20 april 2002ccsc ne worcester, ma design and implementation of a new course: creating databases for...

20 April 2002 CCSC NE Worcester, MA

Design and Implementation of a new course:

Creating databases for web applications

Jeanine Meyer & Michael Conry

Mathematics/Computer Science & New Media

Purchase College/SUNY


Background on students• Liberal Arts & Arts school• Math/Computer Science and New Media

majors– Existing courses include: Creating Web

Documents, Creating Dynamic Web Documents, design courses, CSI, CSII, Networking & Security.

– require more upper-level electives

• spaces reserved for Continuing Education students


Course Content• Server-side programming ("middleware")

• Design/planning– systems design & analysis; data base management

systems

• Issues– software choice:

• Implementation: Open source versus proprietary software

• Design (CASE tools?)

– textbook(s)


Course logistics

• ~4 hours / once a week

• share (compete) computer classroom

• our own server– Windows NT, running php and MySql, asp &

Access.• asp & Access gave more problems. One php

problem concerned uploading and using files.

• class size capped at 25. 17 finished.


Decisions• s/w: Open Source and Microsoft

– Cold Fusion was/is an alternative. – Choose JavaScript for asp (alternative is VBScript)– encourage students to give extra credit talks

• No textbook– made finding on-line resources part of the course– posted class notes

• prepared CD of s/w (Personal Web Server, php, MySql, not Access)– students could also use ftp to the server.


Decisions, continued• "Seminar": students study & present prepared

projects– order system & quiz show times 2

• Student project– choice with option to expand prepared projects

(which only one person did)– multi-part: announcement, presentation of design

diagrams, final presentation

• Quiz students on both sets of s/w: practice quizzes, open notes


Instructional support

• Blackboard/courseinfo– Provides place for [changing] schedule, notes,

Discussion Forum, e-mail, surveys, on-line [practice] quizzes when it is operational

– courseinfo.purchase.edu Use Preview to find course

• Backup site: members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2s839


Design

• Operationalize design process by teaching and assigning– entity-relationship diagrams– process (data flow) diagrams– storyboards (my ad hoc design)

• Chose not to assign/require/teach any CASE tool.


Levels

• Programming: – HTML, – php or asp/JavaScript, and – SQL

• Client, server, data base engine

• presentation, systems logic, data base

• Discussed generally:– separating form and content. XML/XSL


Course examples

• Models done in both systems

• Teams of students presented these to the class

• Product ordering

• Quiz show


Question databank table

question_id

Question

Answer (answer pattern)

Value

Category

Players table

player_id

Player name

Score

lastplayed date

history table

question_id

player_id

whenplayed

correct0

0


Player

Editor

Play game

Edit questions

Questions DB

Player scores

Data flow diagram (process diagram) for quiz show

History DB


Create quiz tables (php only)

Input Questions (handles form input)

Choose category

Ask question

Check answer

Clear tables

Include/Required file: opendbq

Show scores


Product catalogProduct idProduct namePictureCost

Customer listCustomer IDfirst namelast nameBilling informationE-mailPassword

Order listOrder IDCustomer IDDateStatusTotal

Ordered itemsOrder IDProductQuantity

0

ER diagram for on-line store

0


Customer

Billing system (timed event)

Browse/Order

Billing

Catalog

Customer list

Current ordersOrdered items

Shipping clerk

Shipping

Data flow (process) diagram for on-line store.

Note that this is the information/data flow, not the flow of goods. The shipping operation produces a physical product: the collection of ordered items, packed and set off for delivery.


Storyboard of partial implementation: ordering

Create tables (php only)

Include/require: opendbo

Input products

Order product

makeorder

Shopping cart

Submit order

Delete current customer cookie

Include/require: displaycartfunction


$sel="SELECT question_id, question, ans, value from questions "; $sel= $sel . " WHERE category= '" . $pickedcategory. "'"; $result=mysql_db_query($DBname, $sel, $link);

$NoR=mysql_num_rows($result);

SQL from php quiz


sel="SELECT question_id, question, ans, points from questions "; sel= sel + " WHERE category= '" + pickedcategory+ "'";

rs=Server.CreateObject("ADODB.RecordSet");rs.Open(sel, Conn, 1, 3);NoR=rs.RecordCount;

SQL from asp quiz


Use of session variables in php orders

if (!session_is_registered("cart")) {

$cart = array();

session_register("cart");

$items = 0;

session_register("items");

$totalprice = 0.00;

session_register("totalprice");

}


More complex SQL from quiz asp

if (NoR>0) {

query= "SELECT question_id FROM history where (player_id="+player_id;

query= query + " AND (whenplayed=#"+today+"# OR correct=Yes))";

query="INSERT into past "+query;

Conn.Execute(query);

sel = "SELECT questions.question_id, question, answerpattern, points from questions";

sel =sel +

" LEFT JOIN past ON questions.question_id = past.question_id WHERE ";

sel = sel + " category='" + pickedcategory + "' AND past.question_id IS NULL"; }

else {

sel="SELECT question_id, question, answerpattern, points from questions ";

sel= sel + " WHERE category= '" + pickedcategory+ "'"; }


Results

• Highly satisfying for instructor & technical support

• After drop-off by many who thought it was more design, remaining students worked very diligently & appeared pleased.

• Student projects were (mostly) impressive.

• Several students commented on importance of design/planning/data base design


Student projects• Many 'real'

– dental 'hmo' referral system– company shop & swap– key ring advertising venture– (Masters thesis): data base for study of fish

habitats, including two authentication systems

• Other– library on-line sources– music samples, music reviews– help for ordering & troubleshooting – order games


1.labs 2.The ability to email, call or stop by your office and get help when I needed it.

If I asked you or Mike how to do something and you didn't know, you researched the problem and discussed your findings the next time we spoke.

3.I learned skills I did not know and I was surprised by what I was able to accomplish.

4.The best thing about the course was that it was geared toward achieving tangible, practical results from applying what we were learning.

5.the subject and the teacher. 6.I enjoyed the the variety of information. That was provided. I also enjoyed

the professors that fact the professor was open to helping the students beyond what I expected.

7.Creating ASP pages that actually worked

What did you like best about the course?


8.I loved learning how databases work in regards to the Internet. I think it's GREAT!..Also, I feel my appreciation for programming/programmers has increased about 200%. I loved figuring out the 1st project (askquestions.asp)because that was something I didn't think I could do and I loved the challenge of the final project (even though I'm STILL trying to figure something out).

9.Learning about the most important aspect of the Internet -- moving data which is the engine that makes it all happen.

10.What I really liked best was the hands-on part - both the final project and all the other hands-on projects, both big and small. Being able to actually use what we were learning and seeing it work in practical terms was rewarding.

11.The course focused on simulating "real world" programming tasks and applications and provided a large quantity of example code for the student to review and build on.

12.I enjoyed the ability to use two different sets of tools to develop web pages (ASP/Access and PHP/MySQL) and got a good idea of the underlying concepts....


What would you change

1. add more time for people to experiment with the code. 2.Maybe a little more time in the Planetarium. Hold the class two nights a

week. One for a three hour lab and another for an hour and a half lecture. 3.More lab time and examples, less lecture. 4.The change I would suggest is that it might focus on one programming

language/database software instead of trying to combine two in a dual, concurrent focus.

5.have the lecture first then have the lab. 6.I would probably have the profesor explain some aspects of the course

material as if each student did not have much computer or programming knowledge to gurantee the understanding of the subject material

7.The Projects (quiz and orders) were good learning experiences.I would assign one project in both PHP and ASP and give a short quiz on them instead of the presentations.


8.There were a few things I was unclear about and because we had SO much material to cover, somethings never got the full answer I wanted. ER/data flow Diagrams, for example, are still a "problem" area in my mind. Although I loved using JScript, maybe VBScript would be a good thing to teach as well (or instead of), considering that most ASP is done with VBScript.

9.The cousre should be in the lab for the entire session so the option to work hands on is more flexible.


10.I'd have more hands on experience in the lab. The lecture is necessary, but there were times when an extra half hour on the computer to really try out what we were learning while someone was there to answer questions, as opposed to doing it completely on our own at home, would have been good. It's frustrating to be almost there and have to leave what you're doing. Of course, there's no ideal situation since I, for one, will sometimes forget what time it is and keep at something for hours. A little more time would be nice, however.

11.More time should be spent in the lab, alternating between lecture and hands-on work. It was disappointing to have to rush through execution of the example programs following the lecture and then move to a different classroom before many of us had finished "trying out" the code.

12.I might consider showing some examples in Cold Fusion - but NOT expecting anyone to learn 3 separate toolsets....


Next time: Fall, 2002

• Changing course to twice a week– Course already full second day of registration!

• Probably stay with no textbook

• Stay with content & structure– same strategy for VBScript, Cold Fusion– add paging, perhaps more on ER diagrams

• XML? Flash (server-side connection)? ASP.net?


Comments or Suggestions?

• [email protected]

• newmedia.purchase.edu/~Jeanine

• courseinfo.purchase.edu– Preview

• members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2s839