Data Modelling and Database Design

Background of Data Modelling and Database Design

The project is about implementing a database in Torrens University Australia (TUA). The university wants to implement a new student record management system to automate the process of enrolment, timetable management, facilitator management and course management. All the development will be done on campus. With the implementation of the system, the staff can add, update and delete the students’ records. Currently, the university is managing its data in the paper-based files which is difficult to manage and search for a particular student. The system will be able to automate and fasten the processing time.

File-Based Database System

A file-based framework is an assortment of application programs that can easily perform various functions for the users that wish to access data. Each program inside a file-based framework characterizes and also manages with its information. Along these lines, there are some constraints concerning how that information can be utilized or transported. On the other hand, a file-based database system is the best option than saving records in the paper-based files. With the use of file-based database system, data can efficiently be accessed. the concurrent access to the file must be handled effectively. The data in the file-based database must be carefully coordinated. Also, it is required to develop the structured data set in the files (Watt, nd).

Database Approach

 As university wants to store all details of students enrolled, courses in which students are enrolled and the staff details who are facilitating the course, five tables will be considered in the same sheet. These tables will be student, course, facilitator, courses in which students are enrolled and the facilitator who facilitates the courses. As the name suggests, the student will save all personal details of the student, the staff will manage all details of the university staff members and courses that the university provides. Also, this file-based system will save the details of students enrolled in a particular course and the staff facilitating the courses. We are considering normalization to reduce data redundancy and increase data integrity. As one facilitator can facilitate many courses. The foreign key will be used for developing the relationship between master and child tables. The master tables will be course, student, facilitator whereas StuEnrol and CourseFac will be child tables that will store student enrolment in course and facilitators facilitating courses.

Entities and Attributes

As discussed, the five entities that will save all details of the university will be student, course, and facilitator and the child tables will be StuEnrol and CourseFac. The data dictionary is given as follows:

Tables

Attributes

Constraint

Student

RegnNo

Primary Key

 

FName

 

 

LName

 

 

Address

 

 

PhoneNo

 

Course

Course_id

Primary Key

 

CourseName

 

Facilitator

FacID

Primary Key

 

FacName

 

CourseFac

FacID

Primary Key/ Foreign Key

 

Course_id

Primary Key/ Foreign Key

StuEnrol

RegnNo

Primary Key/ Foreign Key

 

Course_ID

Primary Key/ Foreign Key

 

EnrolDate

 

Before inserting data in the spreadsheets, it must be clear that data will be first inserted in master tables ie course, student and facilitator. We cannot insert data in child tables when it does not exist in the master tables. We have used composite primary keys in both CourseFac and StuEnrol entities. A faculty can teach multiple courses whereas many faculties can teach one course. Similarly, a student can enrol in one course at a time but he can enrol in different courses at different time. A unique student id will be generated when a student gets enrolled in some course and that student id will be used for enrolling him. The unique enrolment id will be used in every further processing.

Our Experience in Creating File-based Database System

 In this assessment, we are creating a file-based database system based on university requirements. The excel spreadsheets will be used to create all tables. The requirement of the university has been organized by creating five tables with their primary keys. Three different spreadsheets will be used to represent all versions of the data files. The main problem with this file-based database system is the increase in data redundancy and data security as no additional security measures have been applied. Therefore, some policy should be implemented by the university for accessing the file-based system. Only authorized users should have provided this sheet for adding, updating and deleting data from the sheet.

In this sheet, we have used a normalized form of data set by creating five sets of tables with master child relationship. We have experienced while creating a file-based database that if a record does not exist in the master table, it must not be added in the child table. Overall, this assessment helped us in gaining some more experience over the use of file-based database and database system. It will be difficult to query these data using spreadsheets as the excel sheet does not provide the option for querying the database. The other two transaction tables are Coursefac and StuEnrol in which information about the student enrolment and course assigned to particular facilitator will be saved. A unique enrolment number will help to uniquely identify a student as two students can have the same name and same address. By creating foreign key relationship, data redundancy can be removed which will help in increasing data integrity.

Conclusions on Data Modelling and Database Design

The main objective of this assessment was to create a file-based database using excel sheets and to share our approach of creating a database and our experience while creating these sheets. This database will help the university to organize all students, courses and faculties details in an organized way using excel sheets. The third normalized form has been used in creating these set of tables. The transaction details like student enrolment and facilitator assigned for the course will be saved in different tables.

References for Data Modelling and Database Design

Watt, A. (nd). Chapter 1 Before the Advent of Database Systems. DATABASE DESIGN – 2ND EDITION. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/dbdesign01/chapter/chapter-1-before-the-advent-of-database-systems/

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