To:
O.U. Students taking M359,
Relational Databases:
Theory and
Practice
West Midlands Region Hugh
Darwen's tutorial group, 2014
Friday, 31 January, 2014
Dear student,
Unless you have already contacted me, please acknowledge receipt of this letter, preferably by e-mail, to confirm that we are in contact. If you have any urgent questions, by all means use the phone instead if you wish.
Allow me to introduce myself, your tutor for the Open University Course M359, Relational Databases: Theory and Practice. This is my twenty-fifth (and last) year as a tutor for the O.U., and the relational database course is the only course I have ever been involved with. M359 had its inaugural presentation seven years ago, when it replaced M358: Relational Databases, which had been running for 8 years. As a critical reader I worked quite closely with the M359 development team (on Blocks 2 and 3) and I am looking forward to teaching the course again for its final presentation this year.
By profession, I am a database specialist, having been employed by IBM United Kingdom from 1967 until my retirement in 2004. I was in software development for 37 years, specialising in database matters for most of that time. From 1978 to 1982 I participated in the development of an industrial-strength relational (not SQL) database management system. From 1988 to 2004 I was heavily involved in the development of international standards for the database language SQL, which you will be studying in M359. I have coauthored (with C.J. Date) several books on relational database theory and practice. Nowadays I am a guest lecturer on the same subject at Warwick University. My own books, An Introduction to Relational Database Theory and SQL: A Comparative Survey, are available as free downloads. The Introduction book is based on my lectures there.
I am sure I have knowledge and experience that can contribute significantly to your success on M359. I particularly encourage you to attend my tutorial sessions at Aston University, the first of which will start at 10:00 on Saturday, 8th March. At that tutorial I will present my Introduction to Relational Databases that I have also used for year undergraduates at Warwick. We might also do a small exercise inspired by my essay, What a Database Really Is: Predicates and Propositions, which I would very much like you to read at the start of this course, whether or not you will be attending my tutorials.
Tutorials:
Apart from the prepared material I bring to the first two tutorials, these tend to consist mainly of ad hoc discussions related to the TMA that is relevant at the time. Tutorial #3, to which I bring no prepared material, tends to be devoted to SQL. The fourth and last tutorial on September 13th is billed as a "day school" and consists of two 2-hour sessions, morning and afternoon. We will probably work through selected past exam questions.
Tutor group forum:
I encourage you to post questions here so that others can see my answers and possibly chip in too.
TMA Deadlines:
If you cannot meet a deadline, it is very important that you contact me before that deadline is reached. This is an O.U. rule, of course—it is clearly stated in the policy statement in your Assessment Handbook for Undergraduate Courses—but it also allows me to alert you if for some reason I will have a problem with late marking. I will allow an extra week whenever possible. I can allow extensions longer than that only when circumstances are really exceptional. If you have a problem, please discuss it with me in good time!
Contacting me: In principle, I can be contacted by phone (01926-842160) at any time between 11:00am and 9:00pm, including week-ends. I check e-mail constantly.
The subject matter of M359 has fascinated me for many years. I hope that you, too, will find it interesting and rewarding, and I wish you every success with it.
Best regards,
Hugh Darwen