This book teaches the topics found in most books about relational databases. It does not give an up-to-date view of other database types.
Content Accuracy rating: 5
I detected no biases while reading this book, and I found the information to be accurate.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 4
The topic is relevant, but the material is dated
Clarity rating: 5
The book is concise, teaching the students what they need to know in a "non-bloated" manner, which is refreshing.
Consistency rating: 4
The book is consistent, except for its use of diagrams. Crow's foot diagrams to depict relationships throughout would be best.
Modularity rating: 5
The book has high modularity.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5
Interface rating: 4
It has a functional interface.
Grammatical Errors rating: 4
I didn't see any glaring grammar errors.
Cultural Relevance rating: 5
There are no obvious cultural misunderstandings in this text.
First, this book teaches the fundamentals of relational database modeling well, even in its dated form. To use this text, I would include crow's foot notation for all examples and remove references to outdated database code. I would also include more problems, especially in chapters 7-12, when students need to work through understanding how to create useful relationship models. Finally, the treatment of other types of database models should be included for completeness. I will use this book with updates in an upcoming class.
Reviewed by Karen Scott, Senior Lecturer, University of Texas at Arlington on 3/26/24
The book is relatively short compared to most database texts, even those of an introductory nature, but it's still fairly comprehensive. It includes all the major topics necessary to understand the standard database concepts like data modeling. read more
Reviewed by Karen Scott, Senior Lecturer, University of Texas at Arlington on 3/26/24
Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less
The book is relatively short compared to most database texts, even those of an introductory nature, but it's still fairly comprehensive. It includes all the major topics necessary to understand the standard database concepts like data modeling, design, and basic SQL; as well as some introductory implementation topics.
Content Accuracy rating: 4
The majority of the book is accurate, error-free, and unbiased. However, there are some statements and examples related to normalization that are not quite on the mark. For example, the section on normalization and how to progress through the different forms/stages is not exactly correct. Specifically, the book gives an incomplete definition of normalization, and the example of 1NF shows the wrong primary key. In addition, the figures in the book link to other unrelated figures when you click them to get a closer look.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 4
The text focuses mainly on relational database concepts that are still up-to-date and very relevant in today's environment. However, the book would be more comprehensive if it included more information about transaction management and concurrency control, which is fundamental in an operational database, but there is only cursory mention of these topics. In addition, the text would be more current if it included topics such as cloud-based databases and big data/NoSQL.
Clarity rating: 5
The book is written in a way that is very easy to understand. It starts by providing information about the background and evolution of databases with clear explanations of the basic concepts, then progresses into modeling/design theories, normalization, and finally SQL. It's a very clear progression of topics, which makes it easy for a novice to learn and comprehend.
Consistency rating: 5
The author is consistent with regard to terminology and framework, which makes it easy to follow along from chapter to chapter. This is especially helpful for those just starting out with databases, which is the audience to whom this book seems to be geared.
Modularity rating: 5
The author does a good job of breaking down the chapters into smaller sections, each clearly identified with proper headings. The order of topics is appropriate and easy to follow. This is of great benefit to instructors and students alike when teaching an introductory database course.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5
The book is organized with a clear and well-defined structure, and the flow from topic-to-topic and chapter-to-chapter is appropriate. Students should find it easy to learn and comprehend the topics, as they are presented in a very easy-to-follow manner.
Interface rating: 3
There is room for improvement with the digital interface of the book. Some of the images are low-resolution and become grainy when viewed on a larger screen, and as mentioned previously, some of the figures are not properly linked. When clicking several images, there are different, unrelated images that open in their place. This makes it somewhat frustrating when trying to get a closer look.
Grammatical Errors rating: 5
I only found a couple of very minor punctuation errors with no grammatical errors to speak of.
Cultural Relevance rating: 5
There is no offensive or culturally-insensitive content. The nature of the topic, database design, is somewhat cultural-neutral with very little opportunity for cultural insensitivity, although some texts do include examples that some might find insensitive or non-inclusive with regard to gender-related data. However, I didn't see anything like that in this text.
I feel this text provides a good introduction to database design. It's easy to read and understand, covers the baseics, and follows a logical progression which is needed for someone just starting out.
Reviewed by Simon Jin, Associate Professor, Metropolitan State University on 3/6/24
Considering this is a textbook for introductory class for Database Management/Design, this book well covered most of the necessary basics required for new learners who may not have any prior experience / knowledge. In most cases, however, little. read more
Reviewed by Simon Jin, Associate Professor, Metropolitan State University on 3/6/24
Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less
Considering this is a textbook for introductory class for Database Management/Design, this book well covered most of the necessary basics required for new learners who may not have any prior experience / knowledge. In most cases, however, little bit more information would be appreciated by the beginner readers: the current length seems to be not sufficient to cover in-depth insight for the concepts.
Content Accuracy rating: 5
In general, the textbook is accurate and unbiased.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 4
This textbook is certainly relevant. Due to the fast evolving nature of the content (i.e., fast evolving nature of IS world), updates will be required. For example, introduction to NoSQL along with comparison between traditional relational database and NoSQL database.
Clarity rating: 3
Text is clear and easy to follow. However, figures may need to be revised. The resolution of included figures is not high enough to be clearly displayed. Furthermore, when clicked, image with same resolution or even the wrong image was displayed which couldn't address the issue of pdf version.
Consistency rating: 5
No inconsistency issues found in the textbook. The terminology used were consistent and relevant to the subject matter.
Modularity rating: 5
Due to the comprehensiveness & modularity of each chapter, each chapter can be used as a single source of class material independently or minimum reference to other chapters.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4
Organization/structure/flow of this textbook is good. With consistent structure of chapter (i.e., Content, Key Terms, and Exercise), it is easy to follow. It would be better to have learning objectives for each chapter, though.
Interface rating: 5
No navigation issues found. Adding glossary and index, however, would help readers locate important concepts more easily.
Grammatical Errors rating: 5
No grammatical issues found.
Cultural Relevance rating: 5
No culturally offensive issues found.
In sum, this textbook is a good resource for new learners in the topic of Database design/management. 3rd edition with more contents and updates would be appreciated.
Reviewed by David Barbella, Assistant Professor, Earlham College on 3/29/21
This is very much a Database Design text, not a Database Implementation text, and in those grounds is reasonably comprehensive. The text covers much of the terminology I would want students to become familiar with, as well as the major concepts. read more
Reviewed by David Barbella, Assistant Professor, Earlham College on 3/29/21
Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less
This is very much a Database Design text, not a Database Implementation text, and in those grounds is reasonably comprehensive. The text covers much of the terminology I would want students to become familiar with, as well as the major concepts required for understanding database systems in the abstract. The text is on the shorter side, so some concepts are covered only briefly, or not at all. (For example, transactions and isolation levels are not covered.) There is also relatively little coverage of subqueries or more complex queries in general.
The text is not really a guide to implementation or use, and is focused mostly on design. SQL is covered only briefly, and alternatives to SQL not at all. A course covering that material in depth would want to supplement this text.
The text is very short - just 126 pages, plus the Appendices. (For comparison, several of the most widely-used traditional textbooks are 500 or more pages.) This brevity has some advantages, but it necessarily means that the coverage of many topics is brief, high-level, and sometimes includes only minimal context.
Content Accuracy rating: 5
I did not notice any real errors in the text, although in some places the text gives definitions or descriptions that, while technically correct, may not be particularly useful to an introductory student due to lack of context. The text also has an issue that almost any general explanation of SQL has, which is that SQL implementations vary so much that it's hard to make general statements about the language. The text handles this issue as well as any, however, and doesn't delve into most of the areas where implementations differ the most.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 5
The text generally sticks to timeless design principles, so little about the text comes off as dated. There's a few minor things - for example, the Waterfall method is of important historical interest as one of the earliest attempts to formalize the process of software design, but is no longer considered to be best practice by most people. (Although some methods that are still in use use the method as a foundation.) However, on the whole, I would expect the text to remain largely evergreen.
Clarity rating: 3
The text is generally written in a very accessible way - it feels like it was written for humans. One of the text's weaknesses, however, is that it in many places reads like an extended glossary, providing definitions of relevant terms but often very little context for why a beginner to databases should care about those things. Examples are often a bit sparse or under-explained. The middle section of the text is strongest, includes the best and clearest examples, and does the most to connect those examples to the text.
The focus on definitions extends to the end-of-chapter exercises, which for much of the text consist heavily of definitions problems, although some later chapters include more application. The approach to exercises varies from chapter to chapter; many chapters include only a single, straightforward application problem, while a few others dig a little deeper.
Consistency rating: 4
While not inconsistent per se, the text introduces a fair amount of terminology and notation that it then does not continue to make use of.
Modularity rating: 5
Database Design isn’t necessarily a topic that lends itself especially well to modularity, especially when it comes to the basics, as many concepts build directly on top of each other in ways that make following a certain basic structure sort of unavoidable. That said, to whatever degree modularity is possible within that structure, the text does a fine job achieving it.
The decision to not use just one or just a few running examples throughout the text is both a strength and a weakness. It means that individual chapters can more easily be skipped or rearranged, but also means that readers need to internalize new examples as they’re used.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4
There’s a little bit of redundancy; a few concepts are introduced more than once. On the whole, though, the text generally presents things in as sensible an order as is possible.
SQL is introduced fairly late in the text - in chapter 15 of 16. Most of the basic functionality is covered, but in a very cursory way, and with examples that aren’t contextualized or explained. I’m not sure if a student who is not already comfortable with joins, for example, will get anything out of the section describing them. Even in a course that was focused only minimally on implementation, I would move that material much earlier.
Interface rating: 4
At least in the .pdf version, some of the images are a bit difficult to read, although almost all can be read if you zoom in. For the most part, the visuals are clear and clean, and the book's formatting is consistent.
Grammatical Errors rating: 5
I noticed no serious grammatical issues.
Cultural Relevance rating: 3
The examples used the text are mostly fairly typical, in the business-world and course-management domains. One list of books used in an example does include a novel called “Incubus Dreams,” which is not something I would have included. Name lists don’t suggest a ton of ethnic diversity. Text avoids using gender as an example of a binary field, which is nice. There's no section of the text that specifically touches on ethics or that connects database design to a larger context. That isn't something I'd necessary expect that such a text would definitely have, however.
Reviewed by Amit Deokar, Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts Lowell on 6/29/20
This book is quite comprehensive in its coverage of key topic areas expected to be covered in an introductory database course at the undergraduate (bachelor's degree) level. The authors should also consider including an introduction to star schema. read more
Reviewed by Amit Deokar, Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts Lowell on 6/29/20
Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less
This book is quite comprehensive in its coverage of key topic areas expected to be covered in an introductory database course at the undergraduate (bachelor's degree) level. The authors should also consider including an introduction to star schema and snowflake schema topics in order to introduce datamarts and data warehouses in a separate chapter. Also, another chapter devoted to recent kinds of databases such as various types of NoSQL databases and similarities and differences of these databases (particularly from design and implementation viewpoints) as compared to relational databases would be useful to cover in an introductory database management course. Last, but not least, the authors should consider using an open-source database such as MySQL for demonstration of SQL concepts rather than MS Access (which is a proprietary and a desktop database software).
Content Accuracy rating: 5
The technical content in the book is quite accurate. Given that the book is meant for an introductory audience, some of the nuances of database design are not covered (which was expected).
Relevance/Longevity rating: 4
The core concepts in the book will be very relevant for the next several years. However, as pointed out in the comprehensiveness section, the addition of newer topics and the use of open-source software such as MySQL will make the book more relevant for students looking to immediately apply this knowledge in practice in their jobs/internships and so forth.
Clarity rating: 5
Clarity and simplicity are perhaps the key strengths of this book. I like the simple explanations and examples provided by the authors that can help students quickly grasp the gist of the concepts in an intuitive manner.
Consistency rating: 5
The overall flow of the book and the writing style is fairly consistent. Students who understand the earlier chapters should be able to continue with the later chapters without much difficulty.
Modularity rating: 5
The book itself is quite modular, which is great. However, the nature of the topic area is such that understanding fundamental concepts discussed in earlier chapters is necessary for grasping the concepts discussed in later chapters. This dependency is unavoidable and authors have done a good job in making the book chapters as modular as possible.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4
This 2nd edition of the book contains 16 chapters. While the book flows very well overall, I believe it would help the adoption of this book for a course, if the book were structured into 12 or 13 chapters (including a couple of new chapters suggested on data warehousing and NoSQL). This will help course instructors to easily use specific chapters of the book for each week. Alternatively, the authors can suggest different pathways for adoption for instructors teaching different lengths of courses (e.g., 6 weeks, 10 weeks, 14 weeks).
Interface rating: 5
There were no major interface issues encountered while using this book. Figures and charts were blurry in some places and the distortion in size made it somewhat difficult to read those portions without interruption.
Grammatical Errors rating: 5
The book is well-written with no obvious grammatical errors.
Cultural Relevance rating: 5
The examples in the book are general and diverse and to my knowledge should not be offensive to any community.
To assist instructors in teaching a course who want to adopt this book, I would request adding extensive exercises (along with an instructor's solution manual) and test bank to accompany the book. Ideally, if these materials can be easily integrated into standard course management systems, it would ease the book adoption process.
Reviewed by Thyago Mota, Assistant Professor, Metropolitan State University of Denver on 10/25/19
The book does not cover relational algebra, which provides an important foundation for relational model mechanisms. From my personal experience teaching databases, discussing relational algebra makes it easier for students to later grasp SQL. read more
Reviewed by Thyago Mota, Assistant Professor, Metropolitan State University of Denver on 10/25/19
Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less
The book does not cover relational algebra, which provides an important foundation for relational model mechanisms. From my personal experience teaching databases, discussing relational algebra makes it easier for students to later grasp SQL joins. Other topics that I would have liked to have seen covered by this book are triggers, stored procedures, indexes, SQL DCL, security, database programming, and NoSQL.
Content Accuracy rating: 4
The book is error-free but some exercises are Microsoft biased (e.g., the first exercise at the end of Chapter 16 requires students to download an MSI file). This problem can be easily modified by providing an .sql source file with the database schema for the exercise.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 4
The book should have a chapter on NoSQL to make it more up-to-date with current trends in databases.
Clarity rating: 4
Sometimes the book feels a bit "too dry" and this might negatively impact a student's motivation when reading it.
Consistency rating: 5
The book's terminology is consistent with the one used in database systems.
Modularity rating: 5
I felt that the text was written in such a way that could be easily broken out and adapted to the course that I teach.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4
Chapter 14 (Database Users) does not have enough content to justify having it as a stand alone chapter. I suggest merging it with another chapter, perhaps with Chapter 13 that talks about software engineering in the context of database systems.
Interface rating: 3
Most images that I clicked (to make them bigger) redirected me to an entirely different picture.
Grammatical Errors rating: 5
While English is not my first language, I felt the text was grammatically correct.
Cultural Relevance rating: 5
I didn't find the text to be culturally insensitive or non-inclusive.
I think the authors did a decent job. The text is clear and covers a fair amount of most of the topics commonly listed in introductory database systems courses in CS. I hope the authors continue to add more content, improvements and updates. I will recommend this book to both my colleagues and students and can't wait for the next edition.
Reviewed by Carolyn LaMacchia, Associate Professor, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania on 3/9/19
Content walks through the various pieces to build understanding. All components are there for relational database design. read more
Reviewed by Carolyn LaMacchia, Associate Professor, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania on 3/9/19
Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less
Content walks through the various pieces to build understanding. All components are there for relational database design.
Content Accuracy rating: 5
Contents are accurate and presented without bias.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 4
The content is up to date. Suggestion - the text focus is on designing for operational data. Add a chapter to describe data warehousing and data storage with large volume of data. I am very impressed with the presentation of the concepts. I like that all of the examples of the concepts. I like the assignments and keywords too.
Clarity rating: 5
Each concept includes an illustration. I really like this.
Consistency rating: 5
Modularity rating: 5
Yes - For example some chapters can be eliminate - like describing normal form
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5
Data modeling is presented in the appropriate sequence. Each section is either independent on includes information presented in an earlier section
Interface rating: 3
Its' a typical pdf. The copy I have does not include and internal navigation.
Grammatical Errors rating: 1
Did not detect errors.
Cultural Relevance rating: 5
The text is NOT culturally insensitive. I believe I picked the correct response of 5.
I really liked this text. I plan on incorporating it into one of my classes. I will have to supplement a bit to discuss data design for analysis that is fed from a operational database. But, that just is the nature of the course that I teach. I appreciate the effort that went into this book. I sincerely thank the authors for sharing.
Reviewed by Morgan Benton, Associate Professor, JMU on 11/26/18
While the book at least mentions all of the key terms, it is not clear that these concepts are covered in sufficient depth to really serve as a practical guide for new practitioners. More explanation follows. read more
Reviewed by Morgan Benton, Associate Professor, JMU on 11/26/18
Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less
While the book at least mentions all of the key terms, it is not clear that these concepts are covered in sufficient depth to really serve as a practical guide for new practitioners. More explanation follows.
Content Accuracy rating: 4
I didn't spot any glaring inaccuracies in the book. However, because it was so short, I worry that there was not enough context provided or depth of explanation so that beginners in this field would be able to follow it with any degree of confidence. I think this book would require HEAVY additional guidance from an instructor. The pace of development is so fast these days, students need to be as self-sufficient in their learning as possible, and I'm not sure that is practical with this text.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 3
It is not clear that the authors have spent much time doing database development in the last ten years. Their suggested development methodology based on the waterfall model is all but obsolete. Over time, it has proven to be both inflexible and a bottleneck that delays the efforts of other developers working on a project. Their coverage in some chapters is oddly platform-specific. For example, the data types they introduce in detail in chapter 15 (SQL Structured Query Language) do not apply to all (or perhaps even most) DBMS, and the differences between DBMS implementations are likely to cause major difficulties if students were to try to apply these concepts in a context where they don't apply. SQLite, for example, only has about 3-4 native data types and it is one of the most commonly used environments these days due to its small size, portability, and the fact that it is built-in to browsers and mobile devices.
Clarity rating: 3
As explained above in the "Accuracy" section, I worry that the explanations of key concepts were too short, not well organized, and therefore are likely to be unclear to beginners in this field.
Consistency rating: 3
Most of the time the book stays at a very high level, but on occasion, and without warning it jumps into great depth. For example, chapter 11 (functional dependencies) takes a sudden and deep dive into the subject of set theory and related axioms. This is not consistent in tone or apparent level of understanding of the reader. This would be quite jarring from the perspective of a student.
Modularity rating: 3
Although the chapter titles suggest modularity, I didn't feel there was a great deal of discipline in terms of where content was placed. For example, chapter 8 (The Entity Relationship Data Model) appears to be essentially the same as chapter 10 (ER Modeling). I think students being introduced to the concepts here would be very confused by this.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3
I found the organization somewhat confusing. For example, both chapters 10 and 11 begin by introducing the concept of functional dependency. I would have expected the concept to be fully defined and explained in one chapter or the other, not both, or at the very least make it clear that the concept is broken up into multiple chapters. Some topics seemed to appear out of the blue in the middle of some chapters without warning. Chapters were inconsistent in terms of their length and the depth and care with which they treated a subject. For example, chapter 14 (Database Users) was extremely short, and could have been covered (perhaps was?) in a much earlier chapter like chapter 2 (Fundamental Concepts).
Interface rating: 3
In general, navigating through the book was straightforward. However, many of the images were very small and of poor resolution. Furthermore, if you click on many of the images they are linked to different, unrelated images rather than larger, clearer versions of the same image.
Grammatical Errors rating: 5
I found only minor problems with grammar or diction.
Cultural Relevance rating: 2
This book is not offensive, at all. However, it utterly fails to address the cultural contexts of data within organizations and society. Beginners to database design frequently fail to understand the impact that database structure can have on the structure and function of an organization. Sometimes organizations find themselves having to adapt to their data structures rather than the other way around. A good modern example is the concept of gender. It is now generally recognized that gender is a non-binary facet of identity. An otherwise well-meaning developer who reduced gender to "male/female" may cause unintended harm to the people whose data is being stored in a database. The traditional failure of the software community to consider, let alone address, issues like this is replete through the industry. Discussions of the ethical and sociocultural ramifications of data are completely absent from this text.
While technically fairly accurate, this book falls short in some important dimensions of relevance and cultural sensitivity. I think the treatment of the subjects is uneven, redundant in some places, very high level in others, and of more depth than necessary in yet others. I would not feel comfortable using this book to teach introductory students.
Reviewed by Sally Hamouda, Assistant Professor, Rhode Island College on 2/1/18
The texts covers all the topics required for an introduction to data base management course. read more
Reviewed by Sally Hamouda, Assistant Professor, Rhode Island College on 2/1/18
Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less
The texts covers all the topics required for an introduction to data base management course.
Content Accuracy rating: 5
The book is accurate and follows the conventions used in other popular references in the data base management system field.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 5
The book is very relevant to the content covered in an introductory database management system courses.
Clarity rating: 4
The book text clear. The figures resolution is not excellent but readable. The naming of the attributes for some relations in the relational model chapter is not very descriptive in some cases. The exercises are limited in some chapters.
Consistency rating: 4
The naming of the attributes for some relations in the relational model chapter is not very descriptive in some cases. The exercises are limited in some chapters.
Modularity rating: 5
The text is easy to read and easy to divide in smaller sections that can be assigned within the course.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5
The flow of the book is very good and follows the state of the art for other very well know references in the same field.
Interface rating: 4
The only thing to mention is the resolution of the figures that need to be enhanced.
Grammatical Errors rating: 5
I didn't see any grammatical mistakes.
Cultural Relevance rating: 5
The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive in any way.
The book is very useful for introductory database management courses.
Reviewed by Adam Lee, Fellow, University of Maryland on 2/1/18
The book contains the Table of Contents and lists Key Terms for every Chapter. However, it will be better to include Index with corresponding page numbers and/or hyperlinks. read more
Reviewed by Adam Lee, Fellow, University of Maryland on 2/1/18
Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less
The book contains the Table of Contents and lists Key Terms for every Chapter. However, it will be better to include Index with corresponding page numbers and/or hyperlinks.
Content Accuracy rating: 5
Content is accurate with many examples.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 4
Better to add some more brief introduction on non-traditional databases and maybe some compact comparison table as well.
Clarity rating: 3
The figures and the tables are clear. Some itemized list may extend with longer explanations.
Chapter 3 may be improved by putting some sections as sub-sections under other sections.
Chapter 4 may explain the Physical Data Models as well.
On relational model, the Primary Keys should be highlighted, e.g. bolded.
Consistency rating: 3
The whole book should be standardized with one ERD format. The early chapter uses the Chen's notation. The key chapter uses and explains the Crow's Feet notation. The appendix uses the UML.
Modularity rating: 5
The content includes all key components and topics about traditional database management systems.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4
Chapters 8, 9 and 10 may be re-arranged in sequence.
Interface rating: 5
The pages are all good.
Grammatical Errors rating: 5
The grammar reads well.
Cultural Relevance rating: 5
The content reads neutral on cultural relevance.
Maybe CREATE VIEW and DROP VIEW can be added.
Reviewed by Benjamin Branch, Professor-LSIS, North Carolina Central University on 2/1/18
It give a sound history and need for database without picking one other the other. It also comes in several formats from pdf to Kindle and etc. It provide a clear and unbiased history of data effort and societal engagement with data. It give a. read more
Reviewed by Benjamin Branch, Professor-LSIS, North Carolina Central University on 2/1/18
Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less
It give a sound history and need for database without picking one other the other. It also comes in several formats from pdf to Kindle and etc. It provide a clear and unbiased history of data effort and societal engagement with data.
It give a good scope of data base design. It does not include any open source database topics like Hadoop or MongoDB or their influx on the database market, learning or industry.
Such would have to be supplemented materials.
Content Accuracy rating: 5
It accuracy is very good and it admits is covers most topics in databases.It's a great intro to databases book.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 4
For a free book it is awesome. Even though cloud databases have existed since 1996, their use is now only becoming mainstream, but the basics of databases remains in tact.It does not include GIS or apps as extensions of databases in 2017.
For intro to database awesome, but not for an advanced databases course.
Clarity rating: 5
it has the properly communication for a novice database person getting into the field.
The book give a great introduction to database and is clear throughout.
Consistency rating: 4
The book is written in a consistent manner and attempts not to lose the learner.
The book uses some mathematical formula and needs more.
Modularity rating: 5
The book is broken down well into many chapters and digestible chunks of thought that are easily builds upon previous learning.
the various chapters do a great job breaking down the database knowledge.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5
the book is very well organized and thought out.
It give good examples for student to build up with homework to test their perceptions.
The book sets up the learning of material and give a learner an opportunity to apply it in homework. Also, vocabulary is used to add to the database literacy of the student.
Interface rating: 5
it was simple to use for an introductory course. Now real world experience would still need to be done in a hands-on manner.
It gave examples and key terms to support more learning for another course.
All graphics and layout were done very nicely for the online and pdf versions.
Grammatical Errors rating: 5
The grammar use was excellent.
It made clear objectives and outcomes for learning.
Cultural Relevance rating: 3
not really applicable
A 3rd edition would be welcomed.
Reviewed by mary gable, instructor, tidewater community college on 8/15/17
The book covers all necessary areas and topics, but I did not see an overall index. I like the idea of having key terms at the end of each section. It was a great book for database design and as an extra bonus, SQL was covered in greater detail. read more
Reviewed by mary gable, instructor, tidewater community college on 8/15/17
Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less
The book covers all necessary areas and topics, but I did not see an overall index. I like the idea of having key terms at the end of each section. It was a great book for database design and as an extra bonus, SQL was covered in greater detail than most texts on the subject. It is complete with section review, exercises, and solutions. Table of contents is complete, organized, and the topics are presented in the appropriate order.
Content Accuracy rating: 5
Topics are described accurately and content is free of errors.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 5
The topic here is traditional theory which does not change quickly as typical IT topics do. All content is relevant and up-to-date examples are used. Any updates should be easily implemented, but very few would be expected.
Clarity rating: 5
The book was very clear and topics were explained thoroughly. The terminology used was easy to understand. Key terms for each section were conveniently located at the end of each section which explained the important terms. This could easily be used as a section review.
Consistency rating: 5
The text, terminology, and terms are consistent throughout all sections of the book.
Modularity rating: 5
The book was consistent with all the typical modules and sections with key terms, questions, and lab exercises which reinforced concepts covered in each section. It is well-organized and reading flowed easily. Terms were presented in the appropriate order and the text was not verbose.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5
Topics are presented in a logical fashion. This organization is typical of all other database design courses I have seen.
Interface rating: 2
Many of the images are blurry and difficult to see. I had to zoom very large and they were still sometimes very hard to read. Navigation was typical of PDF documents and easy to move around and navigate throughout the document.
Grammatical Errors rating: 4
I found a few grammatical errors.
Cultural Relevance rating: 5
The text is not insensitive or offensive. Examples are typical business examples which are relevant and current. Example database designs are very simple to comprehend so that emphasis is placed on learning the concepts.
I think this book would make an excellent textbook for a relational database design course. It is complete with exercises and section reviews. The exercises are very beneficial and solutions to examples and labs are included with the text which is very important to the student. It would also be good to use for a SQL review.
Reviewed by Krishnendu Ghosh, Assistant Professor, Miami University on 6/20/17
The book is a thorough and covers the topics that is expected to be covered in a database design course. The topics are well organized. I was expecting material on NoSQL to be included and other recent updates in databases read more
Reviewed by Krishnendu Ghosh, Assistant Professor, Miami University on 6/20/17
Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less
The book is a thorough and covers the topics that is expected to be covered in a database design course. The topics are well organized. I was expecting material on NoSQL to be included and other recent updates in databases
Content Accuracy rating: 5
The material in the book was accurate.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 4
The book covers the material required in database design well and will be relevant in future. The recent advances in the database design should be incorporated.
Clarity rating: 5
The book is clear and concise.
Consistency rating: 5
The book is consistent in terms of terminology and organization of the concepts in every chapter.
Modularity rating: 5
The chapters in the book provide modularity. The instructor can select the topics accordingly.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4
The organization and structure is broad and comprehensive. I would hope there could have been more worked out examples.
Interface rating: 5
The interface is great.
Grammatical Errors rating: 5
I did not find any errors in grammar
Cultural Relevance rating: 5
I did not find any culturally insensitive or offensive material.
This book is an ideal textbook for database design. The organization of the book helps in the understanding of the material at a low gradient. I hope the authors add more worked out examples.
This second edition of Database Design book covers the concepts used in database systems and the database design process. Topics include:
New to this edition are more examples, highlighted and defined key terms, both throughout and at the end of each chapter, and end-of-chapter review exercises. Two new chapters have been added on SQL, along with appendices that include a data model example, sample ERD exercises and SQL lab with solutions.
Adrienne Watt holds a computer systems diploma (BCIT), a bachelor’s degree in technology (BCIT) and a master’s degree in business administration (City University).
Since 1989, Adrienne has worked as an educator and gained extensive experience developing and delivering business and technology curriculum to post-secondary students. During that time, she ran a successful software development business. In the business, she worked as an IT professional in a variety of senior positions including project manager, database designer, administrator and business analyst. Recently she has been exploring a wide range of technology-related tools and processes to improve delivery methods and enhance learning for her students.
