Mgmt 3830 – Contemporary
Database Applications
Faculty of Management
Professor Brian Dobing
EMail: brian.dobing@uleth.ca
Web Site: http://home.uleth.ca/~brian.dobing/3830.htm
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Class Web Page
http://home.uleth.ca/~brian.dobing/3830.h
tm
 All Milestones and handouts
 Any Milestone updates or corrections
 Class slides
 MS Access links, etc.
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Course Goals




Understand and experience the system
building process
Recognize the management issues in
system building
Be able to build a small system in
Microsoft Access 2000
Appreciate the risks of relying on
systems
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Who Should Take
Mgmt 3830?




Required of all MIS majors
Mgmt 3831 is now available for non-MIS
majors
Some knowledge of Access is essential
Knowledge of programming (VB) is also
helpful
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Learn at a Higher Level

Conceptual understanding is more
important than rote learning



Can’t learn everything about Access in one
term
Every system requires different features
Need to learn how to learn
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Think For Yourself

You are responsible for designing your
system




Design your own Forms
Design your own Reports
Decide what the system needs
But design with the client in mind
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Set Realistic Course Goals

Students enter 3830 with
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
Different backgrounds
Different knowledge of Access
Different career goals
Decide what you want and what you
need to do to get it
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Maintain the Pace


Course milestones are not easily done
the night before
Building systems with tight deadlines
can be very frustrating



Usually they don’t work well
Get started early
Think about the design
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Why Study
Database Management?



Most business data are stored in
databases
Most business systems are built around
a DataBase Management System
(DBMS)
To manage information, you must
understand databases
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Why Do Organizations Build
Systems?

Facilitate daily operations

Improve decision making

Control

Regulatory requirements
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Building Good Systems
Is Not Easy

Only 25% of projects are finished




on time
within budget
to the client’s satisfaction
50% of projects are over budget by 60%
or more and contain less than 70% of
promised features
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Why Microsoft Access?
Access is the database package
included in Microsoft Office
 Easiest to learn and use
 Powerful features
BUT
 Access is not designed for large,
mission-critical systems

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Learning Access



This class assumes you have seen some
introduction to Access
Some of what you need will be discussed
in class
But some features will be left to you to
learn from the book
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Final Grade


Final Exam
Class Project
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60
Project has seven milestones
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Textbooks

Modern Database Management


Database Management Systems


McFadden et al. (On reserve)
Post (On reserve)
Using Access 2000 Special Edition

or something similar
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Class Project

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
Build a system to manage a small,
information-based business
Support day-to-day operations
Generate management reports
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System Tasks

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Build a sample data model
Create the system data model
Build the database
Create some queries
Build the user interface
Provide some management reports
Finish with an integrated system
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Project Structure


Milestones are due by 9:45 AM
For early milestones, you will get a
“correct” answer


might be scaled down
For later milestones, you will need to fix
any problems
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Project Teams

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All milestones may be submitted in teams
of two (but no more)
Grades will not be adjusted for those who
work alone
Choose your partner carefully
You can change partners anytime for the
first five milestones
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Finally ...


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Read the syllabus carefully
 This is our contract
Keep up with the readings
Start learning Access now, if you don’t
know it already
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And have fun!!!
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