Steps for Your Assignment
You need to follow the steps strictly as listed below in order to avoid wasting time and mistakes.
□ (1) Practice Access hands-on following Section 3 to fully understand the Access environment.
[Note: You’d better NOT use the database used for this step as your project as you might have
made many mistakes in this stage. You might waste time to fix those errors. Once you have
learned how to use Access, it would be much easy to create a new database for your project and
make sure everything is done correctly.]
□ (2) Generate an idea of database for your assignment (see the Assignment Topics listed at the
end of this section). Submit a proposal of your idea of tables to the instructor for approval, or your
database would have serious errors.
[Note: If the design of database is incorrect, the database would eventually become a piece of
trash. In this introductory course, the instructor helps students make correct designs. Once your
proposal of database design is approved, you should not make any changes unless you re-submit
a proposal.]
□ (3) Create tables for your assignment in Access. Pay attention on associative entities, and
combination keys of these associative entities. Your tables in Access should be identical with the
tables described in the approved proposal.
[Note: If you design tables incorrectly and/or define keys incorrectly, you will have serious
problems with data integrity and query results. It is encouraged to show your tables to the
instructor for checking before creating tables.]
□ (4) Follow the operations demonstrated in Figure 14 and Figure 15 to build up the relationships
between the tables.
[Note: If you skip this step, your database would contain errors. After you create the relationships
between the tables, you may ask the instructor to check by using a proposal if you are unsure.]
□ (5) Input sample data to the tables, starting with the tables on the “1” sides of the relationships.
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[Note: 1. You generate hypothetical sample data for your project. The number of data records for
each table could be around a dozen. You need to think about queries when you generate sample
data. For instance, if a query is to find “a student with A in MIS432”, you would include such a
student in your data, or the query will give you no result. 2. The database will help maintain data
integrity. For instance, you are not allowed to input a grade in tblGrading to a student who
does not exist in tblStudent.]
□ (6) Write English descriiptions for queries you want to develop for these tables. Develop these
queries using QBE of Access.
[Note: If you find difficulties in developing queries, the designs of tables and/or the relationships
between the involved tables are more likely incorrect. Contact the instructor for help.]
□ (7) Develop forms (except for switchboard) for selected tables and queries.
□ (8) Develop reports for selected tables and queries.
□ (9) (This step is optional.) Finally, develop advanced features which not included in this
teaching note, such as switchboard and sub-switchboards that link all things together for your
project, and others you learned by yourself, if you decide to do so.
□ (10) Test your database thoroughly.
□ (11) Submit (1) Word document that contains the design of the database (i.e., the tables in your
approved proposal) and English descriiptions of queries, and (2) the Access database artifact.
4.2. The Minimum Requirements for Your Technical Assignment (If your assignment meets
these requirement, the grade for the technical assignment part is about B range)
(1) The database contains at least 3 tables, including an associative entity. It is not recommended
for this assignment to have more than 5 tables. Submit the design of tables to the instructor before
starting the computer work.
(2) Input sample data to these tables. For each table, the number of records is not crucial as long
as the records are good enough for the exercises on your queries, forms, and reports.
(3) Create 1 query for each table, and 2 queries for multiple tables. Describe the queries using
English (see examples in Sections 3.5 and 3.6).
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(4) Create 2 forms for any table or query (using From Wizard).
(5) Create 2 reports for any query (using Report Wizard).
(6) Save your database (YourName.accdb) and submit it along with a Word document by the
due date. Make sure the database works in the Virtual CCB Lab.
You will receive a high grade if your project demonstrates your active learning outcomes
beyond these minimum requirements.
Assignment Topic