Structuring system requirements: Conceptual data modelling ERDs

Objectives

Define the key data modelling terms o Conceptual data model o Entity Relationship Diagram o Entity type o Entity instance o Attribute o Candidate key o Multivalued attribute o Relationship o Degree o Cardinality o Associative entity Ask appropriate questions to determine data requirements for an information system. Draw an ERD. Explain the role of the conceptual data model. Distinguish between and give examples of unary, binary and ternary relationships. Distinguish between relationships and associative entities and use an associative entity in an ERD. Relate data modelling to process and logic modelling.

Conceptual data modelling

A conceptual data model is a detailed model that shows the overall structure of organisational data while being independent of any database management system or other implementation considerations. Its purpose is to show as many rules about the meaning and interrelationships among data as possible. Process The first step is to develop a data model for the current system. Next, build a new data model that includes all the data requirements for the new system. In the design stage, the conceptual model is translated into a physical design. Using the project repository, all data modelling and design steps can be traced. Deliverables and outcomes The primary deliverable for the conceptual data-modelling step is the Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD). There can be as many as four ERDs produced and analysed during conceptual data modelling. These are 1. 2. 3. 4. An ERD that covers just the data needed in the projects application An ERD for the application system being replaced An ERD for the whole database from which the new applications data are extracted An ERD for the whole database from which data for the application system being replaced is drawn
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The other deliverable is a set of entries about data objects to be stored in the project dictionary or repository. The repository is a mechanism to link data, process and logic models of an information system.

Gathering information
In requirements determination investigations have to be undertaken and questions asked that focus on the data rather than focus on the process and logic. There are two perspectives that can be used

Top-down approach the data model is derived from an intimate understanding of the nature of the business. Bottom-up approach the information is gathered for data modelling by reviewing specific business documents.

Introduction to Entity-relationship diagrams (ERDs)

Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) is a detailed, logical and graphical representation of the entities, associations and data elements for an organisation or business area. The basic modelling notation contains three main constructs

Data entities Relationships Attributes

The following symbols are used to construct ERDs

Entities An entity is a person, place, object, event or concept in the user environment about which the organisation wishes to maintain data An entity type is a collection of entities that share common properties or characteristics. For example for the entity Person could have types Employee or Student An entity instance is a single occurrence of an entity type. For example in the entity type Employee it would be the names of the employees. Attributes
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An attribute ia a named property or characteristic of an entity that is of interest to the organisation An example of attribute for the entity STUDENT would be Student_ID, Student_Name Candidate keys and identifiers The candidate key is an attribute (or combination of attributes) that uniquely identifies each instance of an entity type. The candidate key for STUDENT could be Student_ID The identifier is a candidate key that has been selected as the unique, identifying characteristic for an entity type. The following rules need to be applied when selecting an identifier

Choose a candidate key that will not change its value over time. Choose a candidate key that will always have a value and never be null Avoid using intelligent keys. These area ones that could contain an abbreviation of a location Consider substituting single value surrogate keys for large composite keys

For each entity the name of the identifier is underlined on the ERD Multivalued attributes A multivalued attribute is an attribute that may take on more that one value for each entity instance. An example would be if Dept_Name was an attribute of the entity EMPLOYEE and the EMPLOYEE worked for more that one department. It can be represented on the ERD in two ways

A double-lined ellipse A weak entity

A repeating group is a set of two or more multivalued attributes that are logically related Relationships A relationship in an ERD is an association between the instances of one or more entity types that is of interest to the organisation. This usually means that an event has occurred or that some natural linkage exists between the entity instances. Relationships are always labelled with verb phrases.

Conceptual data modelling and the ER model

The goal of conceptual data modelling is to capture as much of the meaning of data as possible. The more details that can be modelled the better the system is that we can design and build. Degree of a relationship
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Degree the number of entity types that participate in a relationship A unary or recursive relationship is a relationship between the instances of one entity type A binary relationship is a relationship between instances of two entity types A ternary relationship is a simultaneous relationship among instances of three entity types

Cardinalities in relationships Cardinality is the number of instances of one entity that can (or must) be associated with each instance of another entity Minimum cardinality is the minimum number of instances of one entity that may be associated with each instance of another entity Maximum cardinality is the maximum number of instances of one entity that may be associated with each instance of another entity

(n is a number for an upper limit, if one exists)

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Associative entities Associative entity an entity type that associates the instances of one or more entity types and contains attributes that are peculiar to the relationship between those entity instances It is a relationship that can be modelled as an entity type.

Step-by-step construction of ERDs

There are several ways of constructing ERDs. This is just one.
1. Identify Entities 2. Find relationships 3. Draw rough ERD 4. Fill in cardinality 5. Define primary keys 6. Draw key-based ERD 7. Identify attributes 8. Map attributes 9. Draw fully attributed ERD 10. Check results Identify the roles, events, locations, tangible things or concepts about which the endusers want to store data Find the natuiral associations between paris of entities using a relationship matrix Construct an ERD using the entities and relationships already identified Determine the number of occurences on one entity for a single occurence of the related entity Indentify the data attribute(s) that uniquely identify one and olny one occurence of each entity Eliminate many-to-many relationships and include primary and foreign keys in each entity Name the information details (fields) which are essential to the system under development For each attribute, match it with exactly one entity that it describes Adjust the ERD from step 6 to account for entities or relationships discovered in step 8 Does the final ERD accurately depict the system data?

Step by Step ERD Example

The scenario
A University contains many Faculties. The Faculties in turn are divided into several Schools. Each School offers numerous programs and each program contains many courses. Lecturers can teach many different courses and even the same course numerous times. Courses can also be taught by many lecturers. A student is enrolled in only one program but a program can contain many students. Students can be enrolled in many courses at the same time and the courses have many students enrolled.

Step 1 - Identify Entities

The entities in this scenario are

University Faculty School Program Course Lecturer Student

Step 2 - Find relationships

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University Faculty School Program Course Lecturer Student

University Faculty contains

School divided into

Program

Course

Lecturer

Student

offers contains

employs taken by

enrolled

taught enrolled

Step 3 - Draw rough ERD

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Step 4 - Fill in cardinality

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The university contains many faculties Each faculty is divided into several schools Each school offers numerous programs Each program contains many courses Each school employs many lecturers
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Lecturers can teach many courses Lecturers can teach the same course many times Courses can be taught by more than one lecturer A student is enrolled in only one program Students can be enrolled in many courses at the same time Courses have many students enrolled

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Step 5 - Define primary keys

The primary keys could be University University name Faculty Faculty name School School name Program Program code Course Course number Lecturer Employee number Student Student number

Step 6 - Draw key-based ERD

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In this step any many-to-many relationships have to be eliminated. In the ERD so far there are two relationships that fall into this category. They are Lecturer Course and Course Student. As you can see Associative Entities have been included to rectify the situation.

Step 7 - Identify attributes

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In the scenario there are no attributes indicated, so it is up to the analyst to ascertain what data needs to be kept about each particular entity. For example other attributes for Lecturer could be

Employee Name Employee Address Speciality

Step 8 - Map attributes

An example of mapping the attributes would be Attribute Entity Attribute Employee_name Lecturer Faculty_name Employee_number Lecturer Student_number Course_number Course Student_name Entity Faculty Student Student

Step 9 - Draw fully attributes ERD

This is an example of what all the entities should look like when they have been fully attributed.

Step 10 - Check results

Does the final model depict the system well? If there are any discrepancies, the ERD will have to be adjusted.
(Developed by D. Carpenter BBus (IS) Grad Dip (VET), Central Queensland University, 2003)

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ERD - Example 1
There may be more that one way to draw an ERD. The solution given is just one alternative.
Prepare an E-R diagram for a real estate firm that lists property for sale. The following describes this organisation:

The firm has a number of sales offices in several states. Attributes of sales office include Office_Number (identifier/key) and Location. Each sales office is assigned one or more employees. Attributes of employee include Employee_ID (identifier/key) and Employee_Name. An employee must be assigned to only one sales office. For each sales office, there is always one employee assigned to manage that office. An employee may manage only the sales office to which he/she is assigned. The firm lists property for sale. Attributes of property include Property_ID (identifier) and Location. Components of Location include Address, City, State, and Zip_Code. Each unit of property must be listed with one (and only one) of the sales offices. A sales office may have any number of properties listed, or may have no properties listed. Each unit of property has one or more owners. Attributes of owners are Owner_ID (identifier) and Owner_Name. An owner may own one or more units of property. An attribute of the association between property and owner is Percent_Owned.

Rough ERD

ERD with Cardinality

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Key-based ERD

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Fully attributed ERD with keys

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Entity Relaionship Diagram Example 2

Draw a Rough Draft ERD with cardinality for the following scenario (Remember to rationalise any many-to-many relationships) A swim meet director needs to assign swimmers to events and keep track of those of different age groups belonging to swim clubs. A swimmer can belong to only one club at a time and is always attached to a club. A swimmer must be entered in at least one event. Each swimmer is in exactly one age group. An event must have at least 2 but there is no upper limit to the number of swimmers who can enter the event.

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Additional Questions
Question 1: Draw a data model, in the form of an entity-relationship diagram for the following system. The system is required to store information about movies for a movie hire business. The users wish to keep track of the following data:

Members have a username, password and address no two members are allowed to have the same username. Every movie has a title, year released and category. A movie only has one director but a director may have directed more than one movie. The directors first and last names as well as address is stored. The date the movie is hired is recorded, as well as the date the movie is due to be returned.

Note:. Be sure to include all attributes, relationships and minimum and maximum cardinalities. Question 2: For the ERD you have just drawn:

Which are entities? Are there any associative entities? What is the primary key of MEMBER? What is the primary key of MOVIE HIRE? What is the cardinality of each of the relationships? What is the purpose of Primary Keys? What is the purpose of Foreign Keys?

Question 3: Transform the following statement about order processing in an organisation into an ERD.

The staff are responsible for orders, which are identified by an ORDER-NO and have an ORDERDATE, DESCRIPTION, and QUOTED-PRICE. Each order is from one customer. Only one Staff member is responsible for a given order, but a Staff member may be responsible for many orders. The organisation manufactures the order in a series of jobs. The Staff member responsible for an order makes formal requests to sections to carry out these jobs. The requests are identified by a REQUEST-NO. They nominate a START-DATE and an END-DATE for each request. A number of jobs can be created by a section in response to a request. Each job is identified by a JOB-NO and has a COST. All jobs for one request go to the same section, which is identified by SECTION-ID and has one MANAGER. Each job uses a QTY-USED of one or more materials. Materials are identified by MAT-ID and have a MAT-DESCRIPTION. Staff in the organisation are identified by a STAFF-ID and have a SURNAME, FIRST-NAME and DATE-OF-BIRTH.

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Additional Question Answers

Question 1

Question 2 ENTITIES: Member; Movie; Director ASSOCIATIVE ENTITIES; Movie Hire PRIMARY KEY OF MEMBER: Username PRIMARY KEY OF MOVIE HIRE: Concatenated key of Username and Movie ID PURPOSE OF PRIMARY KEYS: A primary key is an attribute that serves as a unique identifier across all occurrences of a relation PURPOSE OF FOREIGN KEYS: a foreign key must satisfy referential integrity. This specifies that the value of an attribute in one relation depends on the value of the same attribute in another relation.

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Question 3

Summary Before you go on to the review questions, spend a few moments thinking about each of the following key terms. If you are not really sure about the meanings revisit the various areas in the textbook to refresh your memory
Associative entity Attribute Binary relationship Candidaty key Cardinality Conceptual data model Degree Entity Entity instance (instance) ERD Entity type Identifier Multivalued attribute Relationship Repeating group Ternary relationship Unary relationship (recursive relationship)

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