DATABASE INTRO What is it? What does it do? Information Technology University of Massachusetts at Boston ©2009 William Holmes 1

DATABASE IS INFORMATION Computerization Organization Storage Processing Retrieval 2

DATABASE CREATES Plan for Organization Means of Storage Procedures for Processing Procedures for Retrieval 3

DATABASE COMMON ELEMENTS Master client list Assessment/Needs/Intake Service/activity list Results information Financial information Personnel information 4

DATABASE COMPUTIZING FORMS Identifying forms Reviewing forms Creating correspondence between forms and database Developing data entry procedures Developing data tracking procedures 5

INDENTIFYING FORMS Intake Forms Action Forms Event Forms Client Forms Staff Forms Stakeholder Forms 6

REVIEW FORMS Client Identification Numbers Staff Identification Program Identification Dating Closed versus Open-ended Fields Linking Information Purpose Completeness 7

CORRESPONDENCE OF FORMS AND DATA FIELDS One-to-One: each information on form has corresponding field in table of database One-Many: information on form has multiple fields in table of database Many-One: several pieces of information are combined in a single field in a database 8

DATA ENTRY PROCEDURES Reviewing filled out forms Correcting forms Coding Forms Data Entry Form Tracking 9

DATA CHECKING PROCEDURES Finding duplicate records Identifying missing records Consistency checks Case checking of text Record matching between tables 10

DATA MANAGEMENT PROCEDURES Have master client list Blank record purging Privacy protection Back up data Update data 11