| Lecturer | Associate Professor Shazia Sadiq |
| Course Link | UQ Site |
| Faculty | EAIT |
| Prerequisites | None |
| Contact Hours | 3 Lecture hours, 1 Tutorial hour, 1 Practical or Laboratory hour |
| Semester(s) Taught | Semesters 1 + 2 |
| Course Units | 2 |
55.3/100
Excessive jargon, fell asleep 13 times!! no exageration!
Semester 1 - 2022
AI
yes
no
Studied the course as a masters student (INFS7900) in sem 2 2018. Thoroughly enjoyed the course as Dr. Hassan Khosravi was presenting. I believe he might not be doing it in 2019 semester 1? But the lecture notes looked much better than the previous lecturer's the semester before. The industrial focus of the course, particularly towards the end with data warehousing was appreciated. MySQL was pretty good to use apart from the interface not keeping your queries after you submit them, but this was a minor annoyance. I believe the course was harder than it was previously and I did find it quite challenging to get great marks, particularly on ER diagram assignment 1 (due to some confusion on my part - note to self, get the tute to have a look at your work BEFORE submission), but rewarding. SQL can give you a headache and Hassan does take you through some, in my opinion, demanding SQL queries.
Some things that might be negative were the online quizzes which were run through Piazza. You have to post a question for other students to answer. This assessment was a little messy as I spent 3-4 hours producing a high-quality question only to have it incorrectly penalised by other students and losing marks. They didn't stipulate these nuances until after the fact. Tutors were very responsive in correcting it, however, and all was well intentioned. Tutes were maybe a little too fast, but really, overall this came down to student organisation. Final exam for masters had some brutal queries I didn't answer.
Overall, quite a challenging course, but Hassan did a stellar job with a well structured, thorough introduction to databases. Highly recommended.
Semester 1 - 2017
Master of IT
No
No, but useful supplement
Most obscenely boring course I have ever taken by a long shot... and I did SCIE1000. Lectures are too long and while the lecturer does his best with the material I don't think that Richard Feynman could make it interesting.
The worst part however is the god awful RIPPLE you are forced to do. It is meant to encourage learning and trying out questions that everyone posts online, but you lose marks for getting them wrong... This just makes it so everyone looks up the questions or skips them if they are too hard, making it impossible to learn with. Seriously a crap course, avoid at all costs!
Semester 1 - 2017
Comp Sci
No
No
Firstly this subject is essential for foundation for databases.
The lectures are very dull. I would recommend watching them online at double speed. Most of the content it taught poorly. I found that for normalisation which the lecturer says most students struggle with the most is taught poorly. I watched a couple youtube videos and after 20 minutes I understood the content. After 3 hours of lectures still struggled to understand the concepts.
The labs are not required to be completed on campus and can be completed in 5 hours (for the whole semester).
The tutorials can be a hit or miss. I had a good tutor at first which was helpful but another tutor swapped with him and was absolutely useless.
The assessments are easy however half the challenge is understanding poorly communicate outlines.
Semester 1 - 2017
Bsc (Comp Sci))
No
No
Weird course. The previous reviews are pretty much spot on. The bulk of the assignments is trying to decode the broken English jargon-fest and the quizzes are literal copy and paste of the 'mock quiz' they give you before hand. It can be quite interesting at times though those times are far and few between. Our tutor had no idea what he was doing but his replacement one week was great and actually had a passion for the subject... So it's a bit of a lucky dip in the tutor department. No idea why they need a 2hr lecture for this course. Lecture attendance isn't necessary, you can just flick through the slides in your own time as the content isn't dense at all. The sql assignment is easy and so is the final exam which is basically identical in content to both quizzes.
Semester 1 - 2017
BSc
Nope
Nope
Overall if you're looking for a bludge to go along with harder subjects like PHYS1002, then this is the course for you.
There was extremely little content, and what there was super easy to learn, to the point where lecture attendance is completely unnecessary. On the topic of lectures, each one involved a 60-80 slide powerpoint which for the first few weeks I attempted to summarise in a note book. This was a complete waste of time, as often lectures were ill-explained and irrelevant. Thankfully I was given a golden piece of advice 'ditch lectures, and come to tutes'. This was probably the best advice I've ever received in my life, so 10/10 would recommend following it.
At a first glance the assignments are really easy, that is until you realise the material provided either is impossible to use, or refuses to follow the basic rules of the English language. Thus, they take 5 times as long as they should and are only completable once tutors are able to decipher them the night before they're due.
The only things which save this course from being 'a bludge you'd choose' to 'a bludge to avoid' are the super easy quizzes, and the online learning tool LDBM which is surprisingly legit and organised compared to the rest of the course. Also the fact that the lecturer pretty much gave half the quiz to us beforehand in the form of a 'mock' quiz is always a bonus.
Overall, despite the course feeling like it's a mess, the workload is incredibly light and the content is easy so would definitely recommend this course as the one to fill that bludge-shaped hole in your semester. It's a course to teach you the basics of databases and nothing more, and honestly by the end of it I felt like it did exactly that.
Semester 2 - 2016
BEngg/ BSci
No
Never even opened it
Having taken this course just recently (semester 2 2015), I must say this course is not difficult at all. It is one of those courses where you don't have to attend any lectures at all but still end up getting a solid 6 (not encouraged, of course).
The content taught is quite useful for people seeking the software pathway and unlike most other first year courses, this course teaches you contents that sets foundation for your future career if you are ever considering doing database related jobs, web maintenance etc.
The lecture is super boring and I personally stopped going since week 3. It is very detailed. Very, very detailed. Perhaps way too detailed. Every time I go in to a 2hr INFS1200 lecture thinking I'm going to stay focused for the whole duration, but i just can't... The lecture slides are FULL OF JARGON. The lecturer is basically a text to speech machine that reads off slides. I feel like I could give better presentations than her. Most importantly, students are overwhelmed with jargon and unimportant stuff they often feel dizzy or sleepy before the lecture moves onto more serious stuff. For example, while this course spent an entire module on Functional Dependencies and Normalization, I understood the core concepts just by watching a 10 min video. Now image sitting there for 3 hours listening to the boring voice of the lecturer, not fun. Therefore I highly recommend attending the very first couple of lectures and see for yourself whether its worth it. If you are a very motivated student you may as well attend every lecture since she does go into details. But if you are like me who just cannot do it, then don't feel bad for not going since the core concepts of modules can be easily obtained from online or lecture slides.
Do go to pracs and tutes (especially tutorials). Tutorials are super handy as tutors work through real examples from the exam and the assignment. Tutorials are all you need for this course really.
While this maybe compulsory for first year software engineering students, if you are a master student and /or 3rd year 4th year students looking for an easy course with an easy 7, look no further than INFS1200. It delivers important knowledge while not been overly difficult.
Semester 1 - 2015
BE Software
NO
NO
If you ever wanted to a course which was easy, well structured and provide a good balance between prac and theory, well INFS1200 is among the ever increasingly rare courses, offered at UQ, which actually meets this criteria. Unlike some of the 1st year courses, INFS1200 is designed to be easy and intuitive, boosting your morale and confidence lost from some of those other painful 1st courses.
For those of you who don't know what information systems is, it essentially entails the design and implementation of databases from start to finish, from the actual paperwork right down to SQL. No programming experience is assumed (SQL isn't actually a proper programming language BTW).
The lectures are actually useful and insightful, with no technical issues associated with lecture recordings (otherwise this would've been an utter embarassment for an IT lecturer) and the lecturer, Professor Shazia Sadiq providing very informative yet consise explanations that are easy for any layperson to understand, despite her accent. Additionally, she does provide real-world examples (not a reference to QUT) relating to databases and encourages class participation, making the course meaningful. The only minor upset was when Shazia mysterious vanished, only to have Professor Xue Li to fill her role for an 8am lecture. He may be a knowledge man with strong words, but the strength of his words is comparable with the strength of his accent, making it extremely difficult to understand functional dependencies, which was in fact the most difficult component of the course.
As for the content, some may complain that the terminology is bit over the top for such intuitive concepts. I would say that it isn't, and doing well in the exam is matter of memorising a few bits and pieces here and there, practicing some SQL as well as completing some past exams. The exam itself poses no surprises and is a direct reflection of all the past exams, so you can be sure of an easy 7.
Another thing, don't bother with the textbook, unless you plan on taking later year courses in info system. The textbook will overwhelm you with complicated terminology that could be easy explained by a high school student or quick google search for that matter.
The only real complaint that I can make is that it simply isn't challenging enough. Other courses bombard you content, encourage critical thinking or force you to think creatively, INFS1200 doesn't really do either of these and you could get a 7 simply by attending all the tutorials and revising everything the hour before the exam (though I don't encourage it).
Overall, if you're ever in need of an easy breezy course to complement that nasty, painful 1st/2nd year couse such as ENGG1100 or PHYS1002 (just to name a few), then INFS1200 is worth considering even if your not planning to undertake a computer science, software engineering or any IT major.
Semester 2 - 2014
BE/BSc
For some, yes
NO
I really resented this course. A whole new vernacular exists within information system crowds and it's so pompous. Seriously, "Parametric End User".... just means users who use the database a lot. Even simple ideas are made purposely complex and harder to understand. If ever there was a subject made solely to weed out slackers, this is it. Most of the course is learning definitions of these words because everything else is dead simple. You just design and construct small-scale databases, most of which can be done in a day or two in the real world. The quizzes and exam really try to work off the over perplexing vocabulary so they will be hard if you don't know it. The lecturer is obviously so far inside these 'INFS crowds' that she has no idea how confusing this stuff can be to new students but still manages to portray the content adequately. The core of the subject is quite interesting and fun but it's so heavily clouded by complications that's it's hard to enjoy the course as a whole.
Semester 2 - 2013
Software Engineering