Term
|
Definition
| Defining a database so that if faithfully represents all key components of an organization's environment. The objective is to explicitly capture and store data about every business activity the organization wishes to plan, control, or evaluate. |
|
|
Term
| Entity Relationship Diagram (E-R) |
|
Definition
| A graphical depiction of a database's contents. It shows the various entities bein modeled and the important relationships among them. An entity is any class of objects about which data are collected. Thus, the resources, events, and agents that comprise the REA data model are all entities. An E-R diagram represents entities as rectangles; lines and diamonds represent relationships between entities. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The item about which information is stored in a record. Examples include an employee, an inventory item, and a customer. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A data model used to design AIS databases. REA is an acronym signifying that the data model contains information about three fundamental objects: resources, events, and agents. Resources represent identifiable objects that have enconomic value to the organization. Events represent an organization's business activities. Agents represent the people or organizations about which data are collected. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Those things that have economic value to an organization such as cash, inventory, supplies, factories, and land. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| (1) In REA data model, a business activity about which managment wants to collect information for planning or control purposes. (2) An incident or occurrence emanating from internal or external sources that affects the implementation of strategy or the achivement of objectives. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| In the REA data model, the people and organizations that participate in events and about whom information is desired. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A property of a database relationship indicating the number of occurrences of one entity that may be associated with a single occurrence of the other entity. Three types of cardinalities are one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The maximum number of instances that an entity can be linked to the other entity in the relationship. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The minimum number of instances that an entity can be linked to the other entity in the relationship. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A relationship between two entities where one entity in the relationship can be associated with only one instance of the other entity in the relationship. |
|
|
Term
| One-to-Many Relationship (1:N) |
|
Definition
| A relationship between two entities where one entity in the relationship can be associated with many instances of the other entity in that relationship. |
|
|
Term
| Many-to-Many Relationship (M:N) |
|
Definition
| A relationship between two entities where each entity can be associated with many instances of the other entity. For example, each inventory item can be sold to many different customers and each customer can order many different inventory items. |
|
|
