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Fri, Nov 5, 4:30 - 4:55, Vanderbilt Room Paper (refereed)

Recommended Citation: Lenox, T L and C R Woratschek. The Pros and Cons of Using a Comprehensive Final Case Project in a Database Management Systems Course: Marvin's Magnificent Magazine Publishing House. In The Proceedings of the Information Systems Education Conference 2004, v 21 (Newport): §2425. ISSN: 1542-7382. (A later version appears in Information Systems Education Journal 3(24). ISSN: 1545-679X.)

The Pros and Cons of Using a Comprehensive Final Case Project in a Database Management Systems Course: Marvin's Magnificent Magazine Publishing House

Refereed

10 pages

Terri L. Lenox    [a1] [a2]
Mathematics & Computer Science
Westminster College    [u1] [u2]
New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, USA    [c1] [c2]

Charles R. Woratschek    [a1] [a2]
Computer Information Systems
Robert Morris University    [u1] [u2]
Moon Township, Pennsylvania, USA    [c1] [c2]

There are many challenges in providing a curriculum with a solid Information Systems foundation that meshes with the rapid changes in technology and its use within organizations. Educators must struggle to fit all the necessary information into a limited number of credits while continuing to add skills including soft-skills. One particular area of pressure is the need to expand topics in the typical database management course due to the increased importance of databases in organizations, the tremendous volume of data that must be handled, non-traditional types of data (e.g., multimedia, web-based) and the expanding array of database-related tools. This paper discusses the pros and cons of using a comprehensive database project as the culmination of an introductory course in database theory and design. An instructor-created, team database project is described. Marvin’s Magnificent Magazine Publishing House database has provided students with a valuable experience on the four most popular database topics: the relational data model, SQL, the entity relational model, and normalization.

Keywords: database, curriculum, project, team-approach

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