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Title of Course: DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
Course Number: E81 530A
Section: 01
Semester: Fall 2005
Instructors: Clark Butler (Instructor);
Completed Evaluations: 14 of 29 (48%)
Display Mode: Detail Averages | Chart Averages | Comments
Key: The number next to each response represents a student Learn more

Engineering Template

General Comments (Clark Butler - Instructor)
Please make comments and criticisms as constructive as possible; personal remarks or attacks are contrary to the spirit of this evaluation process.
What did you like most about this course and professor?
  00 I liked Prof. Butler as a person and I definitely respect him.
  02 Very knowledgable and excited about course content
  03 He is always available for questions and patient with students. He is very knowledgeable as well.
  05 I thought the homework assignments were aplicable to real world situations. Prof Butler was real energetic.
  07 The ability to make real websites with real databases behind them. Useful experience.
  08 Clear cut schedule and follow-ups
  10 I enjoyed the material and learning the theory behind databases, which I already often use. Also, much of the information was helpful in job interviews.
  13 Prof. Butler is nice, friendly, and sincerely wants to have students learn. Thank you for your enthusiasm and willingness. Thank you, Professor, for being committed to our learning. Thank you for a semester filled with an abundance of learning. I liked the in-class interactions where we actively engaged in answering questions. In fact, this might be useful as a part of every class period. This would have the students actively involved and thinking about the questions in the class. I know it seemed like only a portion of the students were participating, but if it is a more regular occurrence and especially if the students genuinely know that it’s okay if they’re wrong (in fact, it’s great because that encourages more thinking and discussion), they feel safe and you’ll have more participation -- Especially if you walk into the classroom expecting them to participate, knowing they will participate, and have fun doing it. I like that the professor gears the class around what people need to know to actually be in the real world doing this work. I think that’s great. However, it didn’t apply to me, because I have no intention of ever being in that position. So it may also be useful to let the students know what is useful for them even if they’re not planning on working at a company implementing databases, but rather doing research, implementation, or management in another computer science field.
How could this course and professor improve?
  00 The lectures are really boring and I always regreted going to class. Additionally your slides are really hard to read.
  01 I would like to learn more about about the advanced features. It would be nice if there is a chance to practice on the advanced material also instead of just presentations
  02 The labs and the course lectures were not synchronized. Knowledge was expected in the labs before the lecture had covered the material. Some guidance for use of ASP would have been beneficial. The TA's were very helpful in this regard, but a brief lecture, handout, or tutorial on ASP would have helped those with no ASP Experience.
  05 The work load for the last few weeks of class was too much. There was a hugh final project. Even though it was assigned at the beginning of the semester there was just too much other work assigned to get started on it. Space out assignments evenly.
  07 I got the impression the professor was trying to make this course more complicated than necessary. I know it wasn't intentional, but I feel many times there were much simpler explinations than were given in class (such as in the book).
  10 The lectures were sometimes confusing. Often concepts were presented in their most complex form instead defining them in simplier terms and building into the complexity. I sometimes felt that lectures bit off more than they could chew and should have been broken into more manageable chunks for the students. The labs were often out of synch with the lectures and consequently took A LOT of time to complete. Also, if the course is to be so application oriented and lecture or two on scripting, setting up projects, and using the database would be useful. Also, automatic webdev and sqlserver accounts should be created with atequate quota BEFORE the class begins. Having the exam and the final project due in such close proximity is a lot of work. It would be preferable to push one of them back (preferrably the project). Also, the information for the project has been very vague - it would be more useful to have concrete goals/due dates throughout the entire semester. Also, column names and some business rules are essential to normalizing the date. I felt that in a lot of ways the project was thrown at us blindly.
  12 I read and learned more than I did in the class. It's not easy to convey many new concept/definition in class, but maybe a guided reading by outline the knowledge points in class/on slids then followed by simple examples will serve better.
  13 It would be useful if, in the very beginning of the course, the steps to create an account with WashU’s SQL Server were emphasized more. Also, if the various methods of creating and using a database (i.e. using WashU’s Server, creating a database on your own computer, etc.) were explained more fully at the beginning of the semester, it would be helpful for people who are entirely new to the area of databases, SQL, and ways to use them (like I was). I think the final project, though very large, was useful. I think the names of the columns were *crucial* to the completion of the project, so thank you for providing them. In the future, they would be useful at the beginning (so we don’t waste time trying to figure out what the names of the columns could be). The focus of the project as I saw it (from what I heard in class and saw in the title of the project) was on finding the functional dependencies, but once I got into the project I realized that was just the surface. Discussion in class about this part of the project as well would be useful. It was useful to have a checkpoint to be sure that we’d at least looked at the final project. The feedback from this checkpoint was very beneficial. I think it would also be useful to have a checkpoint by which the functional dependencies must be found. This way, students would start earlier, have more of a grasp of the concept of the project, and *have feedback* earlier in the process about the correctness of their functional dependencies from which they are going to build their model. I have a small suggestion: Often during class, the PowerPoint presentation slides are viewed in a web browser. Unless there is a useful reason for doing that, it may be less distracting and make the slides a bit larger (and thus more visible) to temporarily download the presentation and view the full-screen slide show during class.
What would you tell another student who asked you to describe this course?
  01 Definitely yes
  02 It is worth taking. both practical, yet theoretical.
  05 Its interesting. But be prepared to work your butt off the last few weeks of class.
  07 a basic database course, you'll learn SQL. At least if you want to.
  08 Go ahead and take it...its a very useful course for industry
  09 It is a database course, thus it is fairly dry. Databases are great to understand but a bore to learn about.
  10 It is a good course to take if you are planning to go into industry because databases are everywhere and the course gives a firm grounding in theory and application. Also, it helps with interview questions!
  12 It is big topic, be prepared to learn a lot, by yourself.
  13 If you don’t know SQL, don’t take this class unless you have a friend who knows SQL really well who’s willing to help you. Ask lots of questions. Start homework very early.
Was the text useful? Was it understandable? Why or why not?
  00 There are better books.
  01 yes
  02 yes
  05 The text was good. The course followed the text closely which was very useful.
  07 Yes, very good text
  08 very useful
  10 The text was somewhat useful. I often just used the lecture slides but it was useful as a supplemental resource.
  12 I think it's very helpful. Structured clearly, examples are easy to follow.
Were the assigned homework or problem sets helpful and relevant to the course? Why or why not?
  01 yes
  05 Yes.
  07 they were helpful but completely unrelated to what was being covered in class. In fact, the first lab assignment was impossible to do without material that was covered more than halfway through the course. The fact that people were able to do it shows how little was actually covered in the course.
  08 excellent sets of homeworks
  10 I think the labs were important but again, I think that there needs to be a better synch with lectures (i.e. lecture on the material before the lab) and there needs to be more information/resources for scripting and setting up accounts etc.
  13 Homework didn’t follow from the lectures. We had to figure it out on our own – and it wasn’t always easy. (I think we should have learned about SQL in class before having to write it ourselves, rather than after. I also think we should have learned how to create ER diagrams before being expected to do it on our homework. It also would have made a difference to have heard some ideas in class about how to make a webpage accessing a database before we were expected to do it on our own. I had a lot of unnecessary frustration, difficulty, and time spent about these things.) I think the homework took too long. Homework was returned very late. It was not returned quickly enough to give us feedback that would be useful on the next homework assignment. The grading on the homework seemed very lenient for the apparent difficulty of the assignments. As an example, I did not actually implement a working webpage to run queries on a database, yet I got almost a perfect score on that portion of the assignment. This made me wonder about the fairness of the grades, and whether my effort was being appropriately rewarded (or whether other people got nearly perfect scores for something they didn’t actually do, while I worked my tail off to implement something and got only a few points more).
Please use this space to comment on any other aspect of the course. (i.e., help sessions, teaching assistants, etc.)
  05 Like I said in the mid evaluations. One TA was very helpful and knowledgable the other was not qualified at all.
  13 This class was very frustrating. This class was unnecessarily difficult. I pulled more all-nighters for this class than I did for all the rest of my classes combined in grad school. I think the exams were too hard and specific. I don’t think I ever learned how to write efficient SQL code, because I had to discover it on my own. I think the way I learned to write SQL code is awkward and inefficient, but I also don’t know if that’s the way I write it, or if that’s just how SQL code is in general. I didn’t get sufficient feedback on homework or instruction in class to know which is actually the case. I know people in the class were exchanging questions that the presentation groups had created, even though the Prof. explicitly told us not to. So those of us who were honest and didn’t participate in that exchange were at a disadvantage on the exam. The grading scheme is not clear. Is the scale the usual 90+ A, 80+ B, 70+ C, etc, or is it curved? Even after the professor responded to questions about grading in class, the answer was unclear.
General Comments ( - Instructor)
Please make comments and criticisms as constructive as possible; personal remarks or attacks are contrary to the spirit of this evaluation process.

Title of Course: DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
Course Number: E81 530A
Section: 01
Semester: Fall 2005
Instructors: Clark Butler (Instructor);
Completed Evaluations: 14 of 29 (48%)
Display Mode: Detail Averages \| Chart Averages \| Comments
Key: The number next to each response represents a student Learn more

Engineering Template

General Comments (Clark Butler - Instructor)
Please make comments and criticisms as constructive as possible; personal remarks or attacks are contrary to the spirit of this evaluation process.
	What did you like most about this course and professor?
00	I liked Prof. Butler as a person and I definitely respect him.
02	Very knowledgable and excited about course content
03	He is always available for questions and patient with students. He is very knowledgeable as well.
05	I thought the homework assignments were aplicable to real world situations. Prof Butler was real energetic.
07	The ability to make real websites with real databases behind them. Useful experience.
08	Clear cut schedule and follow-ups
10	I enjoyed the material and learning the theory behind databases, which I already often use. Also, much of the information was helpful in job interviews.
13	Prof. Butler is nice, friendly, and sincerely wants to have students learn. Thank you for your enthusiasm and willingness. Thank you, Professor, for being committed to our learning. Thank you for a semester filled with an abundance of learning. I liked the in-class interactions where we actively engaged in answering questions. In fact, this might be useful as a part of every class period. This would have the students actively involved and thinking about the questions in the class. I know it seemed like only a portion of the students were participating, but if it is a more regular occurrence and especially if the students genuinely know that it’s okay if they’re wrong (in fact, it’s great because that encourages more thinking and discussion), they feel safe and you’ll have more participation -- Especially if you walk into the classroom expecting them to participate, knowing they will participate, and have fun doing it. I like that the professor gears the class around what people need to know to actually be in the real world doing this work. I think that’s great. However, it didn’t apply to me, because I have no intention of ever being in that position. So it may also be useful to let the students know what is useful for them even if they’re not planning on working at a company implementing databases, but rather doing research, implementation, or management in another computer science field.
	How could this course and professor improve?
00	The lectures are really boring and I always regreted going to class. Additionally your slides are really hard to read.
01	I would like to learn more about about the advanced features. It would be nice if there is a chance to practice on the advanced material also instead of just presentations
02	The labs and the course lectures were not synchronized. Knowledge was expected in the labs before the lecture had covered the material. Some guidance for use of ASP would have been beneficial. The TA's were very helpful in this regard, but a brief lecture, handout, or tutorial on ASP would have helped those with no ASP Experience.
05	The work load for the last few weeks of class was too much. There was a hugh final project. Even though it was assigned at the beginning of the semester there was just too much other work assigned to get started on it. Space out assignments evenly.
07	I got the impression the professor was trying to make this course more complicated than necessary. I know it wasn't intentional, but I feel many times there were much simpler explinations than were given in class (such as in the book).
10	The lectures were sometimes confusing. Often concepts were presented in their most complex form instead defining them in simplier terms and building into the complexity. I sometimes felt that lectures bit off more than they could chew and should have been broken into more manageable chunks for the students. The labs were often out of synch with the lectures and consequently took A LOT of time to complete. Also, if the course is to be so application oriented and lecture or two on scripting, setting up projects, and using the database would be useful. Also, automatic webdev and sqlserver accounts should be created with atequate quota BEFORE the class begins. Having the exam and the final project due in such close proximity is a lot of work. It would be preferable to push one of them back (preferrably the project). Also, the information for the project has been very vague - it would be more useful to have concrete goals/due dates throughout the entire semester. Also, column names and some business rules are essential to normalizing the date. I felt that in a lot of ways the project was thrown at us blindly.
12	I read and learned more than I did in the class. It's not easy to convey many new concept/definition in class, but maybe a guided reading by outline the knowledge points in class/on slids then followed by simple examples will serve better.
13	It would be useful if, in the very beginning of the course, the steps to create an account with WashU’s SQL Server were emphasized more. Also, if the various methods of creating and using a database (i.e. using WashU’s Server, creating a database on your own computer, etc.) were explained more fully at the beginning of the semester, it would be helpful for people who are entirely new to the area of databases, SQL, and ways to use them (like I was). I think the final project, though very large, was useful. I think the names of the columns were crucial to the completion of the project, so thank you for providing them. In the future, they would be useful at the beginning (so we don’t waste time trying to figure out what the names of the columns could be). The focus of the project as I saw it (from what I heard in class and saw in the title of the project) was on finding the functional dependencies, but once I got into the project I realized that was just the surface. Discussion in class about this part of the project as well would be useful. It was useful to have a checkpoint to be sure that we’d at least looked at the final project. The feedback from this checkpoint was very beneficial. I think it would also be useful to have a checkpoint by which the functional dependencies must be found. This way, students would start earlier, have more of a grasp of the concept of the project, and have feedback earlier in the process about the correctness of their functional dependencies from which they are going to build their model. I have a small suggestion: Often during class, the PowerPoint presentation slides are viewed in a web browser. Unless there is a useful reason for doing that, it may be less distracting and make the slides a bit larger (and thus more visible) to temporarily download the presentation and view the full-screen slide show during class.
	What would you tell another student who asked you to describe this course?
01	Definitely yes
02	It is worth taking. both practical, yet theoretical.
05	Its interesting. But be prepared to work your butt off the last few weeks of class.
07	a basic database course, you'll learn SQL. At least if you want to.
08	Go ahead and take it...its a very useful course for industry
09	It is a database course, thus it is fairly dry. Databases are great to understand but a bore to learn about.
10	It is a good course to take if you are planning to go into industry because databases are everywhere and the course gives a firm grounding in theory and application. Also, it helps with interview questions!
12	It is big topic, be prepared to learn a lot, by yourself.
13	If you don’t know SQL, don’t take this class unless you have a friend who knows SQL really well who’s willing to help you. Ask lots of questions. Start homework very early.
	Was the text useful? Was it understandable? Why or why not?
00	There are better books.
01	yes
02	yes
05	The text was good. The course followed the text closely which was very useful.
07	Yes, very good text
08	very useful
10	The text was somewhat useful. I often just used the lecture slides but it was useful as a supplemental resource.
12	I think it's very helpful. Structured clearly, examples are easy to follow.
	Were the assigned homework or problem sets helpful and relevant to the course? Why or why not?
01	yes
05	Yes.
07	they were helpful but completely unrelated to what was being covered in class. In fact, the first lab assignment was impossible to do without material that was covered more than halfway through the course. The fact that people were able to do it shows how little was actually covered in the course.
08	excellent sets of homeworks
10	I think the labs were important but again, I think that there needs to be a better synch with lectures (i.e. lecture on the material before the lab) and there needs to be more information/resources for scripting and setting up accounts etc.
13	Homework didn’t follow from the lectures. We had to figure it out on our own – and it wasn’t always easy. (I think we should have learned about SQL in class before having to write it ourselves, rather than after. I also think we should have learned how to create ER diagrams before being expected to do it on our homework. It also would have made a difference to have heard some ideas in class about how to make a webpage accessing a database before we were expected to do it on our own. I had a lot of unnecessary frustration, difficulty, and time spent about these things.) I think the homework took too long. Homework was returned very late. It was not returned quickly enough to give us feedback that would be useful on the next homework assignment. The grading on the homework seemed very lenient for the apparent difficulty of the assignments. As an example, I did not actually implement a working webpage to run queries on a database, yet I got almost a perfect score on that portion of the assignment. This made me wonder about the fairness of the grades, and whether my effort was being appropriately rewarded (or whether other people got nearly perfect scores for something they didn’t actually do, while I worked my tail off to implement something and got only a few points more).
	Please use this space to comment on any other aspect of the course. (i.e., help sessions, teaching assistants, etc.)
05	Like I said in the mid evaluations. One TA was very helpful and knowledgable the other was not qualified at all.
13	This class was very frustrating. This class was unnecessarily difficult. I pulled more all-nighters for this class than I did for all the rest of my classes combined in grad school. I think the exams were too hard and specific. I don’t think I ever learned how to write efficient SQL code, because I had to discover it on my own. I think the way I learned to write SQL code is awkward and inefficient, but I also don’t know if that’s the way I write it, or if that’s just how SQL code is in general. I didn’t get sufficient feedback on homework or instruction in class to know which is actually the case. I know people in the class were exchanging questions that the presentation groups had created, even though the Prof. explicitly told us not to. So those of us who were honest and didn’t participate in that exchange were at a disadvantage on the exam. The grading scheme is not clear. Is the scale the usual 90+ A, 80+ B, 70+ C, etc, or is it curved? Even after the professor responded to questions about grading in class, the answer was unclear.
General Comments ( - Instructor)
Please make comments and criticisms as constructive as possible; personal remarks or attacks are contrary to the spirit of this evaluation process.