In the contemporary world, almost every institution or organization needs to keep records, mostly either employee or customer records. On the other hand, schools need to keep records of students based on attributes such as gender, and the students’ school year. However, schools always have new admissions, as well as witness many students transfer to other schools. Besides, schools also currently record aspects such as the level of academic performance of students, and their conduct. Despite there being need to keep proper records, many schools predominantly use the traditional file system or spreadsheet databases to store student details. This essay focuses on a typical school record keeping system as well as discusses the benefits of using a relational database to store student records as compared to the traditional files and spreadsheet databases.
The file system of keeping records was mostly used before the computer was invented as well as when technology was not well advanced. Many schools even presently have stacks of files of student records. Evidently, the file system consumes a lot of space and wastes paper. Whenever a new student is enrolled in a school, a new file has to be purchased. The same file is used to record important details as the student progresses. Although many schools assign numbers to the files, locating student files sometimes can be an uphill task. Secondly, in case of disasters such as fire, students’ information could be lost and can never be retrieved. Thirdly, it is difficult to isolate files on the basis of seemingly benign attributes such as students’ conduct. One is forced to go through each student’s file to establish some information. Summarily, recording student information in files consumes a lot of time and space.
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Use of spreadsheets gained prominence after technology advanced. Spreadsheets have rows and columns, where data can be recorded, but every moment wants to retrieve the information, he or she has to open the spreadsheet. Subsequently, one has to scan through the data to obtain specific details. One of the demerits of spreadsheets is that it does not provide flexibility when updating details (Campbell, 2010). As already mentioned, schools witness new admissions as well as student transfers. When a student transfers to another school, a duplicate of his or her details is created, acknowledging the transfer. Consequently, if there are many cases of student transfers, there will be many duplicates. The repetition consumes space, and is cumbersome. Secondly, it is not possible to search for students with several related attributes at once. For instance, a head teacher cannot search for all “male” students playing “soccer” at once.
Relational databases solve most of the challenges of the traditional file and spreadsheet databases. In these databases, tables with rows and columns are used to record related information. A relational database can have various tables that record different attributes. The database allows users to select, project, and join data (Darwen, 2009). One of the prominent benefits of relational databases is that they allow data to be updated. If a student, for instance, transfers to another school, the specific date of when the student transferred can be recorded. The most profound advantage is that it allows data to be “joined” (Soper, 2013). A head teacher looking for “male” students who play “soccer” will get a list of all the students because the attributes will be combined by the database to generate the required data. Therefore, relational databases helps users to avoid unnecessary duplication. Lastly, using relational databases to store students’ data saves time when retrieving specific related data; instead of searching one attribute at a time and later combining and sorting out data, the attributes can be combined and generated automatically.
References
Campbell, M. P. (2010, February). Spreadsheet issues: pitfalls, best practices, and practical tips. In Actuarial Practice Forum (pp. 1-39).
Darwen, H. (2009). An Introduction to Relational Database Theory . Bookboon.
Soper, D. (2013). Database Lesson #1 of 8 - Introduction to Databases . YouTube . Retrieved 24 January 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9KEBexzcM&t=834s
