Designing A College Database Using Visio And Reflecting Busi

Designing a College Database Using Visio and Reflecting Business Rules

This assignment comprises two sections: the creation of a database diagram using Visio and a design summary explaining the design choices. The goal is to develop a comprehensively modeled database for a college that tracks students, courses, and instructors, based on specified business requirements. The first section involves modifying an existing Visio diagram to incorporate relevant entities and relationships, while the second section entails a reflective write-up discussing the design's fidelity to the business needs, assumptions made, and justifications for the modeling decisions.

Section 1: Modified Visio Diagram

Using Microsoft Visio or an equivalent open-source tool, the first task involves updating an initial database diagram developed in Lab 1. The modifications must accurately represent the entities and attributes necessary to fulfill the college's tracking needs for students, courses, and instructors, as described in the scenario. Key entities include Student, Course, Instructor, and potentially ancillary entities such as PhoneNumber, Email, Address, and Grade, if normalization or detailed attribute separation is desired.

The Student entity should include attributes such as StudentID, Name, Address, StartDate, Gender, and BirthDate. To handle multiple contact methods effectively, separate PhoneNumber and Email entities or attributes with types (e.g., Mobile, Home, School, Work) should be associated with students, ensuring that multiple contact details are properly modeled. Similarly, the Instructor entity must include InstructorID, Name, Address, PhoneNumbers, EmailAddresses, Gender, BirthDate, and a relationship indicating qualification to teach specific courses.

The Course entity must track CourseID, CourseName, Department, QuartersOffered, Sections, and the Instructor teaching the course. The relationship between Course and Instructor should specify which instructors are qualified and currently teaching. The system should also record students' final grades per course, implying a relationship between Student and Course with an attribute Grade.

The relationships in the diagram should depict the logical connections, such as Student-Enrollment through Grade, Instructor-Teaches via Course, and the association of instructor qualifications with Course. Proper cardinalities (one-to-many, many-to-many) must be defined based on the scenario, e.g., a student can enroll in multiple courses, a course can have multiple students, and an instructor can teach multiple courses.

The completed diagram must be submitted as a Visio file (.vsdx), reflecting the updated entities, attributes, and relationships aligned with the scenario. This visual representation will serve as the basis for understanding the logical structure of the database system designed for the college.

Section 2: Design Summary

The accompanying one- to two-page paper should provide a critical reflection on the Visio diagram, examining how well it captures the college's data requirements. In the discussion, articulate the degree to which the diagram models the intended business processes and data flows. Highlight any assumptions made during the design process—such as how contact information is stored, whether multiple phone numbers or email addresses are modeled as separate entities or as multivalued attributes, and how course assignments to instructors are managed.

Describe the rationale behind modeling choices, including the separation of contact details into distinct entities or attributes, the decision to include or omit certain relationships, and how to handle the many-to-many relationships, such as students enrolling in multiple courses or instructors teaching multiple courses. Clarify how these assumptions ensure the diagram reflects real-world college operations, and note any simplifications or limitations.

Both the diagram and the summary should emphasize principles of normalization, clarity of business rules, and adherence to best practices in database modeling. The summary must be formatted in Times New Roman, size 12 font, double-spaced, with one-inch margins, adhering to APA style for citations if referencing sources.

This reflective paper provides insights into the thought process behind the database structure, demonstrates understanding of data modeling techniques, and articulates how the visual design aligns with the college's information management needs.

References

• Elmasri, R., & Navathe, S. B. (2015). Fundamentals of Database Systems (7th ed.). Pearson.