Introduction to

Database Design
Methodology
Chapter 3 Basic Concepts of
Entity-Relationship Model

Learning Goals

To describe the basic stages in database

design

To understand the basic concepts of entityrelationship model in conceptual database

design

To identify the entities, attributes and

relationships in simple scenarios

Table of Contents

Overview of Database Design

Entity-Relationship Model

Entity

Entity Set

Attribute

Relationship
3

Scenario of an Online
Bookstore
Consider the following scenario

The owner of an online bookstore wants to create an

information system for online sale of books. People
will be allowed to register as customers of the online
website. Customer information like customers
correspondence addresses, e-mail addresses, and
credit card numbers are to be maintained. In a single
order, customers will be allowed to purchase any
quantity of books. Items in a single order will be
shipped to the customer.

Scenario of an Online
Bookstore
Problem:

How to design a database system that can satisfy

the needs of the above online bookstore?

Scenario of an Online
Bookstore

The above description may be considered as part of

the user requirements of an online bookstore.

User requirements are usually collected by some

fact-finding techniques, such as, examining
documentation, interviewing, observations,
questionnaires, research, etc. We will not study such
techniques in this part of the course.

Our main objective is to design a well-structured

database based on the user requirements collected.

Database Design

Design the
Database

User_1s
requirements

User_2s
requirements

User_ns
requirements

Logical
database
structure

All users
requirements

Database

Database Design

A systematic approach to database design consists of

three main stages:
1.

Conceptual database design

2.

Logical database design

3.

Physical database design

Database Design

All users
requirements

Conceptual
Database Design

Logical
Database Design
Database

Physical Database Design /

Implementation

10

Database Design

Conceptual database design

To build the conceptual model of the database. This includes

identification of the main data objects and relationships among the
objects in the system.

We will study the conceptual design in this and the next chapter.

Logical database design

To translate the conceptual model into the logical structure of the

database. This includes designing the table structures in relational
database.

We will study the logical design in Chapter 5.

Physical database design

To design how the logical structure is to be physically implemented

in the target Database Management System (DBMS).
11

Database Design

Referring to the three levels of data abstraction in

database (Chapter 2)

Conceptual and logical designs correspond to the

design of logical structure of the database in the
conceptual level.

Physical design corresponds to the design of

physical implementation of the database in the
physical level.

12

Database Design
View Level

Conceptual
Level

Physical Level

Conceptual Design
Logical Design

Physical Design

13

Database Design

We will only study the conceptual and logical database

designs in this part of the course.

You will learn

Conceptual database design in the rest of this chapter

and in Chapter 4

Logical database design in Chapter 5

14

15

Conceptual Database Design

The main objective of conceptual database design is to

design the conceptual model of a database.

A conceptual model is a representation of the main

data objects and relationships among the objects in a
system (e.g. a school library system).

The most widely used conceptual model in database

design is the entity-relationship (ER) model.

ER model is usually represented graphically in the form

of an entity-relationship (ER) diagram, which will be
introduced in Chapter 4.

16

Entity-Relationship Model

Entity-Relationship (ER) model views the real world as

a collection of entities and relationships among entities.

Before we start to design the ER model of a database

system, let us study some basic terminologies in ER
model.

Remark: You may have learnt the concepts of ER

model in the other topic of the Databases option. As
these concepts are very important in conceptual
database design, let us review these concepts before
we study the design methodology.
17

Entity-Relationship Model

The basis terminologies used in ER model are:

Entity

Entity Set

Attribute

Relationship

18

Entity-Relationship Model

Entity

An entity is a real-world object that is distinguishable

from other objects.

Entities may be physical (e.g. a student) or nonphysical (e.g. an event in sport day, an exam).

Some examples of entities are: a student, a teacher, a

book, an employee, an examination, etc.

In designing database, we should consider those

entities that are of interest to us, i.e. those related to
the user requirements.
19

Entity-Relationship Model
Im an entity

Exam

Im also
an
entity

Im an entity

Im an entity

Im an entity

Im an entity
Im an entity

20

Entity-Relationship Model

Attribute

An attribute describes a particular characteristic of

an entity.
Each entity has a set of attributes.
The attributes represent the data that we want to
keep about each entity.
For example,
stud_id, name, dob, sex are possible attributes
of a student;
ISBN, title, author, publisher are possible
attributes of a book.
21

Entity-Relationship Model
Attributes of a student

stud_id

name

dob

sex

Entity: a student
22

Entity-Relationship Model
Attributes of a book

title

author

ISBN

publisher

Entity: a book
23

Entity-Relationship Model

Domain of Attribute

An attribute can only take certain values. The set

of all possible values that can be taken by an
attribute is known as the domain of an attribute.

Remark: domain of an attribute can be

considered as the data type of an attribute. Some
examples of data type are: character (string),
integer, real number, date, etc.

24

Entity-Relationship Model

Domain of Attribute

For example, the entity STUDENT has the following

attributes with the corresponding domains / data
types.

Attribute

Domain / Data Type

stud_id

A string of 5 characters starting with s

followed by 4 digits

name

A string of at most 20 characters

dob

Date

sex

A character which is either F or M

25

Entity-Relationship Model
Attribute

Attribute value

stud_id

s0012

name

Chan Tai Man

dob

#1997/1/1#

sex

Attribute

Same type of entity

Attribute value

stud_id

s0022

name

Wong May May

dob

#1998/2/5#

sex

F
26

Entity-Relationship Model
Attribute

Attribute value

ISBN

0-021-74387-6

title

Database System

author

Chan TM

publisher =

EA Education Co.

Attribute

Attribute value

ISBN

0-07-111180-8

title

Network System

author

Peter Chan

publisher =

Same type of entity

AB Publication Co.
27

Entity-Relationship Model

Entity Set

An entity set is a collection of similar entities, i.e.

entities sharing the same types of attributes.

For example, a set of all students in a school is an

entity set STUDENT. Here STUDENT is a name
given to the entity set of all students in the school.

Remark: In database design, sometimes an entity

and an entity set may be used interchangeably.
For example, an entity STUDENT may sometimes
refer to an entity set STUDENT.
28

Entity-Relationship Model

Entity Set
Entity set:
STUDENT
Entity set:
BOOK
Entity set:
TEACHER

29

Entity-Relationship Model
Entity Set: STUDENT
stud_id
Student 1

Student 3

name

Student 4

Student 5

dob

Student 2

Student 6

Student 7

sex

Entities in the same entity set share the same types of attributes.
30

Entity-Relationship Model

Primary Key

A primary key is a minimal set of attributes whose

values uniquely identify an entity in an entity set.

The primary key is usually represented by

underlining the corresponding attribute(s).

Examples:

For the entity set STUDENT with attributes

stud_id, name, dob, sex, the primary key is
stud_id

For the entity set STUDENT with attributes

class, class_no, name, dob, sex, the primary
key is the combination of class and class_no
31

Entity-Relationship Model
Attribute

Attribute value

stud_id

s0012

name

Chan Tai Man

dob

#1997/1/1#

sex

Primary key

Attribute

Entity Set: STUDENT

Attribute value

stud_id

s0022

name

Wong May May

dob

#1998/2/5#

sex

F
32

33

Entity-Relationship Model

Try to do Activity 1 of Chapter 3

34

Entity-Relationship Model

Relationship

A relationship is an association between two or

more entities.

For example, in the description: a teacher teaches

a student,

the entities are teacher and student.

the relationship between the entities teacher

and student is teach(es):
a teacher teaches a student
entity relationship

entity
35

Entity-Relationship Model
Relationship:
Teaches
Student 1
Student 2

Teacher 1
Student 3

Student 4

Teacher 2

Student 5
Teacher 1

Entity Set:
TEACHER

Entity Set:
STUDENT

Student 6

Student 7

36

Entity-Relationship Model

After defining the basic terms, let us summarize the

objectives of conceptual database design as follows:

Identifying the entities/entity sets of interest in a system.

Identifying the attributes of each entity to be recorded.

Identifying the relationships among the entities.

Constructing the entity-relationship (ER) model of the

database.

Remark: The ER model is usually constructed in the form of

an ER diagram, which will be introduced in Chapter 4.

37

Guidelines on Identifying
Entities

Guidelines on Identifying Entities:

Entities are the objects that are of interest to our

system.

To identify the entities, look for the objects in the

organization and in the user requirements.

As an entity/entity set represents many objects

which share common properties, we should give
a general name to an entity instead of the name
of a particular object. For example, use the entity
name STUDENT instead of ChanTaiMan.

38

Guidelines on Identifying
Entities

Remarks:

For a given system, different database designers

may not identify exactly the same set of entities.
Therefore, they may get different database
designs. Certainly, some designs would be better
than the other.

It is important to identify the entity sets carefully

because they are potentially the tables in
relational database. (Refer to next slide)

39

Guidelines on Identifying
Entity set
Entities
Attribute
Attribute value
stud_id
name
dob
sex

=
=

s0012
Chan Tai Man

=
#1997/1/1#
Attribute
Attribute value
=
M
stud_id =
s0022
name

dob
sex

Wong May May

=

#1998/2/5#
F

Table in database
stud_id

name

dob

sex

s0012

Chan Tai Man

#1997/1/1#

s0022

Wong May May

#1998/2/5#

F
40

Guidelines on Identifying
Attributes

Guidelines on Identifying Attributes:

To identify attributes, look for the characteristics

of the entities that are of interest to us.

They represent the data that we want to keep

about each entity. In fact, we store the values of
the attributes in the database.

41

Guidelines on Identifying
Relationships

Guidelines on Identifying Relationships:

To identify relationships, look for the

associations / links between entities.

The name of a relationship is usually an active or

passive verb.

42

Examples of Relationship Involving

Two Entities
Description

Entity Set

Relationship

An supermarket sells different CUSTOMER,

products to its customers.
PRODUCT

Buys

A bus company employs 50

bus drivers to drive its buses.

Drives

DRIVER,
BUS

The messages on a
USER,
discussion forum were posted MESSAGE
by different users.

Posts

Students late to school 4

times have to be punished

Is_Associated_
With

STUDENT,
ATTENDENCE

43

Example - an Online
Bookstore
Consider the following description of an online
bookstore again.

The owner of an online bookstore wants to create an

information system for online sale of books. People
will be allowed to register as customers of the online
website. Customer information like customers
correspondence addresses, e-mail addresses, and
credit card numbers are to be maintained. In a single
order, customers will be allowed to purchase any
quantity of books. Items in a single order will be
shipped to the customer.
44

Example - an Online
Bookstore

The above description may be the way that the user

(owner of the bookstore) understands the system.

Sometimes, the description is filled with ambiguities

and irrelevant information, together with fairly
precise descriptions of the real situation.

We need to analyze the description and make an

initial list of entity sets, attributes and relationships
for the system

45

Example - an Online
Bookstore
The owner of an online bookstore wants to create
an information system for online sale of books.
People will be allowed to register as customers of
the online website. Customer information like
customers correspondence addresses, e-mail
addresses, and credit card numbers are to be
maintained. In a single order, customers will be
allowed to purchase any quantity of books. Items
in a single order will be shipped to the customer.
Here, we identify the entities, attributes and relationships
by using the following colours:
entity
attribute
relationship
46

Example - an Online
Bookstore

Entity Sets: BOOK, CUSTOMER

Relationship: purchase

Description: Customer purchases books

47

Example - an Online
Bookstore
Attributes of BOOK:

Book_Rec_No
ISBN
Title
Author
Publisher

Attributes of CUSTOMER:

Customer_ID
Correspondence_address
e-mail
Credit_card_no
48

Example - an Online
Bookstore

Remark:

The attributes of BOOK are not mentioned in the

given description. We may sometimes need to
find out further information about the system
when necessary.

To uniquely identify each entity [instance] that are

of the same entity set, a primary key (the
underlined attribute) is added for each entity.

We may also identify ORDER as an entity / entity

set of the system. We will consider such case in
Chapter 4.
49

50

Entity-Relationship Model

Try to do Activity 2 of Chapter 3

51

52

Case Study

Refer to Sections 1 to 4.1 of Case

Study

53

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entity-relationship_model

Peter Rob, Carlos Coronel, Database Systems

Design, Implementation, & Management, 5th
Ed., Thomson Learning, Chapter 3.

Abraham Silberschatz, Henry F. Korth, S.

Sudarshan, Database System Concepts, 5th
Ed., Mc Graw Hill, Chapter 6.

54