INF3703 database assignment 2

Activities

Step 1: Organisation and problem identification

Find a local community business, school, NGOs or any other organisation of your choice in your area or workplace having an issue, which could be addressed by either designing a new database or improving the existing one. 

For students struggling to get a real-world organisation/business to analyse and base their assignment on, your database design can be based on a case study. You will need to do some  research and come up with a detailed description of an organisation/business and base your assignment on that. 

NB: Whichever case you decide (Using a real-world or case-based organisation/business, you must provide a clear description of the organisation in your assignment). Extra 10 marks will be given to students that put extra effort to find real word organisations, schools, business, or NGOs. One of the reason for this is that the assignment is designed to make students gain a real world experience for instance how to generate business requirement, etc. and using a case study would not provide you with this experience.

The assignment due date should guide you on the scope of the assignment. Due to time constraint, you are advised to limit the scope of the problem identified in order to submit your report within the required time. If the problem(s) identified is too broad for you to handle, provide a description of the problem(s) and indicate the scope of the problem you will focus on in the report. 

Before you continue with step 2 of the assignment, ensure you obtain permission from the business, organisation or school by requesting them to complete and sign the permission letter (This is not for students that based their design on a case study). The permission letter should also be included in your report. 

Step 2: Information or data gathering

Once the organisation and the issue to address have been identified the next step is to collect information you will need to conceptualise a database that would address the issue. You would have to discuss with the stakeholder or other resourceful individuals. You might also need to read other documents to get a better understanding of the domain of expertise of the organisation. The aim of this activity is for you to get a better understanding of the organisation business and the problems at hand in order to propose an adequate database. 

Step 3: Proposed design models (Conceptual, Logical and Physical)

After you have grasped the issue to address, propose first a conceptual model of the new or improved database. In the case where you are improving an existing database, present the existing conceptual model and the proposed one. 

Next, from the proposed conceptual model derive a Logical model. As with the conceptual model if it is for a database you are improving, first present the existing logical model and later the new one.

Once you have the Logical database model, use it to develop a physical model. For those improving an existing database, do the same as with conceptual and logical model.

Step 4: Queries

In this step you are required to proposed transactional queries which could be executed if the database was implemented. You should propose transactional queries related to the issue identified earlier. The aim of this step is to ensure that the database you designed will provide a solution to the problem identified.  Write a note that you will discuss with the business or organisations you developed the database for.

In the note explain to them the concept of concurrent control, the problems of it and propose a possible most appropriate method/s you could apply toptheir database when it is implemented. Justify your choice of method.

Step 5: Optimisation

Discuss various database optimisation methods and briefly suggest an approach you believe should be adapted to optimise the database you designed. Please give reasons.

Step 6: Produce a final report.

1. Write a report describing how each step was carried out and also present the outcome of each of the 5 steps above.
2. The rubric provided to you can be used as a guideline of what is required in the report.
3. You are advised to write the report as you progress in the assignment.
4. To ensure you are on the right track for this assignment, use the rubric provided for this assignment to guide you in this assignment.
5. This report weighs 60% of the semester mark for this module. Remember that all semester marks (all three assignments) contribute 40% of your final mark.