Course description

Course lay-out

The seventh course discusses several topics; these topics are:

• Knowledge of and insight into the organisation of data storage and fundamental principles of data processing
• Development methodology and development notations
• Development of Medical Database Systems and the usage of query languages
• Knowledge of and insight into the most important mathematical terms and techiques of the probability theory
• Knowledge of techniques for data communication and insight into the possibilities and limitations of these techniques

 

Educational goals

The goals of the education are that the student:

• has knowledge of and insight into the organization of data storage and principles of data processing
• has knowledge of and insight into the principles of the development of databases; information systems within a DBMS environment
• has insight into and developed skills in developing Relational Database Systems and the usage of query languages
• has knowledge of and insight into important mathematical terms and techniques of the probability theory
• has knowledge of the techniques for data communication and insight into the possibilities and limitations of these techniques

 

Involved departments

• Clinical Informatics
• NWI

 

Evaluation

Evaluation of the course and assignments

This course was the first course of the second year of the Bachelor Medical Informatics. The coordinator of this course said that the course was not difficult, however the workload of the course was high. She was right; a lot of assignments had to be done and it was a lot of work. The course consisted of three parts: databases, data communication (also known as networks) and mathematics (probability theory). The databases part went well for me, the matter was clearly structured and I liked the subject. The assignments that we had to complete were very helpful later on when you had to prepare for the exam. I scored 10 out of 10 for the exam on this subject. Data communication (or networks) was a little bit more difficult and we had to study a lot of theory. I was familiar with a part of the theory, but a lot was new for me. Sometimes it was dull to follow lectures on this subject, because it was a summation of facts.

 

Practicals were also a part of this course, I learned a lot by means of the data communication practical. I had some basic knowledge about HTML, but by means of this practical I have acquired a lot of knowledge about HTML. This website is indirectly a result of these practicals. The practicals on the subject of databases were about SQL; how to program with SQL and how to use it. The first practical was boring, but the second practical was very interesting. The second practical was about servlets and these servlets had to run on a server, so that a user could access information from a database and even manipulate this information. It was nice to put the theory into practice. Unfortunately there were some problems with the second practical; a lot of time was lost because Apache TomCat refused to work, the practical manual was very unclear and was frequently changed (as a consequence all the work that has been done, had to be done again) and parts of the practical were just copying information on the paper to the computer screen. Besides all this, there was only one practical assistant available on a group of 20 students. The practical assistant was very good in explaining the matter.

 

The final part of the course was mathematics. Normally I have not much problems with mathematics, however probability theory is not one of my favorites. I followed all lectures and I completed all training assignments in order to prevent this to be an obstacle. Unfortunately I had forgotten my calculator, so I could not complete the exam. Later on I passed the exam. I learned a lot about HTML, SQL and servlets. It was a relevant course in the curriculum, it was an interesting course, despite all the problems that occured.