College Database

Running Head: COLLEGE DATABASE

RUNNINGHEAD: COLLEGE DATABASE 5

College Database

Raymond Dampier

Intro to Relation Database

Strayer University

Dr. Carol Segura

14 July 2014

The Purpose of the Database.

The college database system will enable fast and easy access of multiple types of data such as student details and learning resources. Fast and easy access of the database contents is due reduced duplication of the database. The duplication is normally referred to as data redundancy that makes retrieval of database contents slower and harder. It will also enhance the consistency of the data, thus making the school system more reliable.

Security of learning resources and students’ details will be improved by the college database system. This is because the system will allow accessed to specific data in the database system based on the permission granted to use the database system. The college database system hence increases integrity of its data due to the access restrictions for various resources (Ramakrishnan, 2003). Moreover, the database will allow multiple users to access its contents without interference.

The College Database Entities and their Attributes.

The college database will have entities which include: student, instructor, department course and administrator. The student entity has many attributes that describe the student details. The attributes of these entities are outlined in the table below:

Student	Instructor	Course	Administrator	Department
First Name	First Name	Course Name	First Name	Department Name
Middle Name	Middle Name	Course Number	Middle Name	Dept. ID
Last Name	Last Name	Level	Last Name	Department Address
Course	Course	Duration	Department	Phone No.
Registration Number	Instructor ID	Modules	Administrator ID	Email Address
Date of Birth	Date of Birth	Pre-requisites	Date of Birth
Resident Town	Social Security No.		Social Security No.
Phone Number	Phone Number		Phone Number
Email Address	Email Address		Email Address
Address	Address		Address

Business Rules and their Impact on the Database.

The college database will have some constraints imposed on the registration of staff and students due to college business rules. For instance, an instructor’s responsibility in the college is to teach students. However, the same instructor might have a position in the college administration meaning that some instructors are also administrators. On the same constraint, some administrator will also teach students (Ramakrishnan, 2003).

In another business rule, some instructors may be allowed pursue some courses in the same college. Such a constraint means that some instructors are also students. In the same context, some administrators might be learning certain courses in the same college. These administrators will thus be considered as students, further complicating the database schema. The worst case is experienced when an instructor has a position in the administration and takes a course in the same college at the same time. Such an individual will have a student registration number, instructor ID and administrator ID. All these attributes are meant to refer to different entities.

The Database Conceptual and Physical Models.

A conceptual model of the college database will contain the entities (Student, Administrator, Course, Department and Instructor) and their relationships. The relationships will be defined as one-to-many, many-to-many or many-to-one. For instance, the relationship between the student entity and the course entity can be defined as a many-to-one relationship. The relationship between an instructor entity and the course entity can be defined as a one-to-many. An administrator entity’s relationship to a department can be defined as a one-to-one relationship (Sumathi, 2007).

The physical model will outline the tables of the college database. The tables will include: student, instructor, department, course and administrator tables. The model will also include the tables’ columns limits and the referential integrity. It also contains the table data types and their constraints.

References

Ramakrishnan, R., & Gehrke, J. (2003).Database management systems (3rd ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Sumathi, S., & Esakkirajan, S. (2007).Fundamentals of relational database management systems. Berlin: Springer.