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DATA MODELLING CONCEPTS COURSE
(Course Code: DM1)
CONTENTS
Data Modeling Concepts Course
Why Should People Learn Data
Modeling?
Consider this problem. You have just landed in a strange airport. You need to
get into the city. What do you do?
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Hire a taxi? The driver knows the city … He'll take you.
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But you need a car to get around while you are there.
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OK. Rent a car? But how do you find your way?
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Get a City Map - or better still - a Street Directory.
With a Street Directory the inside cover shows the layout of the city, overlaid
by a grid network. Each grid corresponds to a page with greater detail. You can then find
where you are, where you want to go, and how to get there. But there may be many routes
you can choose:
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Depending on traffic rules and traffic conditions
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Depending on the time requirements (ie. Performance)
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Depending on technology: taxi, car, bus, train, walking
So how do business managers and their staff find data and information they need
for decision-making?
Similarly, a data model is the "Corporate Street Directory". It
includes data maps and data details in a Repository. It is analogous to the city map and
details of streets. A data model, therefore:
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Depends on business rules and business conditions
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Depends on the time requirements (ie. Performance)
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Depends on the technology used: mainframe, micro, network etc
A data model should be based on an organisation's strategic, tactical and
operational business plans, if information systems are to be built that are aligned with
the corporate goals. But most organisations have not, until recently, recognised the
importance of data models - which are as vital to the construction of an information
system as an architect's plans are for the construction of a house or a skyscraper.
Today, a data model is an essential prerequisite for development of
Application Data Bases, Data
Warehouses, for Internet/Intranet systems and for business
transformation to take advantage of the Internet and corporate Intranet technologies.
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Purpose of the
Course
This course teaches business managers and their staff ("business
experts") as well as analysts, data administrators and data base administrators
("IT experts") how to work together in a design partnership to develop a data
model for their organization.
This data model provides a blueprint of the data needed to support business
processes, and the information needed by management for decision-making. A data model is a
prerequisite for:
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Development of integrated data bases to be used for Applications
and for redevelopment of Legacy Systems
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Development of a Corporate Repository for Data and Information Warehouses
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Identification of re-engineered business process opportunities
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Business Re-Engineering to take advantage of the Internet and Intranets
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Prerequisites
- This course has no prerequisites.
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Audience for the Course
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Business managers and their staff who need to understand the concepts of data
modeling, so they can participate actively in partnership with IT staff in data
modeling
sessions that draw on their business expertise.
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IT managers, data administrators and systems development staff who also need to
understand the concepts of data modeling to participate with business managers and staff
in data modeling sessions, and so enable the IT staff to draw on their systems
development expertise in a design partnership with the business experts.
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Objectives of the Course
On completion of the course, both business experts and IT experts will
understand:
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How data
modeling and data mapping are used to represent expert business
knowledge.
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How data entities, attributes and associations are used to represent business
meaning in a design partnership with business and IT staff.
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How data
modeling can be used to represent management information needs and the
underlying data in data models that enable rapid business change.
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How data
modeling can identify business requirements for data bases,
Internet/Intranet and Data Warehousing projects.
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How data
modeling can be used for Forward Engineering, Reverse Engineering and
Business Reengineering projects
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Certified Business
Data Modeler
Participants in this course can qualify as a
Certified Business Data Modeler
by completing the Business Normalization Concepts course, and also completing the Data
Modeling Case Study Workshop.
The student edition of the
Visible Advantage modeling
tool is supplied to each student. This is a limited capacity, but full-function
modeling tool that is used in conjunction with the case study workshop. It includes laboratory
exercises and instructions for entering your case study solution into Visible Advantage so
that you can check the validity of the solution before its submission.
The Visible Advantage encyclopedia must be returned to us by email
as your solution for the CBDM Exam, for
individual assessment. If required, we will set additional remedial study and exercises
until each student demonstrates a full understanding of the relevant Data
Modeling and
Business Normalization concepts.
Following completion of the workshop, the student edition of Visible
Advantage is retained by each student and can be used for small projects, if required. The
encyclopedia from each small project can be automatically merged into larger project
encyclopedias, using the enterprise edition of Visible Advantage - if relevant. This
enables students to apply the skills they have learned to specific areas of your
enterprise where they have particular expertise.
To register for Certification, please
order the CBDM course online, providing also an email address. We will email
to you a password and further details so that you can download and install the courses and
workshop materials.
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Course Outline
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Data Modeling Concepts: Introduces and defines the components of a data
model - data entities, attributes and associations, and their representation in data maps
and entity lists.
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Data Entity Types: Defines and illustrates the use of each data
entity type - principal (supertype) entities, secondary (subtype) entities, type entities,
role entities, intersecting entities that are used to represent business activities,
processes and systems, and structure entities that are used to capture expert knowledge
for development of dynamically-updated expert data bases.
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Data Mapping Conventions:
Introduces conventions used to document
data maps, and represent business strategies for strategic analysis of business
alternatives.
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Strategies and Associations:
Shows how data maps can be used for
rapid feedback to management for refinement of strategic alternatives.
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Data Attribute Types: Defines and illustrates the use of primary
and foreign keys, compound keys and candidate keys. Defines and illustrates non-key
attributes including secondary keys (ie. selection attributes), derived attributes,
elemental attributes, group attributes and repeating groups.
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Course Exercises: Five course exercises of increasing difficulty
are included for student completion throughout the course, together with sample solutions.
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Duration of the Course
The course material, when presented as PDFs of PowerPoint
Instructor Notes, will take
approximately 4 - 6 hours to complete. With completion of the five included course
exercises, a total of 8 - 10 hours will be required depending on each student's
progress.
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CBDM Registration
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Course License Agreement
The courses and workshop are delivered in an electronic format as a
password-protected compressed file, downloaded using an email message which also contains
the Course License Agreement. Before downloading, decompressing or expanding the courses
and installing them on a machine for use, please read the terms of the Agreement
carefully. If you do not agree with them, you should promptly destroy all copies of the
file, whether electronic, printed or otherwise and notify Information Engineering Services
Pty Ltd in writing by post, electronic mail or facsimile of its destruction. On receipt of
this notification, your money will be refunded. You will otherwise be taken to have
accepted and agreed to all the terms of the Agreement, and will therefore be bound by it.
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