| 6210 Syllabus | Janet Murray | Notes #1 | Notes #2 | Notes #3 | Notes #4 |
Information Design is one of the oldest of human activities and one of the most characteristic. One way to look at artifacts of early literacy (assignment #1) is to see them as examples of information design. Jack Goody, in an influential book entitled The Interface Between the Written and the Oral (1987; 1993) points out that many such artifacts are tabular (table-like) in nature with words and numbers in columns, associated by row. Goody thinks that the table is a powerful thinking tool because it creates empty boxes. (p. 270-1), which provoke us to think about what we may not have noticed or named or counted before.
The electronic database is a continuation of the same core human activity of recording, sorting, organizing. It may start out as an aid to commerce, but it can also make us aware of our unexamined categories and therefore help us become smarter and even perhaps wiser.
Some Database Terms
For more detailed information on relational databases, see Michael J. Hernandez, Database Design for Mere Mortals (Addison-Wesley, 1997)
For an online tutorial, try Webmonkey or the Filemaker Pro tutorial installed on the Macs in the IDT Lab. Windows-based Access is also a good choice for database practice.
Data vs Information: anything purposely added or collected is data; it could be garbage (GIGO: garbage in, garbage out). Information is data organized and presented in manner that makes it meaningful to user.
Table (a single subject: students at Georgia Tech). A table represents a single kind of object (student, inventory items) or a single kind of event (doctor's appointment, sale)
Record (a single, unique instance of subject category: a single student)
Field / Value (or Attribute / Value): I.D. number / 12345 (label of field / instance of an id number)A field is the smallest structure in a database, and it represents a characteristic of the subject. t,
View; Report: Saved Query; Layout: Ways of looking at the information in a database. A partial view or particular sorting of the database as a whole. For example, alphabetize film clips by Director, including only those with "USA" in "country" field
In general, records in a database are displayed as rows. Fields are displayed as columns.
Relational Database
Modularity principle: write it once, use it everywhere it is needed; change it once to change it everywhere
Example of multiple table database:
Courses: meeting rooms, credit hours, instructor
Students: year, address(es), major, tuition paid?, classes ...
Relationship between Tables:
1 to 1 students to single dorm rooms
1 to many (students to library books)
many to many (students to course)