What are databases?

• Information systems (IS) are formal, sociotechnical, organisational systems designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information.

• Data are individual units of information.

• A structured collection of similar information which can be searched and sorted. A database is an organised collection of data, generally stored and accessed electronically from a computer system.

• For example, an address book you may have is a type of database. It contains:
  1. Names
  2. Telephone numbers
  3. Addresses

• Computerised data has many benefits:
  1. Requires less storage space
  2. Easy to backup
  3. Easy to edit
  4. Can be searched very efficiently
  5. Can be sorted very efficiently
  6. Easy to perform calculations on it

• Databases are everywhere, but some big examples include:

• There are many different areas of database engineering that offer many jobs.

• A file is a collection of structured data on a particular topic. A file is made up of 1 or more records.

• A record is a collection of structured data on a particular person or object. A record is made up of 1 or more fields. A "record" is the technical name for a database table row and contains the actual data in a table. Each record in a table contains the same fields but (usually) has different data in those fields.

• A field is an area of a record that contains an individual piece of data. A “field” is the technical name for a database table column and is used to denote a specific type of data. The “Sex” field (column) contains text data denoting customer gender: Each field on a table holds only one type of data (for example, text data describing gender)

• A field is a single piece of information;

• A record is one complete set of fields;

• A file is a collection of records.

• For example, a telephone book is basically the file. It contains a list of records, each of which consists of three fields: name, address, and telephone number.

• When you create a database, one of the first things you have to do is choose ‘types’ for the Fields.

• There are several types to choose from:

  • Numeric

  • Text

  • Boolean

  • Date/Time

  • Currency

  • Calculated

  • Hyperlink

• Your first step in organising data is to identify the individual fields

• The specific value, or content, of a field, is called the field value

• Next, you group related fields together into tables

• Microsoft Access is typically launched by clicking the Microsoft Access item on the Windows Start menu, to open the “Start” screen.

• Here you see a range of ready-made templates and a list of recently-opened Access files that you can click to reopen:

• Click on the Blank database template icon to begin creating a brand-new Access database.

• You can edit the dialog Box (Default name, Default location) to provide your preferred name and location on your computer.

• Datasheet View is the default data entry view for Microsoft Access 2016. Using the Datasheet View to build and manage your tables couldn’t be simpler:

1. Click the Create tab on the Ribbon
2. Click the Table Icon located in the “Tables” group

3. Press the Save Icon on the Quick Access Toolbar.
4. Enter the name of your new Table into the “Save As” dialog
5. Click the OK button to create a Table

Before you can save a table it must first contain at least one field.

• Microsoft Access automatically creates a field called “ID”, which can be renamed or deleted to suit your requirements and provides a “Click to Add” heading that is prompting you to add fields.

• You can add fields in the table view:
  1. Click the Click to Add field heading
  2. Select a data type for that field from the drop-down list that appears. For example, choose the Number data type.
  3. Type a field heading title to replace the default heading