Assignment 1 guide

General guides
 Average length for the assignment 1 is 25 pages
 Fonts: Calibri, Font size 12, Line spacing 1.3, use of : Headings, Paragraphs, Subsections and
illustrations as appropriate is required.
 Complete and fill all required data in the Front page with scan digital signature.
o Table of contents
o List of Figures
o List of Tables
 Introduction
o Introduce the project and explain what the project is all about
o Explain the problems that requires address and give solutions to the problems
o Talk about what the important parts of the assignment you will address
 Body of the report
o Plan, Design, Evaluate
 Conclusion
o The summary of the entire assignment that brings the report to a satisfying and logical end.
 Evaluation
o You must provide your opinion or verdict on whether an argument, or set of research findings, is accurate.
o You can provide a SWOT about the course.
 References
o Inline text citations are required (Sources of information)
o You must use Harvard referencing style for this report.

Assignment criteria

Planning: These activities involve problem definition, analysis of entities and attributes, database
design (ERD, tables, columns, keys), data normalization, and requirements enumeration.
 Identify the problem to be solved by the relational database management system.
 Analyze the entities and attributes related to the problem.
 Draw an Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) to illustrate the entities and the relationships
between them.
 Identify the tables needed in the database, the columns corresponding to the attributes, and
the data type for each column.
 Set up primary keys and foreign keys to ensure data integrity.
 Normalize the database to eliminate duplicate data and ensure data consistency.
 List the user requirements and system requirements for the database.

Design: Design user interaction elements (UI interface, reports) and ensure data integrity (data
auditing, query optimization)
 Design a user interface (UI) for users to interact with the database.
 Design reports to display data as needed.
 Define data validation rules to ensure that data entered into the system is accurate and valid.
  Test and optimize data queries to retrieve data efficiently.
Evaluate: Evaluate design against system requirements and performance
 Compare the design to user and system requirements (Verification):
 This involves a thorough review of the system design documents (e.g., architecture
diagrams, user stories) to ensure all functionalities and features meet the pre-defined
user needs and system objectives.
 Ex: Let's say the user requirement specifies searching for products by name and price
range. During verification, you'd ensure the system design includes a search function with
filters for product name and price range.
 Check the accuracy, integrity, and consistency of the data (Validation):
 This step focuses on ensuring the data stored within the system is accurate (free of
errors), complete (no missing values), and consistent (follows defined rules and formats).
 Ex: Imagine a system stores customer addresses. Validation would involve checking if
addresses have correct street names, postal codes, and follow a consistent format (e.g.,
city before state).
 Evaluate the performance of the system (Performance Testing):
 Here, you assess the system's ability to handle user requests efficiently. This involves
measuring factors like data retrieval speed (how fast information is retrieved from the
database) and response time (how long the system takes to respond to user actions).
 Ex: Performance testing could involve simulating a scenario with many users accessing the
system simultaneously. You'd then measure how long it takes for users to search for
information or complete tasks.
 Analyze the weaknesses and suggest improvements to the design (Evaluation):
 This step involves using the results from verification, validation, and performance testing
to identify any shortcomings in the system design. Based on the identified weaknesses,
you can propose enhancements to improve functionality, data management, or overall
user experience.
 Ex: Evaluation might reveal that complex search queries take a long time to process. An
improvement suggestion could be to implement search indexing for faster retrieval of
specific data.
 Perform testing to ensure the system works correctly as required (Testing):
 This involves creating test cases that simulate real-world user interactions and system
functionalities. Running these tests helps uncover bugs, errors, or unexpected behavior in
the system before deployment.
 Ex: A test case could involve logging into the system with different user permissions and
verifying access to specific features based on assigned roles. Another test case might
focus on entering invalid data into a form and checking if the system handles it
appropriately (e.g., displaying error messages).