets. You may also look at the following lecture slides: [
HTML], [PHP] or [Java Servlets], database connectivity in [MySQL/PHP] or [Oracle/Java].

To pass the project, the group should successfully implement a database-driven website meeting the core requirements, document its work in a report handed in no later than December 19, 2003, and satisfactorily defend the project at the exam.

The report

The report may be in Danish or English. The maximum length of the report is 10 pages plus 5 pages per person in the group (11 pt font or larger). There is also the possibility to add appendices, which will be read at the discretion of the examiners to clarify things in the report. The report must be a self-contained description of the project and the group's solutions, and describe the decisions made and the thoughts behind them. The descriptions, motivations, etc. in the report will be the main parameter in the evaluation of the project. The report must contain:

Examination

There will be an oral exam with external censorship in late January 2004. The project participants will be individually graded according to the 13-scale.

Schedule

The teaching will be in the form of:

Teacher

Rasmus Pagh
Office: 1.23
Email: pagh@itu.dk