Assume You Designed The Field Length Of Time In The Class

Assume That You Designed The Field Lengthoftime In The Classes Table I

Assume that you designed the field LengthOfTime in the Classes table in the Pitt Fitness database. The LengthOfTime field has data such as 60 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, and 15 minutes. Is this the correct way to record this data? If not, what would be a better method? Originally, Pitt Fitness had all their data in one large Excel spreadsheet.

Suppose you were hired to help Pitt Fitness create a database to replace the spreadsheet. Outline the major steps you would perform to create a normalized database from the data in the spreadsheet.

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The way Pitt Fitness initially recorded the duration of classes using descriptive text such as "60 minutes," "30 minutes," "1 hour," and "15 minutes" within a single field is not the optimal method for database design. Storing time durations as free-form text or mixed units introduces potential inconsistencies, complicates data queries, and impairs data integrity. To improve data consistency and facilitate more efficient data retrieval, it is advisable to store these durations in a standardized numeric format, such as storing the duration in minutes as an integer value. For instance, "60 minutes" and "1 hour" would both be stored as 60, ensuring uniformity and enabling straightforward calculations or comparisons.

Creating a normalized database from a large, unstructured Excel spreadsheet involves several systematic steps. The process begins with a comprehensive analysis of the existing data to understand its structure, content, and interrelationships. This includes identifying the entities (such as classes, instructors, members) and their attributes. The next step is to clean the data—removing duplicates, fixing inconsistencies, and correcting errors. Following data cleaning, the data schema is designed by defining tables based on the entities and establishing relationships among them—adhering to normalization principles to eliminate redundancy and dependencies. For example, creating separate tables for classes, instructors, and members ensures that each piece of information is stored only once, reducing anomalies.

Subsequently, the data from the spreadsheet is migrated into the new tables, which may involve transforming data formats, especially converting descriptive durations into numerical values as per best practices. Referential integrity constraints are defined to enforce valid relationships, and indexes are created to optimize query performance. Once the database structure is implemented, testing is conducted to ensure data accuracy, consistency, and that relationships function correctly. Finally, user interfaces or reports are developed to facilitate easy data entry and retrieval, replacing the original spreadsheet with a robust, scalable database model suited for ongoing operations.

References

• Codd, E. F. (1970). A relational model of data for large shared data banks. Communications of the ACM, 13(6), 377–387.