CHAPTER 3

Data Modeling Using the

Entity-Relationship (ER) Model
Conceptual Diagram
Physical Model

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Example COMPANY Database
 We need to create a database schema design
based on the following (simplified) requirements
of the COMPANY Database:
 The company is organized into DEPARTMENTs.
Each department has a name, number and an
employee who manages the department. We keep
track of the start date of the department manager.
A department may have several locations.
 Each department controls a number of
PROJECTs. Each project has a unique name,
unique number and is located at a single location.

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Example COMPANY Database
(Continued)
 The database will store each EMPLOYEE’s social
security number, address, salary, sex, and birthdate.
 Each employee works for one department but may work
on several projects.
 The DB will keep track of the number of hours per week
that an employee currently works on each project.
 It is required to keep track of the direct supervisor of
each employee.
 Each employee may have a number of
DEPENDENTs.
 For each dependent, the DB keeps a record of name,
sex, birthdate, and relationship to the employee.

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ER Model Concepts
 Entities and Attributes
 Entity is a basic concept for the ER model. Entities are
specific things or objects in the mini-world that are
represented in the database.
 For example the EMPLOYEE John Smith, the Research
DEPARTMENT, the ProductX PROJECT
 Attributes are properties used to describe an entity.
 For example an EMPLOYEE entity may have the attributes
Name, SSN, Address, Sex, BirthDate
 A specific entity will have a value for each of its attributes.
 For example a specific employee entity may have
Name='John Smith', SSN='123456789', Address ='731,
Fondren, Houston, TX', Sex='M', BirthDate='09-JAN-55‘
 Each attribute has a value set (or data type) associated with
it – e.g. integer, string, date, enumerated type, …

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Types of Attributes (1)
 Simple
 Each entity has a single atomic value for the attribute. For
example, SSN or Sex.
 Composite
 The attribute may be composed of several components. For
example:
 Address(Apt#, House#, Street, City, State, ZipCode, Country), or
 Name(FirstName, MiddleName, LastName).
 Composition may form a hierarchy where some components
are themselves composite.
 Multi-valued
 An entity may have multiple values for that attribute. For
example, Color of a CAR or PreviousDegrees of a STUDENT.
 Denoted as {Color} or {PreviousDegrees}.

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Example of a composite attribute

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Entity Types and Key Attributes (1)
 Entities with the same basic attributes are
grouped or typed into an entity type.
 For example, the entity type EMPLOYEE
and PROJECT.
 An attribute of an entity type for which each
entity must have a unique value is called a
key attribute of the entity type.
 For example, SSN of EMPLOYEE.

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Entity Types and Key Attributes (2)
 A key attribute may be composite.
 VehicleTagNumber is a key of the CAR entity type

with components (Number, State).

 An entity type may have more than one key.
 The CAR entity type may have two keys:

 VehicleIdentificationNumber (popularly called VIN)

 VehicleTagNumber (Number, State), aka license plate
number.
 Each key is underlined (Note: this is different from the
relational schema where only one “primary key is
underlined).
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Displaying an Entity type
 In ER diagrams, an entity type is displayed in a
rectangular box
 Attributes are displayed in ovals
 Each attribute is connected to its entity type
 Components of a composite attribute are
connected to the oval representing the composite
attribute
 Each key attribute is underlined
 Multivalued attributes displayed in double ovals
 See the full ER notation in advance on the next
slide
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NOTATION for ER diagrams

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Initial Design of Entity Types:
EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT, PROJECT, DEPENDENT

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Refining the initial design by introducing
relationships
 The initial design is typically not complete
 Some aspects in the requirements will be
represented as relationships
 ER model has three main concepts:
 Entities (and their entity types and entity sets)
 Attributes (simple, composite, multivalued)
 Relationships (and their relationship types and
relationship sets)
 We introduce relationship concepts next

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Relationships and Relationship Types (1)
 A relationship relates two or more distinct entities with a
specific meaning.
 For example, EMPLOYEE John Smith works on the ProductX
PROJECT, or EMPLOYEE Franklin Wong manages the
Research DEPARTMENT.
 Relationships of the same type are grouped or typed into
a relationship type.
 For example, the WORKS_ON relationship type in which
EMPLOYEEs and PROJECTs participate, or the MANAGES
relationship type in which EMPLOYEEs and DEPARTMENTs
participate.
 The degree of a relationship type is the number of
participating entity types.
 Both MANAGES and WORKS_ON are binary relationships.

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Relationship instances of the WORKS_FOR N:1
relationship between EMPLOYEE and DEPARTMENT

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Relationship instances of the M:N WORKS_ON
relationship between EMPLOYEE and PROJECT

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ER DIAGRAM – Relationship Types are:
WORKS_FOR, MANAGES, WORKS_ON, CONTROLS, SUPERVISION, DEPENDENTS_OF

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Constraints on Relationships
 Constraints on Relationship Types
 (Also known as ratio constraints)
 Cardinality Ratio (specifies maximum participation)
 One-to-one (1:1)
 One-to-many (1:N) or Many-to-one (N:1)
 Many-to-many (M:N)
 Existence Dependency Constraint (specifies minimum
participation) (also called participation constraint)
 zero (optional participation, not existence-dependent)
 one or more (mandatory participation, existence-dependent)

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Many-to-one (N:1) Relationship

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Many-to-many (M:N) Relationship

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UML diagrams (ER, Conceptual, Physical)
 Represent classes (similar to entity types) as large
rounded boxes with three sections:
 Top section includes entity type (class) name
 Second section includes attributes
 Third section includes class operations (operations are not
in basic ER model)
 Relationships (called associations) represented as lines
connecting the classes
 Other UML terminology also differs from ER terminology
 Used in database design and object-oriented software
design
 UML has many other types of diagrams for software
design

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Physical model diagram for COMPANY
database schema

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Conceptual Diagrams
 The conceptual data model is the very first and
the most abstract data model in the data
modeling process. It is a high-level diagram that
use to define, describe, organize, and present
data elements and their relationships with
relatively few details.

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Example of Conceptual Diagram of
Employee Database system

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Conceptual Diagram of Ordering
system database

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