Glossary of Database Terminologies

18 Database Management terms

The compilation of this glossary is solely made for students who undertake the Information Technology program for the course entitled "Database Management",

Calculated Field

Facilitates calculations by using other fields in a specific table resulting in the creation of a value assigned to a new field name.

Example: Stock was calculated by mutiplying 25% by the field name cash.

Candidate key

A candidate key can identify each unique record independently of any other data without having redundancy.

Example: Lecturer ID and Student ID are valuable candidate keys in the courses table.

Data

Raw unprocessed facts or figures about objects or concepts.

Example: Data was collected from the distributed questionnaires.

Data type

A data type is chosen for each field in a table based on what the field is expected to store. Typical examples include numeric; text; logical; date /time; currency.

Example: The data type currency was chosen for the field name profit since the content will store money values.

Database

A large repository of processed data that is stored as records to enable easy retrieval through searching and sorting.

Example: The secretary usually searches the student database to find the contact number for parents.

Database Form

A database form contains a user friendly interface that allows users to enter data into the database. The entered data automatically updates the tables.

Example: Sean added records for the new students via the student details form.

Database report

A database report contains a print layout from the results of queries that can be used to make decisions.

Example: The Principal requested a database report to showcase the grouped streams for each student, their outstanding tuition fees as well as the overall total.

DBMS

A (DBMS) Database Management System is the term for programs that handle the storage, modification, retrieval of data as well as controlling who has access to the data as well as controlling who has access to the information e.g. MS Access, Lotus Approach.

Example: Mary updated the latest version of the Microsoft Access Database Management system on her office computer.

Field

An element in which information is stored from a record.

Example: The student table contains 10 fields which consists of entities of information.

Foreign Key

A foreign key references the primary key of another table.

Example: The table entitled Lecturer contained the foreign key "Student ID" that referenced the primary key in the student table.

Information

Processed facts or figures about objects or concepts used in a meaningful way.

Example: The analysis of the questionnaires provided meaningful information on tourist arrivals for the month of December.

Primary Key

A field which represents a unique identifier in a table.

Example: Student ID was chosen as the primary key since every student will have a unique ID number.

Query

A query facilitates the request for specific data from a table or a set of tables, usually based on some criteria. Examples include update, make table, delete, select or append queries.

Example: Laura needed to perform a query to find out the number of male students assigned in a course.

Record

A record consists of a number of related fields.

Example: The student table contains 35 related records.

Referential Integrity

Referential Integrity enables the creation of relationships among tables by join the PK with the FK among database tables.

Example: There was difficulty accessing information from multiple tables because referential integrity was not established among them.

Relationship

A relationship is created among tables in order to manipulate data. Examples of relationships are one to one or one to many.

Example: A one to many relationship was created between the student and lecturer table on the Student ID field.

Secondary Key

Any other field name in a table that is not assigned as the primary key.

Example: Firstname, lastname , age and address are some examples of secondary keys in the student table.

Table

A table consists of a number of related records.

Example: The record-keeping database contained four related tables.