14.3 Database Management Concepts

At the beginning of the week we looked at the first two items in this topic: the purpose of a DBMS and the role of the Database Administrator.

With this topic, it is essential that students know the difference between a flat file, a relational database and a DBMS. They should also be aware of the modelling and defining of databases. This will include Entities, Attributes, Relationships etc. and database structure which includes: Tables, Fields and Keys. 

A DBMS has a definition and some common advantages which students must be aware of.  As for the concept of a DBMS, this image is a good place to start. Two very good sets of notes are from North Chadderton and Gerard Horsley (courtesy of Fatmax). students must also know what data consistency, redundancy, integrity and independence are. On Thursday we will be covering Normalisation and on Friday we’ll be looking at QBE and SQL.

An excellent teaching booklet on Databases is available from Dr Kevin Bond, formerly from Aylesbury Grammar School.  It is for A level Computing, but is still very relevant. It also has some good exercises to work through. I have put up a typical set of ICT5 exam questions for this topic, to be found to the right of the blog entry under ‘Mark Schemes’.