Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Rounding Out the Students
Because database development has a significant analysis and design component,
students are required to take a Systems Requirements Discovery and Modeling course,
offered by our systems analysis group. Because many database personnel are often relegated
to a distinct group with a project with management requirements, a Project Management
course is also required. To support further specialization into the database architect, database
programmer, and database architect roles, we provide two separate selective areas: database
management selectives and database technology selectives. The students must choose a
minimum of 6 credit hours (two courses) in each of the selective areas. The database
management selectives are the elective courses listed with the database course flow in Figure
2 — database administration, data warehousing and advanced topics in database manage-
ment, as well as any graduate-level database course offered during the student's senior year.
The database technology selectives provide additional areas of exploration on topics that
piqued the students' interest in their first two years. The students are allowed to choose any
two courses from the following:
•
Object-Oriented Programming
: Use of object-oriented programming languages (Java)
in the development of modern, business applications
•
Advanced Design Techniques
: Advanced study of system design methods and
techniques used by systems analysts to develop information systems
•
Software Development Methodologies
: Methodologies and practices commonly used
in contemporary software development projects
•
Enterprise Application Development
: Component development and reuse, distrib-
uted object technologies, multi-tier applications
•
Senior Software Development Project
: Integrates the software development technolo-
gies and techniques taught in prior courses
•
E-Commerce
: Presents components of e-commerce
•
Automatic Identification and Data Capture
: Presents real-time data feeds
•
Any other database management selective course(s) not already taken
Looking at the three roles that were defined previously (database administrator,
database architect, and database developer) and the selective lists above, we could come up
with suitable combinations of courses for each role. An undecided student could even define
a general database combination. Please note there are many possible combinations; the
combinations shown are merely illustrative.
Database Administrator
•
Database Management Selectives
: Database administration and data warehousing
•
Database Technology Selectives
: E-commerce and automatic identification and data
capture
This combination of courses not only prepares the database administrator hopeful
technically, but also exposes the student to other facets that they will have to communicate
with, namely, software developers and production teams.
