Materials – Higher Data Modelling and Entity Relationship Diagrams

Activity Summary

The attached resources introduces data modelling using entities, attributes and relationships by recreating part of the data model used by social networking sites. The use of entity relationship diagrams as a means of representing a data model is introduced. The resources can also help to explain the difference between an entity and an instance and an attribute and its value.

Suggested time allocation

This activity will take 1 period of class time.

Resources

Follow up activities

• The existing example could be extended by considering further entities, e.g. page, album, group. How do these fit into the pupils’ ER diagram?
• The example could be used to explore the cardinality of relationships between entities- one to one, one to many and many to many.
• A similar approach could be used to recreate part of the data model of another website such as IMDB, Amazon, Boohoo.com, EasyJet, etc