CHAPTER 2:

MODELING DATA IN THE ORGANIZATION

Modern Database Management

12th Edition
Global Edition

Jeff Hoffer, Ramesh Venkataraman,

Heikki Topi

Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd.

 OBJECTIVES
 Define terms
 Understand importance of data modeling
 Write good names and definitions for entities,
relationships, and attributes
 Distinguish unary, binary, and ternary relationships
 Model different types of attributes, entities,
relationships, and cardinalities
 Draw E-R diagrams for common business situations
 Convert many-to-many relationships to associative
entities
 Model time-dependent data using time stamps

Chapter 2 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-2

 E-R MODEL CONSTRUCTS
 Entities:
 Entity instance–person, place, object, event, concept
(often corresponds to a row in a table)
 Entity Type–collection of entities (often corresponds to
a table)
 Relationships:
 Relationship instance–link between entities
(corresponds to primary key-foreign key equivalencies
in related tables)
 Relationship type–category of relationship…link
between entity types
 Attributes:
 Properties or characteristics of an entity or relationship
type (often corresponds to a field in a table)
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 Sample E-R Diagram (Figure 2-1)

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Basic E-R notation (Figure 2-2)

Entity Attribute
symbols symbols

A special entity
that is also a Relationship
relationship symbols

Relationship
degrees specify
number of
entity types Relationship
involved cardinalities
specify how
many of each
entity type is
allowed
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BUSINESS RULES (P.96)

 Are statements that define or constrain

some aspect of the business
 Are derived from policies, procedures,
events, functions
 Assert business structure
 Control/influence business behavior
 Are expressed in terms familiar to end
users
 Are automated through DBMS software

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 A GOOD BUSINESS RULE IS:
(P.97)
 Declarative–what, not how
 Precise–clear, agreed-upon meaning
 Atomic–one statement
 Consistent–internally and externally
 Expressible–structured, natural
language
 Distinct–non-redundant
 Business-oriented–understood by
business people
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 A GOOD DATA NAME IS: (P.98)

 Related to business, not

technical, characteristics
 Meaningful and self-
documenting
 Unique
 Readable
 Composed of words from an
approved list
 Repeatable
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
 DATA DEFINITIONS (P.99)
 Explanation of a term or fact
 Term–word or phrase with specific
meaning
 Fact–association between two or more
terms
 Guidelines for good data definition
 A concise description of essential data
meaning
 Gathered in conjunction with systems

requirements
 Accompanied
Chapter 2 Copyright ©by
2016 diagrams
Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-9
 ENTITIES (P.101)
 Entity – a person, a place, an
object, an event, or a concept in
the user environment about which
the organization wishes to
maintain data
 Entity type – a collection of
entities that share common
properties or characteristics
 Entity instance – A single
occurrence of an entity type
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ENTITY TYPE AND ENTITY
INSTANCES

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 AN ENTITY…
 SHOULD BE:
 An object that will have many
instances in the database
 An object that will be composed of
multiple attributes
 An object that we are trying to model
 SHOULD NOT BE:
 A user of the database system
 An output of the database system
(e.g., a report)
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Figure 2-4 Example of inappropriate entities

System System
user Inappropriate output
entities

Appropriate
entities

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 STRONG VS. WEAK ENTITIES, AND
IDENTIFYING RELATIONSHIPS (P.102)
 Strong entity
 exists independently of other types of entities
 has its own unique identifier
 identifier underlined with single line
 Weak entity
 dependent on a strong entity (identifying owner)
…cannot exist on its own
 does not have a unique identifier (only a partial
identifier)
 entity box and partial identifier have double lines
 Identifying relationship
 links strong entities to weak entities
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Figure 2-5 Example of a weak identity and its identifying relationship

Strong entity Weak entity

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 GUIDELINES FOR NAMING AND DEFINING
ENTITIES (P.103)

 Names:
 Definitions:
 Singular noun
 “An X is…”
 Specific to
 Describe unique
organization characteristics of each
instance
 Concise, or
abbreviation
 Explicit about what is
and is not the entity
 For event entities,
the result not the
 When an instance is
process created or destroyed
 Name consistent for
 Changes to other
all diagrams entity types
 History that should be
Chapter 2
kept
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-16
 ATTRIBUTES (P.105)
 Attribute–property or
characteristic of an entity or
relationship type
 Classifications of attributes:
 Required versus Optional Attributes
 Simple versus Composite Attribute
 Single-Valued versus Multivalued
Attribute
 Stored versus Derived Attributes
 Identifier Attributes
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REQUIRED VS. OPTIONAL
ATTRIBUTES

Required – must have a value for Optional – may not have a value
every entity (or relationship) for every entity (or relationship)
instance with which it is associated instance with which it is associated

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 SIMPLE VS. COMPOSITE ATTRIBUTES

 Composite attribute – An attribute that has

meaningful component parts (attributes)

The address is
broken into
component parts

Figure 2-7 A composite attribute

Chapter 2 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-19

 MULTI-VALUED AND DERIVED
ATTRIBUTES
Multivalued – may take on more Derived – values can be calculated
than one value for a given entity (or from related attribute values (not
relationship) instance physically stored in the database)

Figure 2-8 Entity with multivalued attribute (Skill) and derived attribute
(Years Employed)

Multivalued Derived
an employee can Calculated
have more than from date
one skill employed
and
current
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2-20
 IDENTIFIERS (KEYS) (P.107)
 Identifier (Key)–an attribute (or
combination of attributes) that
uniquely identifies individual
instances of an entity type
 Simple versus Composite Identifier
 Candidate Identifier–an attribute
that could be an identifier…satisfies
the requirements for being an
identifier
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CRITERIA FOR IDENTIFIERS
 Choose Identifiers that
 Will not change in value
 Will not be null
 Avoid intelligent identifiers (e.g.,
containing locations or people
that might change)
 Substitute new, simple keys for
long, composite keys
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Figure 2-9 Simple and composite identifier attributes

The identifier
is boldfaced
and underlined

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 NAMING ATTRIBUTES (P.108)
 Name should be a singular noun or
noun phrase
 Name should be unique
 Name should follow a standard
format
 e.g. [Entity type name
{ [ Qualifier ] } ] Class
 Similar attributes of different
entity types should use the same
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 DEFINING ATTRIBUTES
(P.109)
 State what the attribute is and possibly why it
is important
 Make it clear what is and is not included in
the attribute’s value
 Include aliases in documentation
 State source of values
 State whether attribute value can change
once set
 Specify required vs. optional
 State min and max number of occurrences
allowed
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
 MODELING RELATIONSHIPS (P.110)

 Relationship Types vs. Relationship

Instances
 The relationship type is modeled as lines
between entity types…the instance is
between specific entity instances
 Relationships can have attributes
 These describe features pertaining to the association
between the entities in the relationship
 Two entities can have more than one
type of relationship between them
(multiple relationships)
 Associative Entity–combination of
relationship and entity
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 MODELING RELATIONSHIPS (P.110)

 Examples of constraints for

DreamHome are:
• a member of staff cannot manage
more than 100 properties for rent or
sale at the same time;
• a member of staff cannot handle
the sale or rent of his or her own
property;
• a solicitor cannot act for both the
buyer and seller of a property.
Chapter 2 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-27
Figure 2-10 Relationship types and instances

a) Relationship
type
(Completes)

b)
Relationship
instances

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 DEGREE OF RELATIONSHIPS
(P.114)
 Degree of a relationship is
the number of entity types
that participate in it
 Unary Relationship
 Binary Relationship
 Ternary Relationship

Chapter 2 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-29

Degree of relationships – from Figure 2-2

Entities of
One entity two different
related to types related Entities of three
another of to each other different types
the same
related to each
entity type
other
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 CARDINALITY OF RELATIONSHIPS (P.120)

 One-to-One
 Each entity in the relationship will have
exactly one related entity
 One-to-Many
 An entity on one side of the relationship
can have many related entities, but an
entity on the other side will have a
maximum of one related entity
 Many-to-Many
 Entities on both sides of the relationship
can have many related entities on the
other
Chapter 2 sideCopyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-31
Figure 2-12 Examples of relationships of different degrees

a) Unary relationships

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Figure 2-12 Examples of relationships of different degrees (cont.)

b) Binary relationships

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Figure 2-12 Examples of relationships of different degrees (cont.)

c) Ternary relationship

Note: a relationship can have attributes of its own

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 CARDINALITY CONSTRAINTS
(P.120)
 Cardinality Constraints—the
number of instances of one entity
that can or must be associated
with each instance of another
entity
 Minimum Cardinality
 If zero, then optional
 If one or more, then mandatory
 Maximum Cardinality
 The maximum
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Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-35
Figure 2-17 Examples of cardinality constraints

a) Mandatory cardinalities

A patient history is A patient must have

recorded for one and recorded at least one
only one patient history, and can have
many

Chapter 2 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-36

Figure 2-17 Examples of cardinality constraints (cont.)

b) One optional, one mandatory

A project must be An employee can be

assigned to at least assigned to any number
one employee, and of projects, or may not be
may be assigned to assigned to any at all
many
Chapter 2 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-37
Figure 2-17 Examples of cardinality constraints (cont.)

c) Optional cardinalities

A person is
married to at
most one other
person, or may
not be married
at all

Chapter 2 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-38

Figure 2-21 Examples of multiple relationships

a) Employees and departments

Entities can be related to one another in more than one way

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Figure 2-21 Examples of multiple relationships (cont.)

b) Professors and courses (fixed lower limit constraint)

Here, min cardinality constraint is 2. At least two

professors must be qualified to teach each course. Each
professor must be qualified to teach at least one course.

Chapter 2 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-40

gure 2-15a and 2-15b Multivalued attributes can be represented as relationships

simple

composite

Chapter 2 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-41

 ASSOCIATIVE ENTITIES
 An entity–has attributes
 A relationship–links entities together
 When should a relationship with attributes
instead be an associative entity?
 All relationships for the associative entity should be
many
 The associative entity could have meaning
independent of the other entities
 The associative entity preferably has a unique
identifier, and should also have other attributes
 The associative entity may participate in other
relationships other than the entities of the
associated relationship
 Ternary relationships should be converted to
Chapter 2 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-42
associative entities
Figure 2-11a A binary relationship with an attribute

Here, the date completed attribute pertains specifically to the

employee’s completion of a course…it is an attribute of the
relationship.

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Figure 2-11b An associative entity (CERTIFICATE)

Associative entity is like a relationship with an attribute, but it is

also considered to be an entity in its own right.

Note that the many-to-many cardinality between entities in

Figure 2-11a has been replaced by two one-to-many relationships
with the associative entity.
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Figure 2-13c An associative entity – bill of materials structu

This could just be a relationship with

attributes…it’s a judgment call.

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Figure 2-18 Cardinality constraints in a ternary relationship

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 Figure 2-19 Simple example of time-stamping

The Price History

Time stamp – a time value that is attribute is both
associated with a data value, often multivalued and
indicating when some event occurred composite.
that affected the data value

Chapter 2 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-47

 Figure 2-20c E-R diagram with associative entity for
product assignment to product line over time

The Assignment
Modeling time-dependent data has associative entity
become more important due to shows the date range
regulations such as HIPAA and of a product’s
Sarbanes-Oxley.
assignment to a
particular product line.
Chapter 2 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-48
 Figure 2-22
Data model for
Pine Valley
Furniture
Company in
Microsoft Visio
notation

Different modeling
software tools may
have different
notation for the same
constructs.

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Chapter 2 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-50
 MODELING RELATIONSHIPS (P.110)

 Time to practice: Find an entity to describe

different products in a CoffeeShop. These can
be drinks, snacks, cookies, etc…
1. Which attributes of this entity?
2. Which attributes should be required
attribute?
3. Which attributes should be considered as
identifiers?
4. Make a relationship between those entities

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 MODELING RELATIONSHIPS (P.110)

 Time to practice: A dentist office has dentists,

dentist assistants, cleaners and administrator
staff. We are creating a database to track
appointments and to track who works with each
patient in a specific appointment
1. Find all entities and their attributes
2. Which attributes should be required attribute?
3. Which attributes should be considered as
identifiers for each entity?
4. Make a relationship between those entities

Chapter 2 Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Ltd. 2-52