Database Assignment

Description of Situation

The LSC 508 class has been given the assignment of reading and annotating 10ñ15 journal articles per semester. Each class (comprising of approximately 25 students in each section) has created a personal database in which to store their annotations. It has come to the professorís attention that these annotations could serve as a valuable resource for all students in the GSLIS program. He has, therefore, decided to create a cumulative database of all annotations going forward that can be accessed by all GSLIS students and where all future LSC 508 students can add their annotations as well. The database will be developed as a trial for a period of five years, at which time its value will be determined.

Original Form

The original form used by the students of LSC 508 to structure their annotations was given to them through the professorís Web Classroom. The "original form" is a layout for the students to follow. It is in APA style and shows the students the structure and style in which their annotations must be presented. The original form can be seen at:

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/lsc/Faculty/Carson/508/annot.html.

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New Form

Beginning this semester, students will use a new form to input their annotations into the 508 Annotations Database. The new form will have the fields for entry in the same order as the old format as they are both in APA style. This design will allow for easy input.

The first field, however is a new field called "Record ID." It is a unique, sequential number added by the Access program whenever a new record is added. This will allow for easier retrieval of records. The next field for entry is the "Topic" field which has been designed with a drop-down menu or combo box with a row source type as a value list. The student may simply choose the weeks' topic and click on it rather than typing in the topic for the week. This design will allow for easy entry and result in fewer input errors.

In the APA style, which is the format required for the annotations, up to six authors may be used. Therefore, the new form allows space for six authors that the student may tab through for entry. The student may type in the first and last initials as lowercase letters as the design of those fields will display the letters in uppercase for them. The next six fields, Year, Article Title, Journal Title, Volume, Issue, and Pages have all been designed as text fields as none of these fields require calculation.

The "Retrieved" (or date retieved) field has been designed as a date/time data type in a short date format. The input mask for this field has been set at 99/99/0000 to allow for easy entry. The "Source" field, which follows next, has also been designed as a text field. The next field, "URL," is a new field on the form. This field has been added to make available a web address for the source. This will grant easy access to pertinent electronic articles. The final field is for the Annotation itself. This field has been designed as a memo field. A memo field is for lengthy text and can accomodate up to 65,535 characters.

Input Requirements

The following shows the input requirements for the new 508 Annotations Database:

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Estimated Size of Database

The following numbers have been used to determine the relative size of the 508 Annotations Database:

* Fall & Spring semesters: 4 classes per year x 15 annotations x 25 students per class = 1,500 records

* Summer semesters: 2 classes per year x 10 annotations x 25 students per class = 500 records

* 2,000 records per year x 5 years = 10,000 records

* Maximum size of each record: 924 bytes

* 10,000 records x 924 bytes per record = 9,240,000 bytes

* Maximum size of file in five years: 9.24 MB

* Size of computer to house 508 Annotations Database: 180 GB / 896 MB of RAM

Using the above calculations, it is determined that the current computer will be able to handle the size of this database with ease. If the professor determines that the database is of value to the GSLIS program and wishes to continue its existence, the database will likely be purged on a yearly basis in order to keep the information up-to-date and therefore, the size of the database should not increase considerably. GSLIS should also consider moving the 508 Annotations Database to a client/server local area network if it is decided that the database is worth maintaining.

System Security

To provide adequate protection of the 508 Annotations Database, a system security plan should be put into place. If the database will be housed on a networked server to be utilized by multiple users, it would be important to set up workgroups and assign user-level security passwords to restrict the information each group can see and the actions they can perform. One user-level would be set for the administrator of the database, who would be responsible for maintenance. This maintenance would likely include update and backup of records, and assignment and maintenance of workgroup passwords. Another user-level group would be established for current students of LSC 508. This workgroup would have access to data entry, and be able to read and create forms, tables, reports and queries. A third user-level group to be established would be for all other GSLIS students and faculty. This workgroup would have read-only access.

Database Usage

Almost immediately this database will become a valuable tool for the students of LSC 508. The articles accumulated by each student can be accessed for further research on each weeks' topic for discussion and as reference for other assignments. (See database1_report2 [mailed to Professor Carson] as an example. Articles were retrieved by "Topic" in alphabetical order.)

As stated earlier, it will be important to keep this database current. Therefore, a common use of the database will be to retrieve articles according to date. (See database1_report1.) This "query" can also be used by the database administrator to keep the records up-to-date with a yearly purge.

Another common use of the database would be to search for articles according to relevance. (See database1_report3.) If a student was in need of articles pertaining to academic libraries and is familiar with the "Journal of Academic Librarianship," the student could query the database according to journal title and find all articles from this particular journal.

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