Entity Relation Diagram

You’re hired by a software house to design and develop a database for a university. The university administrator has outlined clear requirements. Your challenge is to design a well-structured database that ensures data integrity, scalability, and seamless access for students, faculty, and administrators.

Can you think about how you can design the database? Let’s first discuss the software development process for a database project before directly jumping to design:

From requirements to implementation

1. Gather requirements:
   The university administrator provides detailed requirements for the project.

2. Design the database:
   Before any SQL query is written, the design team sketches out how the data should be structured.

3. Build/implement the database:
   The design is translated into a relational database. Tables are created, relationships are defined through primary and foreign keys, and the structure is established.

4. Write SQL queries:
   Finally, using a user interface or a command-line tool, developers write SQL queries to interact with the database. This might include fetching data for reports, updating records, or deleting obsolete information.

Let’s dive in and take the university administrator’s requirements first before designing the database:

Administrator’s requirements for university database

The university requires a relational database that efficiently stores, retrieves, and manages student, instructor, department, course, and financial data. The key features include: ...