Fundamentals of Database Design

Wednesday 23 February

The objective of the lecture is to briefly introduce the notion of a database system and then to give a practical overview of the process of designing a database schema.
The aim is to show how to end up with a database model starting from the row data. In this process the participants will learn what is a conceptual design of a database (entity-relationship model), how to transfer the conceptual design to a logical design (relational model), get acquainted with the Data Definition Language as part of SQL, look at some common pitfalls when designing a database schema.

1.      Introducing database concepts

2.      Conceptual Design – Entity-Relationship Model

3.      Logical Design

4.      Relational Database Model

5.      Introducing SQL (Structured Query Language)

6.      Implementing the relation model through the DDL part of SQL

7.     Effective design best practices and common pitfalls