ISC 471/HCI 571 Lab Two



1) Go to the following website and read through what entity - relationship diagrams are:

http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~tdrewry/lds.htm

Consider the following question: Are entity relationship diagrams (or logical data structures) types of mental models?



2) Now, try writing logical data structures (LDS) [or entity-relationship diagrams] for the following situations:



A) Sports Clubs and Events

The first LDS describes the situation:

A person may attend a number of training sessions.

A training session is attended by zero or more persons.



B) This LDS describes the situation:

Club members attend events.

Members each have one particular ability (which is used in the event).

Each member has a rank



C) Route Mapping

The next LDS describes a database to store information about routes
used for training and testing advanced motorcyclists.

A route is made up of a number of sections.

Each section is a stretch of road, which has a 'difficulty' rating.

A stretch of road has a start and end points which are named locations.

A road section may be used in a number of routes.



3) You can "test" the effectiveness of your models against ones provided on the following website:


http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~tdrewry/ass_ears.htm


 4) Go the the following website:

http://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/analysis/er/er_intro.html


Is the way that ERDs displayed different from the treatment found in the link for step one above? In what ways are the treatments similar, and in what ways are they different? Do you prefer one over the other? If so, why?




5) Go to: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Database


6) Then under the heading, "OpenOffice.org User Guides (Getting Started with Base)", download the associated PDF file which contains a tutorial.


7) Try to finish as much of the tutorial as possible. .