CSc 498/699, Spring 1998
Project (Phase I)
Due: 27 April, 1998 (Monday)



Before you embark on the project, make sure that you are a member of a team. The team size should be either 2 or 3. The deadline for informing me about your teams is Friday, April 17th.

The first phase of the class project is to decide on an application area which would need a database approach. If you have a real-world application (at work) which needs a database solution, it would be an ideal problem. Otherwise, I shall leave it up to your imagination. It is better to select an area with which you are familiar. Some suggestions: Airline Reservation System; Bank Information System; Video Rentals Database; University Registrar's Database; Mutual Funds Database; Sports Statistics Information Systems such as NBA database, Major league database, Test Cricket records; Retail Store Information System; Automobile Servicing System; Car Dealership Database; etc.

After deciding the application area, you need to perform the design using the Entity-Relationship modeling technique. Specifically, I require the following:
  1. A detailed description of the application area.
  2. A detailed E-R diagram representing the design along with explanations on the various assumptions you have made (such as total/partial participations and N-M/N-1/1-1 relationship types, primary identifiers, weak entities etc.)
  3. A detailed relational schema in Oracle SQL.
This must be in the form of a professional report. You should assume that you are giving this to your boss at work and not to me! There will be points assigned to the presentation aspect of the report. Also, do not throw away the report as we will be adding to this report in subsequent phases of the project.

Do not try to cover all aspects of the application area, as this would make your design quite complex and unmanageable at the later phases (programming) of the project. A good rule of thumb would be between 5 and 15 relational tables in your database.