UNC
School of Information and Library Science
INLS723 – Database Systems III, Fall 2009
INLS 723

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Database Project

Introduction

In this assignment, you will create a database for an application area of your choosing. First, you will identify a domain and write a specification for your database. You will review this specification with the instructor and possibly (probably! ;-) make changes. Then you will design and implement a database in Oracle based on the specification. This is an individual assignment, meaning that you will work on this project on your own.

The goals of this assignment are to give you experience designing a complex schema based on real-world situations and then to implement it in Oracle.

This assignment is intended to make you think about how to design for real-world situations. Part of the assignment is for you to choose a domain that reflects a real-world database need. You are encouraged, but not required, to choose a project that could actually be used. It is a requirement that your project and design should focus on a domain that will have a large number of database entries (e.g. at least 100,000 records). You may not actually put that many records in your database (although doing so may impress the instructor), but your design should be appropriate for a large-scale system. Carefully think about your design and justify the choices you make.

What to turn in and how

There will be three dates that you turn-in parts of this assignment.

Project Proposal
Due on Sep 22 at 5:00pm:

  • Turn-in a written "mini-world description" of the domain for your database. This should be in the style of the mini-world descriptions from the course textbooks. Your mini-world description should NOT be more than 2 pages and should be in a 12 point font. Turn in the mini-world description as a single PDF document submitted to the Blackboard digital dropbox for the course.

Project Design
Due on Oct 27 at 5:00pm:

  • A written document that contains:
    1. An updated mini-world description
    2. An ER diagram reflecting your design
    3. A description of your schema/tables (use Elmasri notation)
    4. Note and justifications about your design
    5. A list of at least five sample queries
    Turn in the Project Design as a single PDF document submitted to the Blackboard digital dropbox for the course.

Completed Project
Due at any time after Oct 27, but before Dec 8: You will give a brief (15-minute) demonstration of your database to the instructor by scheduling a time to meet in the SILS computer lab. Note that during the demonstration, the instructor may ask you to drop and re-create tables, and to re-load data. You are expected to be prepared to quickly do these tasks using Oracle scripts and the Oracle bulk-loader.

At the demo, you should have:

  • A PRINTED COPY for the instructor of a written document that contains:
    1. An up-to-date mini-world description
    2. An ER diagram reflecting your design
    3. A description of your schema/tables
    4. Note and justifications about your design
    5. A list of sample queries, SQL code for them, and output
  • A working DB instance implemented in Oracle on the SILS server
  • A loaded data set that you have created
Also submit an electronic copy of the document above as a single PDF document to the Blackboard digital dropbox for the course.