It is an obvious fact that many organisations have to handle large amounts of data. Moreover, no matter how large the primary memory of the computer systems used in an organisation, there will be applications that require one to store more information than can be held in primary memory.  Also, one may wish to permanently store information that was manipulated in a program. In both cases, information will have to be stored in files on secondary storage devices. Accessing information from a secondary storage device is considerably slower than retrieving information from primary memory. The slowness of retrieving information from secondary storage is the prime motivating factor behind file organisation. There are many different ways of storing information in files and retrieving information from them. Choosing  the most appropriate file organisation for a particular task is an important task.

            Fortunately, there are a number of so-called database management systems on the market which enable one to deal with data at a higher level, without one having to worry about how they are physically stored on a disk. Database management systems, and in particular the problem on how to model one's data to make optimum use of database management systems, are the focus of this course.

Aims and objectives:

 The overall aim of this course is to introduce students to data modelling and the theory of databases.  Specifically, at the end of this course, students should be able to