1. Think about keeping a home budget. Would it be better to keep the budget in spreadsheets or to create a budget database? Write a couple of paragraphs that describe your choice and at least three reasons to justify it.

2. Think of a small business or nonprofit that you know that could use a database. Explain why you think a database would help the business. List the benefits the business or nonprofit would gain from a database.

3. An entity is something the database is concerned with. For instance, a movie rental business would probably have an entity called DVD. Attributes are things that describe the entity. Make a list of possible attributes for a DVD entity.

4. You are going to interview a small business owner about creating a database for his sandwich shop and bakery. Make a list of questions for this initial interview. Remember at this point you just want the big picture and major requirements. Dont get too deep into the details.

5. Think about the sandwich shop and bakery in Question 4. List what you think the major topics would be.

6. A dentist office wants a database to track its appointments. The specifics of what they want to track are as follows:

A) All customers of the dental office

B) Customer appointments

C) Which dentist serves each customer at the appointment

D) Which assistants assist each dentist

In brief, what services were provided at the appointment

E) The database will not track bills and payments (they have a separate software for this purpose)

F) Write a statement of scope for the dental office database.

7. List the major themes for the dentist office database in Practice 6.

8. How long do you think it would take to gather the information needed to make the dentist office database in Practice 6. Discuss what steps you think would be involved and how long it might take to build the database.

9. Look around the school or think of some businesses or nonprofits with whom you are familiar. Identify at least one situation in which a database could be of help.

A) Describe why a database would improve the situation.

B) Describe what the major topics of this database would be.

C) Write a statement of work for this database.

10. An instructor has been keeping all his grade books in Excel for years. He has a separate spreadsheet for every course. In the spreadsheet he tracks the scores for every assignment and test and then assigns term grades based on the overall averages. Whenever a former student contacts him requesting a letter of recommendation or whenever the administration requests information concerning a student in a previous term he has to open and search several spreadsheets to get the students information.

A) What are some of the advantages a database would have over the current system for this instructor?

B) What would be some of the major topics for the database?

C) Write a statement of work for the preceding database.