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Title of Course: DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
Course Number: E81 530A
Section: 01
Semester: Fall 2006
Instructors: Clark Butler (Instructor);
Completed Evaluations: 5 of 10 (50%)
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?
  02 In class presentations are good, the professor is execellent about responding to questions in class, overall the labs seem to make a good logically progression through steps required to set up, use and maintain a database.
  03 Professor Butler is a great teacher and really cares about his students, I took this course because he was the instructor.
 How could this course and professor improve?
  02 I did not like spending my time on 'see how hard it is to do it this way' parts of the labs. It was a frustrating waste of energy. I would like more simple incremental assignments apart from just the labs. Something like we did in class of actually writing the queries out in relational algebra and domain and tuple relational calculus. I believe more graded feedback would have been nice before the labs asked me to write out 10+ queries in each theoretical language, and SQL. Also, I didn't like how most of the SQL queries specifically asked for 'top one' single tuple type responses, when a database (and the calculus and relational algebra) is so clearly geared toward returning sets of tuples. For instance, the query 'return the product with the most ingredients.'
  03 the only suggestion i would make would be to break the labs into smaller ones and made one due at the beginning of each class that reflects the material covered in the last class.
 What would you tell another student who asked you to describe this course?
  02 Ok - good if you are interested in learning about the one thing you'll like be working with if you go into industry.
  03 You learn a lot and Professor Butler wants to make sure you succeed. If you are willing to put in the time you will learn a lot from the class and be ready to use what you have learned in the real world.
 Was the text useful? Was it understandable? Why or why not?
  02 Yes.
  03 Yes, yes, not really there was a lot of online documentation. I felt like i used the book for 1 thing during the course of the semester. relational algerbra/claculus. A handout could have been provided with the smae information and i wouldnt have had to spend $100 on a book.
 Were the assigned homework or problem sets helpful and relevant to the course? Why or why not?
  03 yes, they matched the course material
 Please use this space to comment on any other aspect of the course. (i.e., help sessions, teaching assistants, etc.)
  02 Office hours were not made clear.
  03 Professor Butler RULES!