Database structure

Business Rules and Data Models

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Introduction

A database primarily repositions data and thus its creation and usage truly gives an indication of improved human operations. A college requires a database in tracking and assessing learners, staff and non-staff members, cash flow and work progress to make sure there is effective delivery of services.

1. Purpose

The primary purpose of a college database is to accurately record and store exam results, track progress of both learners and instructors, enable automated options in creating, storing and retrieving data, and evading tedious manual operations. The database allows concurrent access; different users can access the database and perform independent tasks without interference and fear of leaking out valuable information.

2. Entities of the database

An entity is the target object that the college database focuses onto. It is expressed in form of an entity type to indicate a set of similar objects and further in form of an attribute to give a description of the entity type.

The Entry-Relationship Model is an effective way in which the entities and attributes can be described. The model makes good use of an entity, relationship, and attributes to bring out logical meanings (Ramakrishnan et. Al. 2003). The information in a college database are:

· Student: any learner who successfully registered and enrolled at the college

· Instructor: a teacher, lecturer, or anyone who teaches or has ever taught at the college

· Course: any subject or program taught at the college

· Advising: an instructor attached to each student to give advise

· Grades: marks scored in every subject and the overall accumulation per course by each student

Entity-Relationship Model

In the database, a student is a representation of an entity, the student’s grade in a particular course is the relationship between the student, the course and the instructor (Spaccapietra & Fdrale, 1992).. Also, with the instructor giving advice to a student, it gives a reflection of the relationship between them. The database groups individual entities and individual relationships into homogeneous sets of entities which are students, courses, and instructors. This works together with homogeneous sets of relationships which are advice and grades.

3. Business rules

In database management, business rules are critical in defining entities, attributes, relationships and constraint. In most cases, the college uses such rules as part of its policies to guide students, staff and non-staff members on what to do or not to do (Morgan, 2002). There are a number of business rules that can have an impact on the structure of a college database. They are as discussed below:

Data manipulation

This business rule is applicable in situations where an application is placed, updated, deleted or viewed from the database. Such a business rule impacts on the database structure by outlining a protocol on how and the kind of data can be placed into the database.

Validating data

Through this business rule, it is possible to outline all validation routines so that all the data entered is accurate and easy to be used for future references.

Handling multi file data access

With the understanding that a college database has to serve different independent tasks, the business rule here has a direct impact on how possible it is for users to trace complex chains of logic and data values. This means the structure has to be altered in that the way a student has access to the grading portal is different for how the instructor accesses it to reduce fraud.

4. a. conceptual model

A conceptual model in a college database is a map with major concepts that provide a summary of the data model. It is mainly used for strategic purposes. The information in such a model are entity names and entity relationships. This indicates that the expected number of entities range from 20-50, but with limited attributes (Zachman, 2007). While showing the relationships, all entities must be defined.

b. physical data model

A physical data model gives a fully-attributed data model in that it has some dependency on a specified version of data persistency technology. The information included is primary keys, foreign keys, column names, and column data types. Typically, this data model gives a description of all data requirements in a single application but may be integrated with other data models for efficiency. It contains 10-1000 tables though variable depending on the usage. The columns have data types together with precisions and their lengths assigned. In addition, columns have null options while tables and columns keenly defined.

Conclusion

Having a database is essential in effective running of the global institution. A college depends on a database to reduce instances of miscalculations and ensure accuracy when awarding grades. In addition, it helps in keeping track of how everything is handled, how many students have passed through the institution and keen analysis of results and performance.

References

Morgan, T. (2002). Business Rules and Information Systems: Aligning IT with Business. New York: Macmillan PP.

Ramakrishnan, R., Gehrke, J., & Gehrke, J. (2003). Database management systems (Vol. 3). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Spaccapietra, S., & Fdrale, C. P. (1992). ERC+: an object based entity relationship approach.

Zachman, A., (2007). A framework for Information Systems Architecture. IBM Systems Journal, 26 (3).

ADVISING

STUDENTS

GRADES

INSTRUCTORS

COURSES