The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – TOJET January 2004 ISSN: 1303-6521 volume 3 Issue 1 Article 3

Database Management Systems: A Case Study of Faculty of Open Education

Zehra KAMIŞLI, Anadolu University, [email protected]

1. INTRODUCTION
We live in the information and the microelectronic age, where technological advancements become a major
determinant of our lifestyle. Such advances in technology cannot possibly be made or sustained without
concurrent advancement in management systems (5).

The impact of computer technology on organizations and society is increasing as new technologies evolve and
existing technologies expand (5). Because of the influences of the innovations in the computer technology,
people can also build their own computerized systems with easy-to-use construction tools.

Management is a process by which certain goals are achieved trough the use of resources like materials, people,
money, time. These resources are considered to be inputs, and the attainment of the goals is viewed as the output
of the process. Database systems continue to be a key aspect of Computer Science & Engineering today.
Representing knowledge within a computer is one of the central challenges of the field. Database research has
focused primarily on this fundamental issue (6).

This paper presents a database management system developed for AOF (Faculty of Open Education) course
books. Its rationale is based on the development of a database application that share data and operations through
a database. It supports organization’s manipulation and retrieval of data. In order to organize large amounts of
data (book’s names, ISBN numbers, number printed; authors’ names, and addresses, etc.) similar user interfaces
are developed for different types of users. In addition, they can create special reports. It also encourages users
who have no previous programming experience. The detail of the study is presented in the third part of the paper.
In the second part of the paper, some knowledge about management information systems and database
management systems are given.

2. MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Management information systems (MIS) consists of a collection of interrelated data and information
structure that organized in such a way that it corresponds to the needs and structure of an organization and can be
used by more than one person for more than one application. A (MIS) is a formal, computer-based system,
intended to retrieve, extract, and integrate data from various sources in order to provide timely information for
routine, structured, and anticipated types of decisions. In addition, it has been successful in acquiring and storing
large quantities of detailed data concerning transaction processing (5). MIS has the following characteristics:

1. It supports recording keeping and data processing functions.

2. Same databases can be shared for all functions of the organization
3. Every manager, from the diffrent levels of the organization can reach easily to the data.
4. All data and information can be used only by authorized personnel. Thus, system’s security is provided.

Organizations require MIS because of some specific causes. These causes are; (3)

1. Complexity of data transfer and communication problems because of this complexity.

2. Work and force repetitions, creation of same data, and storing them in many different places.
3. Applying many kinds of operations and information flows when obtaining same data.
4. Impossibility of working with data. It’s hard to get useful and necessary information because their form
and positions aren’ t proper.
5. Insufficient data source.
6. Limited information support.

2.1. Database Approach

Misplacing information is a problem. Having the right information is not enough; we also have it logically and
physically organized so that you can easily access it and make the sense of it. Having the right information and
being able to get it quickly will increase productivity .Once getting the information, it must be stored so that
people can get it easily and make changes as needed. There are two views of information, physical and logical.
The physical view deals with how information is stored on storage devices, while the logical view deals with
how you arrange information while you’ re working with it (1).

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The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – TOJET January 2004 ISSN: 1303-6521 volume 3 Issue 1 Article 3

Everyone has his or her own files of information. And the software that each person uses to maintain the
information in the file is called a file management system. There are some basic problems with using files and
file management systems (1). First, the same information may be stored in many different places. This problem
is known as data redundancy. For example, a course book’s chapter names appear in two different places.
Second, because the same information exists in several places, there is the issue of data integrity. Data integrity
deals with the correctness of the information. Although the author’s title is correct in the chapters file, it isn’t
correct in the addresses file; this is the loss of data integrity.

Because of these problems, all the organization’ s information stored in one place and a software is proved that
anyone can use to access any of the information. These concepts are called database and database management
system (DBMS). A database is a group of related files, and a DBMS is the software designed to create, store, and
manipulate a database.

One facet of a database management system is processing inserts, updates, and deletes. This all has to do with
putting information into the database. Changes in data representation will often be needed as a result of changes
in query, update, and report traffic and natural growth in the types of stored information. A relational database is
a big spreadsheet that several people can update simultaneously.

The relationships between the many individual records stored in a database can be expressed by several logical
structures. DBMS are designed to use these structures to execute their functions (5). One of these structure is
relational. Relational database allows the user to think in the form of two-dimensional tables, which is the way
many people see data reports. This structure is most popular for DSS databases.

The database approach offers a number of important and practical advantages to an organization. Reducing
redundancy improves the consistency of data while reducing the waste in storage space. Sharing data often
permits new data processing applications to be developed without having to create new data files. In general, less
redundancy and greater sharing lead to less confusion between organizational units and less time spent resolving
errors and inconsistencies reports. The database approach also permits centralized control over data standards,
security restrictions, and integrity controls. This facilitates the natural evolution and change of information
systems and organizations. Databases are very commonly used in everyday life. The relational model of
databases provides a very simple way of looking at data structured into tables (7).

3. PROCESSING OF THE COURSE BOOK DATABASE

The course books database is user-friendly software designed to store and retrieve in an efficient and systematic
way the large amounts data collected in different departments related with these books. Having the entire course
books information printed for AOF, in one place means that all people, regardless of the department they are in
or what their jobs are, can gain access to the information they need.

The need for this study is appeared because of the problems defined in the second section. There are still 278
kinds of books are being used by students. Nearly every book has at least two printings. And also there are 735
authors and editors. This means that, there are at least 735 different address data are stored. Like these, the
system has been using different types of data about course books. The people studying with these data, have
problems like storing the same files with different names, storing them with same name but with different
changes.

The DBMS developed for AOF is composed of four subsystems: data definition, data manipulation, data
administration, and application generation (4).

3.1 The Data Definition Subsystem

The data definition subsystem helps defining the structure of the files in the database.
Data tables are designed on relational data tables. There are eighteen data tables provided by the relational
database in this study (Table-1). In the relational data table, attributes represent necessary data summarized by
the course book’s printing, and royalty departments. The structure of the relational database in this paper is
described in Figure 1.

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The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – TOJET January 2004 ISSN: 1303-6521 volume 3 Issue 1 Article 3

3.2 The Data Manipulation Subsystem

The data manipulation subsystem lets us add and delete records, change field contents, and view the database.
The information in a database can be viewed by using queries.

Figure.1 Relationships Table

Table-1: Data Tables

DATA
TABLES
1. Books BookID, Name, Barcode Number, ISBN, publication numbers
2. Printing BookID, Printing number, date, number of pages
3. Chapters BookID, Chapter number and names, Author’s ID
4. Authors AuthorID, title, name, surname, address, phone number
5. Publishers BookID, AuthorID, beginning and last chapters
6. Titles Title
7. Royalty BookID, date, pointer, coefficient, addition, text type
8. Text type Text type
9. Stock BookID, entrance and exit date, unit, explanation
10. Book-Sets SetID, BookID
11. Sets SetID, Set names
12. Offices OfficeID, Office name
13. Course Names CourseID, Course
14. Faculties FacultyID, Faculty name
15. Departments DepartmentId, Department name
16. Courses BookId, CourseID, Course name, Faculty, department and class
17. Addition royalty BookID, page number, number of words
18. Selection BookID, Course

The database is opening with the following start-up menu. The user has the following six main options: creation
of necessary records of book’s characteristics; control of book storage; preparing royalties and storing personal
(authors and publishers) information, and preparing any kind of reports to see information about books. User can
quit the database by clicking “Programdan Çıkış” command button (Figure 2).

Figure.2 Main Menu

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The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – TOJET January 2004 ISSN: 1303-6521 volume 3 Issue 1 Article 3

User can add, edit, and delete records by using the following forms (Table 2):

Table-2: Database Forms

1. New Course Book Definition
2. Printing
3. Courses
4. New Course Definition / Modification of Courses
5. Chapters
6. Authors & Publishers Addresses
7. Modification of Authors & Publishers
8. Royalty
9. Course Book’s Sets Definition
10. Stock Inputs & Outputs
For example, “Printing” form includes all the fields necessary to define course books printing information. It is
used to enter new printing data into the database. An
example of an input data screen is shown in Figure 3. User selects the book’s name and fills out necessary fields.
The user can add new course book to the database by clicking “yeni kitap Ekle” command button. He can also
make modifications of existing data. The edit and delete operations are identical to the input data operations
and work in the same way. In this form, there’re also links for reports of printing data.

Figure. 3 Printing Form

User can also view the information in the database by using special reports. A form is used for preparing reports
(Figure. 4).

Figure. 4 Reports Form

3.3. The Database Administration Subsystem

Storing all of the course book’s information in a database has created the need for managing the database. In the
relational database, data integrity and security are maintained by those who are authorized to use, update, and
delete. The database administration subsystem lets us establish users of the database, specify who can update

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which information, and develop methods for backing up the database and recovering the database in the event of
a failure. For example, one form printing department could look at, but not change, information relating to the
price of royalties.

3.4 Application Generation Subsystem

Application generation subsystem contains tools that help us create and update other features such as menus,
data entry screen forms, reports, and application software. This study needs more time to examine
further development of system implementation. For example, new orders can be taken from users, like new
reports, and data entry forms.

4. Conclusion

Until now, there is no problem with the database. Users can use it easily without any problem. Everyone related
with these data are now uses only one database, and can reach easily. By this study, the data redundancy and
integrity problems have been solved.
Finally, in the future studies, according to this relational database management system, a web-based system will
be constructed. By then, everyone besides the related people can reach general information about course book
data from anywhere.

REFERENCES
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Makinalarına Dayaylı Yönetim Bilgi Sistemi”, Ankara İktisadi ve Ticari İlimler Akademisi, Yayın No:81,
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