Volume 3

9 pages 744 K bytes

A Macro Approach to Relational Database Modeling Douglas M. Kline University of North Carolina Wilmington Wilmington, NC 28403-5611 USA Charlene Riggle University of South Florida Sarasota, FL 34243-2197 USA

Abstract: A new data modeling process is presented that addresses some of the weaknesses of the traditional normalization-driven modeling process. Current approaches generally begin with forms or reports for a particular system as rough entities, then taking these entities through a normalization process, inspecting attribute functional dependencies. The proposed approach is entity-oriented, focusing more on fully developing the data entities and their relationships than on scrutinizing functional dependencies among attributes. We argue that this macro approach should result in more communicative models that are more flexible, being less specific to particular applications. We end with a discussion of other topics that arise in relational data modeling.

Keywords: data modeling, relational model, modeling processes

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Recommended Citation: Kline and Riggle (2005). A Macro Approach to Relational Database Modeling. Information Systems Education Journal, 3 (35). http://isedj.org/3/35/. ISSN: 1545-679X. (A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of ISECON 2004: §2124. ISSN: 1542-7382.)