Database Processing: Fundamentals, Design, and Implementation - Term Paper Example

?Introduction A self-service system could be defined as knowledge management software that specialises in storage of information and process rules (Kroenke, 1997). This system remains contained in an organised taxonomy and users access the stored information through decision supported interviews. Functionally, the system allows user to answer questions and receive information regarding their queries through automated, system-generated interviews, instead of the commonly utilised search approach fashion. The system holds the capability to offer replies to a variety of processes utilised within the entire system. The information contained within the self-service system comes for the known questions, commonly asked, and the system contains answers set within the database of the system. The authors of the system emulate several finite questions, and provide responses seeking to address the general information aimed at delivering a definite answer to the inquiries. Utilisation of self-service systems continues to play a significant role in delivering timely responses to inquiries regarding rules, and information about an organisation’s operations. Though the systems deliver timely responses, they remain limited to the information stored within the system’s database. The systems lack the capability to offer explanations to terminologies which the end-user might fail to comprehend. The systems, however, offer a surmountable advantage to the employees of an organisation. Though they fail to offer comprehensive responses, for the less inquisitive individuals, the responses offered remain sufficient. This immensely reduces the number of persons visiting the enquiries office seeking clarification; hence, the systems ease the burden of customer enquiry employees by reducing their workload. The system refers individuals to the enquiries offices for clarification, if required. Student Sport & Leisure Management System The student sport and leisure management system for this university could be categorised as a self-service system. This system shall contain the necessary information regarding sporting and leisure activities that students engage, and would like to engage in. The collection of this information shall form the basis for developing the self-service system, much desired by the university’s students’ union president. The development of the system essentially marks the beginning of a digital era in the sport and leisure management within the university. The system shall contain numerous entities relating with each other to form the desired database of information. Ramez and Navathe, (2007) state that the categorisation of these entities remains essential in ensuring that information could be retrieved in an organised manner, and this ensures that the system provides end-users with the required information. Entities According to Bruce (1992) entities could be defined as categories of real or abstract objects containing similar characteristics, and with capability to participate in same relationships. Definition of these entities becomes the categorisation of various objects that could be clustered together within a self-service management system. Entity definition becomes fundamental in ensuring that the entities falling within the specified problem domain remain clearly defined. This definition would play a significant role in assisting the developers of the system to offer solutions to the identified system shortfalls. The existing problem domains, therefore, remain the defining elements of the various entities present within a new system. Identification of the problem domains would ensure the developed system offers essential and desirable solutions to the organisation. 1. Forms The different forms utilised in gathering the required information regarding students form an important entity within the new system. Before accessing the services of the system, students shall be required to log into the system. During this stage, new students shall be provided with a registration form for enrolling into the different activities within the university. Upon filling the form, a user profile shall be created by the system where details of the student shall remain. The system automatically transfers these details into other forms once the user logs into the system. The user profiles remain essential in reducing the time consumed in filling forms since most details remains within the system. For example, if a student wishes to enrol for a new program, upon logging in, the activity registration form containing the student’s names, department, ID, accommodation, among other basic information shall be provided for the student to accept, and fill the required activity details. 2. Course registers This entity shall provide lists of all courses registered within the entire university, including names of participants within different course. Since these registers shall be importing data from registration forms a student’s details shall not appear in more than three different course registers. The course registers remain essential in maintaining the maximum number of courses available per student. While some activities might still have space, a student already registered for three activities shall not gain registration for another course, the system shall inform him/her that he has reached the maximum course allowance. 3. Participation list The participation list could form one of the entities within the system. Within the domain of the system, this list shall contain information regarding the students participating in a specified event, present within the system. From the digital list, students can view a participation list in a desired manner. These lists could be generated by the system following the different attributes available within the entity. For example, the system could generate the participation list of bingo for the summer of 2012 according to the participants’ campus. From this information, students shall be able to contact teammates from within their halls of residence. This shall also ensure students to recognise participating members with whom they share other facilities within the university. 4. Profiles This entity aims at creating a database of information concerning students’ personal details, regarding the activities they participate in. This information includes the professional experience within the specified activities. Instructors and coaches could utilise the information contained in student profiles in selecting their team captains and activity teams as well. Information contained here shall only be that connected to the activity an individual engages in. Students shall be able to view profiles of other participants within the same activity. This shall facilitate easy establishment of participants in terms of their experience within specified activities. 5. Available activities In order to deal with the problem of delayed registration and overbooking, the system contains an entity showing the available activities, and the booking level as well. Since online booking shall provide real-time information, the availability of activities for a desired event shall remain updated within the system. This entity becomes critical in avoiding delays caused by overbooking as students shall be able to enrol only in activities with available space, during the desired term. With elimination of this problem, the system shall offer timely information and enable immediate feedback in the event of a failed application resulting from unavailability of space. 6. Activity teams This entity seeks to avail lists containing names of students participating in specified events, who become members of the college teams. The coaches and instructors should select their teams, for upcoming competitions, and inform the selected participants of the selection into the teams. Providing an online list of selected team could immensely improve the dissemination of information to players regarding the team choice. Since the selected teams become available online, friends could inform each other of the selection before mails reach the residents of selected members. Creation of this entity also assists in maintaining a record of the individuals becoming selected into activity teams in different competitions. This entity would become a fundamental reference point in establishing how active students remain within their choices of activities. 7. Interests Interests’ entity shall provide a platform for students to enter any ideas of their own regarding activities that interest them. Availability of this entity shall mean that whenever students have creative ideas they can present them to the administration for consideration. The number of suggestions available per individual shall be unlimited, in order to ensure exhaustive presentation of students interests. Viewing this entity, students can make comments regarding the suggested interests of others. These comments could become essential in determining the activities that could be included in the following calendar of activities. Such information shall reduce instances when interest activities become available, and students fail to register. 8. Information This entity shall provide end-user with information regarding upcoming events, among other news. In the event of inclusion of new activities, the information entity shall be utilised in informing existing students of proposed new event. This shall ensure students remain informed about the occurrences within the sport and leisure activities in the university. During tournaments, fixtures and scores can also be accessed within the domains of this entity, hence disseminating information regarding the occurrences within the activities scene. 9. History This entity shall contain historical information of activities within the university. The details contained here shall include lists of participants within different events, during previous terms and years. Among these details shall include any major awards won by different teams, either in competition or recognition from organisations. Students can utilise this information in deciding on the most active and attractive activities as well as tracing previous participants within different activities. This entity shall enable the passing down of teams’ philosophies and driving forces. The previous activity results could potentially attract new students into various events, appearing most active. 10. FAQs The inclusion of frequently asked questions entity could become essential in ensuring that new students could get information regarding the system rules. The enquiries department shall provide the developers with information regarding the queries mostly asked by students. This entity shall contain predetermined questions and their answers. The importance of this entity within the system remains answering some of the queries received by the enquiries desk. This entity shall significantly reduce the number of people seeking to have queries answered within the enquiries department. Attributes Within the identified entities shall be attributes describing the specified entities. Though some attributes might be repeated within the different entities, they shall present the domains within each entity. Within the entity of forms, the attributes shall include registration form, interest form, leadership form and booking form. The repeated information on these forms shall not be entered each time a student accesses the system as the system shall keep record of the basic information like student numbers, departments among others. Participation lists shall contain names of students participating in specified activities, together with the details contained in the various forms filled by the student. This information regarding the participants shall be automatically generated by the system from the forms within the system. Whenever an attribute changes on the registration form, similar changes ought to occur in the other entities utilising the information. The available activities entity comprises of a list of all activities offered within the university. Viewing of an activity, like chess, shall directly collect the information regarding the booking forms remitted with chess as a choice. A student should be able to view the availability of chess according to the information provided by the system, from the entity of available activities. The activity teams’ entity provides a list of names, selected by instructors of different activities, for purposes of competition within the activity. Instructors remain at liberty to alter the list according to competition requirements, and their liking. The final authority regarding the list of names contained in a team lies with activity coaches and instructors. Student shall however contact the relevant activity instructors regarding selection into the activity teams during competitions. Relationships Within the system there exist different levels of relationships assisting in the functioning of the system. The entities identified above relate to each other in different ways as indicated by the matrix below. The relationship matrix above indicates the existence of relationships between the different entities within the system. The forms entity contains relationship with most of the other existing entities. Participation list shall become generated from the registration forms filled when students register for various activities. The activity teams shall retrieve information regarding team members from the information contained in the participation list of the various activities occurring within the university. These entities share various domains within them, hence the development of relationships between the entities. The forms and participation list share a direct relationship of registration. For participants to become recognisable within the framework of the participation list, they must register in certain forms. Registration remains a shared relationship between the forms entity and the other entities. The relationship existing between the participation list and activity teams remains that of selection. Activity teams become selected by various activity instructors, from the participants. Therefore, the information regarding details of the activity team members comes from the participation list. These relationships could be presented by the illustrations below. Registration Selected in Selected from The above illustrations describe the relationships existing between various entities as presented in the relationship matrix shown earlier. Though relationships exist between various entities, the nature of the relationships varies with the attributes involved in each entity. Functional dependency The various relationships existing between entities and entities, and those existing between entities and attributes create a relational design model of system. Functional dependency could be described as the relationship existing between two elements in which one entirely depends on the other for proper functioning. The participation list, for example, cannot become generated if the registration forms have not been fully completed. The system utilises the information contained in the forms in generating participation list. This dependency places forms entity on top of the other entities as their functioning depends on this single entity, though they remain independent entities. The system therefore, recognises the forms entity as the beginning of all the essential information required to completely install a functioning system. The attributes contained in different entities play a fundamental role in the functioning of the described entities. Forms lacking information like residence, for example, would be considered incomplete; hence no information could be generated from that form. With some missing details, the form cannot be availed among other completed form, and the owner cannot participate in any activities available. This would indicate a functional dependency of the entities on the fundamental entity attributes. Conclusion A self-service system within an organisation offers opportunity for the organisation to implement quick and timely service delivery. These services, however, must become defined before establishing a system to be utilised within the organisation. While the system offers immense benefits, to the organisation, in terms of service delivery, accessibility of the system remains critical in ensuring the system delivers the desired services. The system ought to be user friendly and be governed by operational procedures that must not fail during critical times. The system should be able to deliver the desired information to the end-users to be considered effective, in service delivery. While the system contains important information required by the end-users, administrators of the system should ensure that a back-up remains within reach in case of system failure. Linking all the entities within the system to provide essential information remains critical in proper functioning of the system. Operations that depend on others totally, need to be assessed to eliminate the possibilities of delivering erroneous information to the end-users. References Bruce, T. A., 1992, Designing Quality Databases With Idef1X Information Models, New York: Dorset House Publishing. Kroenke, D. M. 1997. Database Processing: Fundamentals, Design, and Implementation, New York: Prentice-Hall Ramez, E., Navathe, S. B. 2007. Fundamentals of Database Systems (5th edition Ed.). Boston: Pearson/Addison Wesley. Read More