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Querying and Storing XML (QSX) is a 4th year (level 10) 10 point course.
If XML is to serve as the prime standard for data exchange on the Web, sophisticated techniques have to be developed for transforming data between traditional databases and XML, for querying and updating XML. This course is to expose students to current research and development issues in connection with storing XML data in a traditional database, for publishing data from databases in XML, and for querying and managing XML data by using a traditional database management system. In addition, we shall cover topics in provenance for semistructured data, an important emerging area.
The course is open to final year undergraduates, and to postgraduate students by permission of the instructor. Some background in theory is necessary for this course. In particular, basic knowledge of logic and the theory of computation are essential. Theory of programming languages and databases is also required. Thus undergraduates intending to take the course must either have a B or better in one of the 3rd year modules: Computability and Intractability or Language Semantics and Implementation; or they must seek permission from the instructor.
This is a seminar course. Lectures are to provide background as needed. Students are required to study tutorials, read a collection of research papers related to the topic, and write a review for each paper. Each student is also required to complete and present a course project.
In keeping with the research seminar nature of the course, there will be no exams. Instead, students are required to read research papers, complete a project and present a final report. Final grades will be determined as follows:
| Paper reviews | 35% |
| Project | 50% |
| Project presentation/report | 15% |
You should read the papers on the list below. You should also write reviews and submit them electronically by 4pm Monday of the week during which the papers are to be discussed. Each review should be about half a page, and consist of a compelling mix of summary, key ideas, questions you have, flaws you have found, and suggestions for improvement.
During weeks 2 and 3, write and submit half-page reviews of all three assigned tutorial readings. In subsequent weeks, read any two of the assigned papers and submit half-page reviews for those two papers.
Submission instructions: Please submit reviews as a pdf file containing all of the assigned reviews. (Please save as a PDF file if you prefer to work with other file formats e.g. Word.) For the first and second assignment, there should be three reviews in the submitted file, and for the remaining assignments, there should be two reviews. Each review in the file should list the name of the paper, chapter or resource reviewed. As a convenience to the marker, please include your student ID number in the PDF (we can recover this information from the submission system if it is forgotten).
Please name your submission reviewN.pdf where N is the assignment number. Note that the assignment number is one less than the week number in which the assignment is due! For example, the first submission should be called review1.pdf and so on. Use the following DICE submit command to submit your review:
submit qsx N reviewN.pdfwhere N is the assignment number.
Projects will be developed during the class. They could consist of some design and development, or preliminary study of research problems discussed in the class. Each project is to be developed by a small team of at most three. The team is to choose and complete a project that deals in more depth with a topic encountered during the semester. The team should write and present a final report.
Further information on projects is available here.
Project reports are due Monday, March 25, 2013, 4pm.
Submission instructions
Submitting additional material is optional. It may increase, and will not decrease, your grade (i.e., if I cannot make sense of it, the result will be the same as if you had submitted no additional material).
For either type of project, please include the names of all participants in the report, and please use the submit command with submit target 9:
submit qsx 9 <filename>
There is no required textbook for this course. The first half of the course will focus on introducing relatively well-developed technologies and standards, and the second half will present selected reserach topics that are not covered in any textbook. However, for the first half of the course the readings include selections from the following texts, available online:
Lectures start on January 15 (Week 1) and continue through to the end of week 5 (February 15). There will be no lectures during Innovative Teaching/Learning Week (February 18-22). Lectures resume February 26-March 15. There will be no lectures the week of March 18-22 (Week 9). The last two weeks of the course will be used for student presentations or to cover additional topics, depending on the number of projects.
Please note that the readings are listed by the week in which they will be discussed. That is, you should be reading and summarizing the papers in the preceding weeks.
Lecture notes will be posted here as the course progresses.
The following research papers are suggested background reading for some of the projects:
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