| Week Number | Date | Topics and due dates | Reading |
| Week 1 | Aug. 20 | Course outline and Questionnaire | |
| Aug. 22 | Introduction | Ch.1 | |
| Week 2 | Aug. 27 | ER-model design (1) | Ch.2 |
| Aug. 29 | ER-model design (2) | Ch.2 | |
| Week 3 | Sep. 3 | Milestone 1 due | Sep. 3 | Relational Model (1) | Ch.3 |
| Sep. 5 | Relational Model (2) | Ch.3 | |
| Week 4 | Sep. 9 | Milestone 2 due | Sep. 10 | SQL (1) | Ch.5 |
| Sep. 13 | SQL (2) | Ch.5 | |
| Week 5 | Sep. 16 | Homework 1 due | Sep. 17 | SQL (3) | Ch.5 |
| Sep. 19 | B-tree/B+-tree | Wikipedia on B-tree | |
| Week 6 | Sep. 23 | Milestone 3 due | Sep. 24 | Data Storage | Ch.9 |
| Sep. 26 | Tree indexes | Ch.10 | |
| Week 7 | Sep. 30 | Homework 2 due | Oct. 1 | Hash indexes | Ch.11 |
| Oct. 3 | External sorting | Ch.13 | |
| Week 8 | Oct. 7 | Milestone 4 due | Oct. 8 | Midterm review |
| Oct. 10 | Midterm | ||
| Week 9 | Oct. 15 | Fall break | Oct. 17 | Evaluating of Relational Operators | Ch.14 |
| Week 10 | Oct. 22 | Evaluating of Relational Operators | Ch.14 |
| Oct. 24 | A Typical Relational Optimizer | Ch.15 | |
| Week 11 | Oct. 28 | Indexing project due | |
| Oct. 29 | Query Optimization | Ch.12 | |
| Oct. 31 | Transaction Management | Ch.16 | |
| Week 12 | Nov. 4 | Milestone 5 due | Nov. 5 | Transaction Management | Ch.16 |
| Nov. 7 | Concurrency Control | Ch.17 | |
| Week 13 | Nov. 12 | Crash Recovery | Ch.18 |
| Nov. 14 | Database-Backed Internet Applications Database Application Development | Ch.6-7 | |
| Nov. 14 | Homework 3 due | ||
| Week 14 | Nov. 18 | Homework 4 due | |
| Nov. 19 | Physical DB Design, Tuning | Ch.20 | |
| Nov. 21 | BigTable Slides by Jeff Dean (one of the authors) | ||
| Week 15 | Nov. 25 | Milestone 6 due | |
| Nov. 26 | Project presentations | ||
| Nov. 28 | Thanksgiving Holidays | ||
| Week 16 | Dec. 3 | Final exam review | |
| Dec. 10 | Final exam at 12:30pm |