Week 10 : Research Methodology

            Problem Identification & Planning

Problem identification & planning is the first phase in this project methodology. In this current phase, researcher is responsible into understanding the current system by observing the system and operate the system to indicate the system functionality and gain deep knowledge of the system context.

By identifying system main function and the problem faced by it, the researcher will be able to identify the goal, objectives, scope and significance of the project whether this research will help to improvise current system or not. The objectives is the most crucial part of the studies to determine whether the research is succesful or not. Document and report review also being made in order to get a full understanding of the system.

After the problem, goal, objectives, scope and significance of the project is identify, project planning need to be done. A task related to the project is being construct and properly planned. At the end of this phase, the deliverables is project proposal which contain all of the project details.

            Data Analysis & Logical Modeling

In the data analysis & logical modeling phase, the current system physical data model is being analyze to determine all of the database structure of the current system. In analyzing current physical data model, few process needs to be done which is the tables and fields in the database need to be determine.

By recognizing and identifying the tables and fields in the current database, adding into knowledge the current system functionality by observation and system operation in phase one, logical design can be construct for the current database.

Using the logical design that has been construct, entity-relationship diagram can be developed to map the current database situation. The connections among tables and columns are known as relationships.

Mapping relationships involves:

• Listing the columns: the primary keys, the foreign keys, and the non-keys

• Identifying the logical connections between tables and columns

• Recording tables and columns on a single table or graphic representation

  of the database. This graphic representation is known as the entity relationship

  (E-R) map.

            Normalization

The normalization represents the logical project of a database. The main goal of a logical project is to create correct relational diagrams. For this it should be:

• avoided the redundancies, avoided the insert anomalies

• ensured the representation of the relations between attributes

• facilitated the verification of the updates, which should not force the integrity of the       database.

In simple words, normalization act to split a table in many tables to eliminate redundancies of data which generates update anomalies. In this research, the normalization phase will undergo three stages which are 1^st Normal Form (1NF), 2^nd Normal Form (2NF) and 3^rd Normal Form (3NF).

            Physical Modeling

In the last phase, physical modeling is being construct maped based on the new optimized logical model. This is to show a difference between optimized data model and the original data model. The deliverables for this phased is a newly optimized physical data model.

Week 9 : Literature Review

Title	Author	Year	Review
DATA MODELS in DATABASE MANAGEMENT	E. F. Codd	1980	This journal explains thoroughly about data model, purposes of data model, history of data model development and highlights common misunderstanding.
Database Design Methodologies, Tools and Environments	C. Batini and S. Ceri	1985	This article tells about modern methodologies for database design including the new approach in database design process which is distribution design and prototyping.
Tools and Transformations – Rigorous and Otherwise – for Practical Database Design	Arnon Rosenthal and David Reiner	1994	This journal describes the tools and theory of a comprehensive system for database design and show how they work together to support multiple conceptual and logical design process. It also explains about ER+ Data Model and normalization.
Implementation Design for Databases : The ‘Forgotten’ Step	Tim Martyn	2000	This journal define about three major design steps which is  conceptual, logical and physical design but the technique table partitioning and denormalization  is often are treated as substeps.
Conceptual Universal Database Language: Literature Review and the Future of Database Design	Nikitas N. Karanikolas	2009	This article describe the about the normalization instead explaining about conceptual database design and entity relationship diagram.
Evolutionary Database Design	Fredy Oertly, Gerald Schiller	1989	This journal distinguishes between conceptual and logical database design. It also explains about three types of relationships with different semantics: Generalization, Aggregation and Association.
Optimize Databases for Health Monitoring System	Catalin Bujdei, Sorin-Aurel Moraru and Stefan Dan	2008	This journal explain about  optimizing databases performances by normalization, using indexes; recreate and defragmentate indexes., statistics update, manage concurrency, table and index partitioning, SQL tuning and disk defragmentation.

Week 8 : Objectives

Three objective has been made to optimized data model of Sistem Semakan Syarat Selangkah ke UiTM      

• ·         Construct a logical model from the current physical model.
• ·         Analyze normalization form and referential integrity issues.
• ·         Propose an enhance data model for System Semakan Syarat Selangkah ke UiTM.

Week 7 : Background & Problem Statement

    Research Background

Optimizing Database

Database is most one of the key factors in developing an information system, the system itself can be considered as successful if the database can process well in executing data and giving the exact information requested with nominal time. This is when the design of the database play a major part.

To optimize database means to increase the performances of that database. To obtain a system with very good performances supposes to have best performances for every component of that system. One of the most important components of the system is represented by the database. The type of the database, the methods and parameters used to create the database and the way how the database is used could increase or decrease the performances of the entire system.

A data model is a set of constructs for expressing how data is structured, constrained and manipulated. Different data models are required for different types of designs: conceptual schemas, logical schemas (suited to a particular data model or DBMS Interface), and physical schemas that capture implementation detail. A database design system needs to represent and manipulate all of these, either as separate models or as special cases of a more general model

          Sistem Selangkah

          Bahagian Pengambilan Pelajar (BPP) is the division which is responsible for managing student intakes and admissions for Universiti Teknologi MARA. It is also responsible for promoting UiTM to prospective students, especially Malaysian Certificate of Education (SPM) holders as well as Malaysian Higher Education Certificate (STPM) holders; providing relevant information regarding the available courses offered at UiTM.

Sistem Semakan Syarat Selangkah ke UiTM is one of the system owned and developed by Bahagian Pengambilan Pelajar (BPP) UiTM, this system provide accessible platform for user to access anytime widely through world wide web.

                         Problem Statement

The current database System Semakan Syarat Selangkah ke UiTM has no logical model which makes it difficult to identify what is the problem that cause the delay in system response during peak time.

The development of the current database for System Semakan Syarat Selangkah ke UiTM is done straight to the physical design without taking into consideration to the logical design of the data model. During peak time which exactly after SPM and STPM result being released, the response time by the database is often delayed and the user frequently get request time out at their browser when they trying to reaching this site. By using awstat analyzer, it’s shows that during that time the user who is trying to reach the site is over 1 million.

The unavailability of the logical model make it not possible to study the design of the database structure to identify what is the main cause that contributing in this problem. 

Problem Statement Fixed

Meeting my supervisor and do some alteration on my problem statement.

Problem Statement : 

The dissabilities to change the structure of system policies and criteria of selection as it changed over the year shows that the design of the system structure is inflexible and make it inefficient to capture the data to construct an analytical processing .

Interviewing the BPP

Have done a several meet up with Bahagian Pengambilan Pelajar IT Officer which is En. Azrul Amir. In the meeting, En. Azrul has requested some new features for the design structure :

• Design new module for login administration.
• Design new module for admin (formula-based rule)
•   Hardcode Coding     >   User friendly interface
• User friendly and recognition towards end user.
• Sent the result of semak syarat by email.
• Generate a written report and statistic for admin.
• Generate a PDF format for user output.
• Make the system more user friendly without need to scroll down by the end user when using it.

There's a lot of request from BPP itself but still I need to redesign the database structure to add administration module.


Problem Statement : The dissabilities to change the structure of system policies and criteria of selection as it changed over the year shows that the design of the system structure is inflexible and make it inefficient to capture the data to construct an analytical processing .

Problem Statement (roughly)

I've decided to do a details documentation and enhancement on Sistem Selangkah ke UiTM. Since I was one of the engine developer for Intake Management System Checking to University (I-MAS-C-U) owned by the Ministry of Higher Education which is an upgrade to the Sistem Selangkah ke UiTM, I've discovered there a lot of weaknesses in documentation area which is there is no proper details documentation and this will be such a big problems in the term of further references, data collection or integration in the future.

As an Information System Engineering student, I would like to fix this kind of problem because it was my responsibilities to provide a better reference for future used.

My area of studies will be on the Database Area while Izzat is on System Design.

• Model the current structure of the database
• Optimize the design to analyze the data
• Do analytical processing in which to capture the data.
• Came out with SRS