Geog 495 Special Topic: GIS
Database Design /Autumn 2005
Instructor: Julie Hwang
(Smith 303A)
Office hour: Wed 2:30-4:30 or
e-mail to shwang5@u.washington.edu for appointment
Course Overview
Geog 495 introduces
fundamental concepts of databases with GIS applications. The course will serve
as paving the way for understanding principles behind spatial databases and
developing skills for GIS database design. The course is designed for those who
have no experience in database design or GIS database design. However, some GIS
knowledge (including mapping) is assumed throughout the course, thus students
will find it useful to refer back to prerequisite courses (e.g., Geog 360:
principles of cartography; Geog460: GIS analysis) or its equivalents.
The goal of this course is to
let students design spatial databases for solving real-world problems. Students
are expected to complete a prototype project defined *by themselves*. Every two
weeks (after 4th week) students should submit reports on sequential DB design
phases, from problem description to implementation. We meet MTWF for lectures
(which includes pop quiz or/and group discussion usually announced/assigned a
week ahead of events), and meet for lab exercise on Thursday. The lab is
designed for students to practice software use for database design, such as
Visio, Microsoft Access, and ArcCatalog. We have two exams scheduled at the end
of Oct/November.
Texts
·
[SC] Shekhar and
Chawla, 2002, Spatial Databases: A Tour, 1st edition, Prentice Hall
·
[RC] Rob and
Coronel, 2004, Database Systems: Design, Implementation and Management, 6th Edition,
Course Technology
Student
online companion: www.course.com/downloads/mis/robcoronel/index.cfm
provides
presentation files, useful website, video tutorial, and interactive test
Learning Objectives
·
Understand
database concepts
·
Understand the
principles of relational database applied to geographic concepts
·
Understand how
geographic concepts are represented in the computerized form
·
Learn how to
implement database design using Entity-Relationship Modeling and Unified
Modeling Language (UML)
Course grading
Students’ work will be mainly
graded on the basis of two exams (theory) and an individual project (practice).
Exams are designed to check to see if students understood concepts essential
for a successful database design. An active participation in quiz and
discussion will help reinforce their learning (usually announced one week
before the event; students who miss quiz/discussion should write 3-4 page essay
by the arrangement of an instructor, which is much more time-consuming). The
project is designed for students to have an experience in developing databases
for prototype problems (OK to use fictitious data, you can start from
employment database examples that can be easily found in most of database
texts, but it should involve “spatial” databases). These are the breakdown of
course grading:
|
|
Weight |
Important
date |
|
Project |
40% |
See below |
|
Exam |
40% |
E1: 10/28; E2: 11/22 |
|
Quiz/Discussion |
20% |
TBA |
Project
The project is composed of
five milestones that follow database design steps, namely problem description,
DB conceptual design, DB logical design, DB population, and implementation. You
are expected to submit your work for each section every two weeks on average.
Presentations for the project are scheduled on the last week of the quarter,
and the written report of final version of the project is due on the last day
of the quarter (December 9th).
#: Description Weight Due
P1: Proposal (scenario) 7.5pts 10/21 Fri 5:00pm
P2: DB Conceptual design
(ERD, UML) 15pts 11/4 Fri 5:00pm
P3: DB Logical design (Normalization) 15pts 11/18 Fri 5:00pm
P4: DB Population & implementation 7.5pts 12/2 Fri 5:00pm
P5: Written report of final
version 45pts 12/9 Fri 5:00pm
10pts
for doing more than the minimum
Handouts which give full
descriptions of the project will be circulated on October 6th,
Thursday. Labs on Thursday can be thought of as software tutorial and helpdesk
for doing projects.
Tentative Course Outlines
|
Wk |
Topics |
|
Lab (TH) |
Assignments |
|
Part I. Database fundamentals |
||||
|
1 |
*Course overview Database models: go to Week 2 Database design: go to Week 3,4,5 |
RC1 RC2 |
|
|
|
2 |
RC3 RC11 |
Quiz1 |
||
|
3 |
Conceptual design |
RC4 |
|
Exercise1 (ERD) |
|
4 |
RCB; OMG FS4,6 |
|
P1 |
|
|
5 |
Logical design: Normalization Midterm exam |
RC5 RC6 |
Access |
E1 (10/28) |
|
6 |
SQL summary: SQL syntax |
RC6 RC6 |
|
Exercise2 (SQL) |
|
Part II. Spatial databases |
||||
|
7 |
SC1; RSV1 |
ODBC (self-taught) |
P2 (Wed) |
|
|
8 GIS VIEW |
Spatial object as model of reality Spatial objects and database model |
Project support |
P3 |
|
|
9 DBMS VIEW |
Spatial concepts and data models Spatial query language (whenever time allows) |
SC2 SC3 |
Project support |
|
|
Part III. Implementing GIS database design |
||||
|
10 |
Final exam Formalization of spatial concepts/Data modeling for GIS (Tue, Wed) Case studies of object-oriented database design (Fri) |
AZ |
Project support |
E2 (11/28) P4 |
|
11 |
Project presentations |
|
|
P5 |
Geog 495 is not intended to
give a full coverage of databases. For example, many texts cover (e.g., EN or
SC in References) physical design (i.e., how efficiently data model can be
stored in computerized format, such as query processing, efficient spatial
indexing), but this course is mainly focused on conceptual & logical design
with GIS applications in mind. In other words, if you are interested in
developing skills for mapping reality into data model in databases (mainly
relational database), this is the course for you.
References
Database in general
·
[EN] Elmasri and
Navathe, 2004, Fundamentals of Database Systems, 4th edition, Addison-Wesley
·
Kroenke, 2004,
Database concepts, 2nd edition, Prentice Hall
·
Peterson, 2002,
Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Databases,
·
[OMG] OMG, 1997,
UML Summary version 1.1
·
[FS] Fowler M,
Scott K, 1999, UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling
Language, 2nd Edition, Addison-Wesley Professional
·
UML Notation 2.0 http://www.omg.org/technology/documents/formal/uml.htm
Spatial databases
·
[RSV] Riquax,
Scholl, and Voisard, 2001, Spatial Databases: With Application to GIS, 2nd
edition, Morgan Kaufmann
·
[AZ] Arctur D and Zeiler M, 2004, Designing Geodatabases: Case Studies
in GIS Data Modeling. ESRI Press
·
[IJGIS] Egenhofer MJ, Glasgow J, Gunther O, Herring JR, and Peuquet DJ,
1999, Progress in computational methods for representing geographical concepts,
International Journal of Geographical Information Science 13(8): 775-796
·
[NCGIA] NCGIA Core Curriculum in GIScience Unit #10 in 1990Version
Unit, go to http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/giscc/ for 2000
version
·
ArcGIS 9.1 Desktop Help\ go to Building a geodatabase in the left tab
http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.1/index.cfm?TopicName=welcome