Real databases

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Real databases

• Sean Banerjee
• sean.banerjee_at_mail.wvu.edu

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• A real database example
• In class we have weekly quizzes, some paper
  based and some utilizing in class submissions
• Could we use Microsoft Access to automate the
  process?
• Specifications for our tables
• Need 2 tables Questions and Answers
• Each Question will have Many Answers that is
  One many relationship between the tables
  Questions and Answers

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• Designing the Questions table
• The Questions table will need a field for
• A field that will store some sort of ID for
  each question
• A field that will store the question number
• A field that will store the quiz number
• A field that will store the quiz date we
  dont want to have the quiz available on any
  other day other than the day of the quiz
• A field that will store the question itself
• Open the file cs101_quiz.mdb from our website to
  check the Questions table out

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• Designing the Answers table
• A field that will store some sort of ID to
  identify each question
• A field that will store the question ID so we
  can relate it to the questions table
• A field that will store the IP Address of the
  computer so we can verify if multiple people are
  using the same computer
• A field that will store the students first name
• A field that will store the students last name
• A field that will store the answer
• Open the file cs101_quiz.mdb from our website to
  check the Answers table out

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• The student interface
• We need some way for each student to answer the
  questions
• One of the easiest interfaces would be a web
  form
• But a simple web form might not work since we
  need a way to limit when the quizzes are
  available
• So, we can add in a query that will display only
  the quiz questions from a specific day
• SELECT FROM Questions WHERE
  CDate(Questions.QuizDate) Date()
• Translation Select everything from the table
  Questions where the QuizDate is the same as
  todays date. In other words if we went on the
  site tomorrow and there are no quizzes for that
  date we would get an empty page.
• Visit http//www.autoxrs.net/CS101 - you will
  see a list of questions, but if you visit it
  tomorrow there wont be any since I havent
  provided any questions for March 18

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• But honestly, who gives a crap?
• This is a class on Computer Applications, being
  able to click 38 buttons in MyITLab doesnt yield
  much other than getting the lesson completed.
• If you can create simple tables and queries in
  Access, have some basic knowledge of HTML forms
  and know how to use Excel you can set yourself
  apart from your peers.
• You can use HTML forms to obtain information
  from customers, students, etc
• You can use Access to store this information and
  create queries to generate subsets of the data
• You can use Excel to analyze the data and draw
  conclusions

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