Catalog Courses
CIS 4301 Information and Database Systems 1
Credits: 3; Prereq: CIS 3020 or CIS 3023 and COT 3100.
The first part of a two-course sequence which studies the essential concepts, principles,
and techniques of modern database systems. Topics include modeling and querying of data using
conceptual data models as well as the development of a database application.
COP 4720 Information and Database Systems 2
Credits: 3; Prereq: CIS 4301 and COP 3530.
Part two of a two-course sequence. Provides students with a basic understanding of the internals of a
modern database system. Topics covered include data storage, indexing, query processing, as well
as advanced concepts such as database tuning, alternate data models, and emerging applications.
CAP 5510 Bioinformatics
Credits: 3; Prereq: CIS 3020 or equivalent.
Basic concepts of molecular biology and computer science. Sequence comparison and assembly,
physical mapping of DNA, phylogenetic trees, genome rearrangements, gene identification,
biomolecular cryptology, and molecular structure prediction.
COP 5725 Database Management Systems
Credits: 3; Prereq: COP 3530, 4600, or equivalent.
An introduction to systems and procedures for managing large computerized databases.
COP 6726 Database System Implementation
Credits: 3; Prereq: COP 4600 and 4720 or 5725.
DBMS architecture, query processing and optimization, transaction processing, index structures, parallel
query processing, object-oriented and object-relational databases, and related topics.
An introduction to systems and procedures for managing large computerized databases.
COP 6755 Distributed Database Systems
Credits: 3; Prereq: COP 5615, 5725, and a course in computer networks.
Distributed database systems including the areas of distributed database design,
resource allocation, access plan selection, and transaction management.
Special Topic Courses
CIS 6930 Approximate Query Processing
Credits: 3; Instructor: Dr. Alin Dobra
Approximate Query Processing is a graduate course geared toward Ph.D level students. The goal of
the class is to expose students to the topic of approximation theory and to develop research skills like:
Make oral presentations, Critical thinking, Paper writing, Conducting research. In the course we will
explore analysis technique to design and analyze approximation schemes such as histograms, wavelets,
sampling and sketches. While the class has a database motivation, the material should be useful for
any student that is conducting/planning to conduct research that involves approximations.
CIS 6930 Semantic Data Integration
Credits: 3; Instructor: Dr. Joachim Hammer
Integrated access to distributed, heterogeneous data sources (e.g., WWW, enterprise-wide intranets,
Semantic Web) is of critical importance. Frequently such data sources have been developed independently
and thus exhibit differences in their structure (e.g., data model, schema, interface), as well as in
the meaning (semantics) of the data (e.g., your rubber gloves are my latex hand protectors). Goal of
data integration is the resolution of structural heterogeneities, in order to consolidate and merge
related data in a homogeneous representation, e.g., in order to facilitate data exchange among
enterprises participating in a supply chain. Semantic data integration, which is mainly aimed at
reconciling semantic heterogeneities, remains a manual and thus error-prone process and represents
a significant bottleneck for modern information management systems.
CIS 6930 Indexing for Very Large Databases
Credits: 3; Instructor: Dr. Christopher Jermaine
Database indexing can be a very interesting area of study, because it combines topics in algorithms
and data structures with systems-oriented topics like buffering, disk pages, and so on. The class
will be seminar-style, with some lecturing by me, but with a lot of emphasis on reading papers and
discussing them and presenting them in class. Specific indexing problems we will consider include
the indexing standard relational database data, indexing multi-dimensional data, indexing spatial
data, indexing strings, indexing for bioinformatics, indexing for temporal data, indexing for data
warehousing, and indexing moving objects.
CIS 6930 Recent Advances in Bioinformatics
Credits: 3; Instructor: Dr. Tamer Kahveci
This course will discuss the cutting edge developments in bioinformatics and computational biology.
The course also aims to provide exposure to existing bioinformatics software and databases.
This course will cover the most recent developments in a broad range of bioinformatics problems.
The topics are as follows: Analysis of biosequences and its applications, Comparison of protein structures
Predicting protein structures, Analysis of pathways.
CIS 6930 Moving Object Databases
Credits: 3; Instructor: Dr. Markus Schneider
This is a graduate-level advanced course on the concepts and principles of moving objects databases. Moving
objects databases are a relatively new research area that has received a lot of interest in recent
years. The general goal of this research is to allow one to represent moving entities in databases
and to ask queries about such movements. Moving entities could be cars, trucks, aircrafts, ships,
mobile phone users, terrorists, or polar bears. For these examples, usually only the time-dependent
position in space is relevant, not the extent. Hence, we can characterize them as moving points.
However, there are also many moving entities with an extent like hurricanes, forest fires, oil
spills, armies, epidemic diseases, and so forth.
