INFS7901 Database Principles
Project Guidelines
Project Description
In this project, each student is required to select an application that would benefit from a database
and build a database application from start to finish. The web user interface is not mandatory for
this project, but can play an important role if you would like to obtain bonus points. The project
requires two deliverables, where marking schemes are provided in both parts and bonus points are
explained in Part 2.
Philosophy
Building a full database application from scratch allows you to control the process. Instead of
having the pieces decided for you, you must make your own decisions at the beginning and can
experience how they will affect the execution of your project. We will prepare practical sessions
for the key skills needed, but this project will further facilitate more in-depth practices and take
you on a tour of a database architect’s responsibilities when designing an application.
Goals
• Deciding on an application for which database systems would be required;
• Modelling the domain of the application, and defining the application functionalities;
• Designing and implementing the schema;
• Populating the database;
• Writing code needed to embed the database system in an application;
• (Optional) Building a database application with Graphical User Interface (GUI).
For time management, please note that populating the database is only for ensuring necessary
query operations and is not the main focus of the project.
Schedule
There are two important deadlines that you must meet in order to ensure a successful project:
• 13 April: Project proposal (40% of the project grade)
• 18 May: Completed project (60% of the project grade)
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Part 1: Project Proposal
The goal of the project is to allow you to have the freedom to design your own application. With
the project proposal, we can give you feedback on the project and tell you if you are on the right
track – and suggest improvements if not. As an overarching picture, we expect that each project
should eventually have:
• At least five entities, where at least one of them is a weak entity.
• At least five relationships, where at least one of them is for generalization/specialization.
• At least ten queries (including selection, aggregation, nested, division, deletion and update
queries) that the database users will be able to operate with.
Marking Scheme (In 100-point Scale)
The goal of this milestone is for you to tell us exactly what to expect from your final application.
Please submit one PDF file that includes the following information.
1. (15 marks) A project description that explains:
• What is the domain, what aspects of the domain will be modeled by the database?
• What are the application specifications, i.e., what functionalities will the system provide?
• What platforms do you plan for the final project be on. We strongly recommend MySQL +
Python. Meanwhile, you are allowed to use any programming language or relational database
that you prefer, as long as you create an application for a relational database, meet all
requirements, and you do all programming and query writing yourselves.
2. (25 marks) An E/R diagram for the database the application will use. For each entity set, identify
candidate keys, and the primary key. For each relationship, identify the cardinality constraint and
other constraints, such as participation constraints.
3. (25 marks) The schema derived by mapping your ER diagram. For each table, list the table
definition e.g., Table1 (attr1: domain1, attr2: domain2...) and specify the primary key, foreign
keys, and other constraints that the table has to maintain.
4. (10 marks) List of functional dependencies that are applicable to the table (including the ones
involving the primary key). For each functional dependency, clearly describe its meaning.
5. (10 marks) The normalized schema which is in 3NF or BCNF. Provide the list of tables, their
primary keys, and foreign keys after normalization.
6. (10 marks) The SQL dump that creates all the tables in SQL. All primary keys and foreign keys
must be declared appropriately. Populate each table with at least 5 tuples.
7. (5 marks) A screenshot of your platform performing a meaningful query. Include a brief
description of the picture and the query. This is to make sure that you start the implementation of
your project early in the semester.
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Part 2: Completed Project (Code and Report)
This is the main part of the project, building on what you have accomplished in the other project
checkpoints in order to complete, demo and evaluate the project.
Marking Scheme (In 100-point Scale)
There are two components to be handed in, namely the project final report and the source code.
The requirements for both components are introduced below. More information on bonus points
from optional GUI implementation can be found at the end of this instruction.
Project Report
The final report should be one PDF file describing the information below.
1. (10 marks) A brief statement on the aim and background of the project.
2. (50 marks) Query Demonstration: Show the function (what the query does for the user within
your application), the SQL code, and a pictorial UI (if there is one) of at least five of the following
queries (10 marks each):
• Join query
• Division query
• Aggregation query (functions such as min, max, average or count)
• Aggregation with group-by (aggregated value for each group)
• Delete operation with Cascade
• Update operation
3. (10 marks) A conclusion that briefly describe the following:
• Roughly how much time did you spend on each part of the project?
• What aspects do you like the most and the least in this project?
• What helped you learn the best in the project?
• What suggestions do you have for a beginner in database design?
Code
The project’s code base and related scripts are submitted through Blackboard as one Zip file. Please
ensure:
1. (5 marks) The file contains all the code used in the application.
2. (5 marks) The file contains scripts that could be used to create all tables and data in the database.
3. (20 marks) All the queries included in the Query Demonstration section can be executed and
produce the same results as shown in the report (4 marks each).
(Optional) Bonus Points – GUI and Usability Features
So far, if all the requirements are met, one should be able to obtain full (100) marks. However, if
you would like to go deeper with database applications, and want to secure some bonus points for
Part 2 of your project, you can go ahead with the optional GUI development. The maximum bonus
for this part is 10 points to be added to your Part 2’s final scores. Please note the final scores are
strictly capped to 100. For example, if you scored 89/100 for your report+code and 10 in the bonus
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section, your final score for Part 2 will be 99. If you scored 95/100 for your report+code and 10 in
the bonus section, your final score for Part 2 will be 100. The marks will be evaluated based on:
1. (5 marks) Use of a Responsive Web Design for your front-end implementation. For marking,
please include GUI screenshots in the Query Demonstration of your report and upload your code.
2. (5 marks) Use of SQL assertions and/or triggers functionalities with GUI in your project. For
marking, please add corresponding content in Query Demonstration of your report following the
required format.