CSC343H1F 20249 (All Sections): Introduction to Databases
Prerequisites
If you don't have the course prerequisites listed in the calendar entry, the CS Undergraduate Office will contact you with a form. to complete in order to request a prerequisite waiver. Waivers are not granted automatically; a decision is made based on whether or not we feel you are well prepared to succeed in the course. (Note: we are looking for you to have demonstrated how you have acquired missing prerequisite knowledge in another way, not just to tell us about how much you want to take the course.) You should have alternate plans as backup if you are hoping to take CSC343 without the prerequisites and have not yet received a waiver.
Teaching style
CSC343 is "semi-inverted". You will learn some of the basic material on your own, outside of class time, and we will teach the more challenging material and demonstrate problem-solving in class. There will also regularly be activities that you par!cipate in during class. Be prepared to get your gears turning! There is strong evidence, and our experience also shows, that active learning works better than passively listening to a lecture. We also think it's a lot more fun!
To prepare for these active classes, you will do weekly "prep" activities outside of class. These will involve learning some material on your own, through readings or videos, and prac!sing things we've learned in class. They will always culminate in some small exercises that you hand in. These weekly activities are not intended to be greatly difficult or time consuming, but they will be pivotal in your learning.
Lecture recordings
We plan to record and post one section of the course each week. However, we find the sound quality on classroom recordings is poor. Sometimes there are issues with the recordings; makeup recordings will not be posted in the event the classroom recording fails. More importantly, reading/viewing recorded materials will provide a poorer experience than the live lecture. We hope you will choose to attend in person and participate, and if you have to miss a lecture, we encourage you to pause the video and do the exercises where noted. Recordings are intended for occasional use.
Course videos and materials belong to your instructor, the University, and/or other source, and are protected by copyright. In this course, you are permitted to download videos and materials for your own academic use, but you should not copy, share, or use them for any other purpose without the explicit permission of the instructor. In particular, do not sell course materials, or provide them to a person or company that is using them to make money (e.g. Chegg, CourseHero, Easy 4.0/Easy EDU, and other private tutoring companies). Sharing course materials with online tools that collect data, such as ChatGPT, is also a viola!on of copyright.