Abstract: The Teton Whitewater Kayak case is designed to provide students with a challenging hands-on exercise in relational database design. It is extensive enough to provide a stimulating exercise, but not so large as to be overwhelming. This case can be utilized for a group project in a database management or database design course. The case is sufficiently detailed to challenge students as they apply the design concepts explained in class to a problem that closely simulates a real-world problem. An associated project can be broken into deliverables, or individual components that cover a single task, to make the project more manageable. Some of the suggested deliverables associated with this project include the design of entity-relationship diagrams, normalization of the database schema, table creation, SQL query design, form and report design, and stored procedure and trigger design. The problem was designed to be extensible. For example, while it does into include credit card processing or selling equipment on consignment, those features can be easily added to make the case more complex. The case can even be extended for use in an analysis and design class, as the services provided by the company are presented as a set of processes that can be easily represented in a data flow diagram.

Keywords: Database design, Database management, Normalization, Entity-relationship diagrams, Case

Download this article: JISE - Volume 14 Number 3, Page 271.pdf

Recommended Citation: Parker, K. R. (2003). Teaching Case: A Database Design Case: Teton Whitewater Kayak. Journal of Information Systems Education, 14(3), 271-274.