Abstract: Database technology is growing in importance and is rapidly expanding to include many new concepts. The purpose of this research is to explore how our School of Business, which has a total undergraduate enrollment of about one thousand students, can teach database to our CIS majors. The findings of this study can be generalized to colleges offering similar programs. We have found that it is now necessary to offer two courses, a required one for juniors, and an optional one for seniors. In both courses, theoretical topics are interleaved with hands-on computer assignments. dBASE IV is the software used in the required course; ORACLE is used in the optional course. This paper discusses the curricula of the two courses and gives our reasons for our choice of software. Both dBASE and ORACLE use relational data. dBASE, the microcomputer database product most commonly used in industry, processes data a record at a time and has a complete programming language allowing students to build menu-driven systems for end-users. The Oracle Corporation is a leader in SQL-based relational database management systems. Their products are very important in industry and are available with a wide variety of small and large machines, operating systems, and network configurations. ORACLE is an excellent teaching tool because of the manner in which it combines SQL programming with fourth generation development methodology.

Keywords: Database curriculum, Oracle, SQL, dBASE IV, dBASE III Plus, Relational DBMS

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Recommended Citation: Cain, W. P. (1990). Changing Requirements for the Database Course Curriculum. Journal of Information Systems Education, 2(2), 7-10.