[Year 12 IT Apps] Exam: 1NF???
Poke, Michael C
poke.michael.c at edumail.vic.gov.au
Fri Nov 7 22:42:32 EST 2014
Hi all,
Overall I thought the exam pretty easy from my initial skim read. No huge horror questions like we've seen in recent years. But my one main issue is with this 1NF question. My simplest response to this question is "why?". Isn't normalising to 1NF unnecessary and bad practice? Isn't it ideal to design databases to be 3NF compliant in the first instance? Why bother with this step? Is the purpose of this question to merely see if students instance what 1NF is? At least it was only 3 marks and not 6 or 8 like other years. I thought the next question was great though... Asking the student to discuss the benefits of normalisation... So even if they couldn't demonstrate the process they had the chance to show that they may have grasped the concept of normalisation, which I think is ideal at this level. It's not supposed to be a computer science degree.
Anyway that's my thoughts.
Michael
On 7 Nov 2014 16:55, "itapps-request at edulists.com.au" <itapps-request at edulists.com.au> wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. IT Apps Exam, Short Answer, Question 7A (Vear, Gary D)
2. Re: Boolean? (Robert Hind)
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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2014 04:58:36 +0000
From: "Vear, Gary D" <vear.gary.d at edumail.vic.gov.au>
Subject: [Year 12 IT Apps] IT Apps Exam, Short Answer, Question 7A
To: "Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List"
<itapps at edulists.com.au>
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Hi all,
Not sure I like this question at all. Normalising to 1NF sounds simple enough, particularly when students are required to use just one set of sample records, but this seems like it requires a lot for 3 marks:
Choosing the first record (fancy_cat), here's what I think would be required for full marks:
userName fullName interestGroup contactList
fancy_cat Francine Ulas love_planes paperclip55
fancy_cat Francine Ulas love_planes panic_disco
fancy_cat Francine Ulas love_planes starwarsfan
fancy_cat Francine Ulas love_planes melanie_franks
fancy_cat Francine Ulas love_planes WalterEllison27
fancy_cat Francine Ulas classOf2104 paperclip56
fancy_cat Francine Ulas classOf2105 panic_disco
fancy_cat Francine Ulas classOf2106 starwarsfan
fancy_cat Francine Ulas classOf2107 melanie_franks
fancy_cat Francine Ulas classOf2108 WalterEllison28
fancy_cat Francine Ulas cooking_rox paperclip57
fancy_cat Francine Ulas cooking_rox panic_disco
fancy_cat Francine Ulas cooking_rox starwarsfan
fancy_cat Francine Ulas cooking_rox melanie_franks
fancy_cat Francine Ulas cooking_rox WalterEllison29
That's 15 individual records students would have to write out, unless I'm mistaken. Will students be penalised if they do the sensible thing and normalise this data to 2NF by creating separate tables?
I thought I understood normalising to 1NF, but perhaps I'm wrong. The addition of that 4th field (contactList) has seemingly made this a big challenge (15 lines of writing) for just 3 marks.
I'd appreciate feedback/corrections from others on this question, since it has me somewhat confused.
Cheers,
Gary
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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2014 16:53:35 +1100
From: "Robert Hind" <robert at yinnar.com>
Subject: Re: [Year 12 IT Apps] Boolean?
To: "Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List"
<itapps at edulists.com.au>
Message-ID: <41F16DD5882A4625B3D0A9409DBF7BC4 at robertPC>
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Please no! Boolean is True/False.
Could use it for male/female if the effective question was "are you male?"
But of course that rules out transgender people as does the M/F dichotomy.
Please let us stick to "correct" usage of Boolean.
Robert Hind
Retired
Ex Traralgon and Ashwood
----- Original Message -----
From: Christopher Jansen .
To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2014 3:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Year 12 IT Apps] Boolean?
I think you can use boolean as a data type to describe any field with just two options..
I would say you can use it for male / female... It would make the database more efficient.
Thanks,
Chris
From: itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Simone Tynan
Sent: Friday, 7 November 2014 2:25 PM
To: itapps at edulists.com.au
Subject: [Year 12 IT Apps] Boolean?
Hi everyone.
Is it safe to talk yet??
I have told my students that boolean data type is ?true/false?. We discussed how M or F (male or female) is text, not boolean.
The exam, question 5 has Travel-style or Business-style (T or B) as boolean. Have I taught my students incorrectly?
With thanks,
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