Chapter 3

Data Modeling Using the

Entity-Relationship (ER)
Model
Chapter Outline
 Overview of Database Design Process
 Example Database Application (COMPANY)
 ER Model Concepts
 Entities and Attributes
 Entity Types, Value Sets, and Key Attributes
 Relationships and Relationship Types
 Weak Entity Types
 Roles and Attributes in Relationship Types
 ER Diagrams - Notation
 ER Diagram for COMPANY Schema

Slide 3- 2
Overview of Database Design Process
 Two main activities:
 Database design
 Applications design
 Focus in this chapter on database design
 To design the conceptual schema for a database
application
 Applications design focuses on the programs and
interfaces that access the database
 Generally considered part of software engineering

Slide 3- 3
Overview of Database Design Process

Slide 3- 4
Example COMPANY Database
 We need to create a database schema design
based on the following (simplified) requirements
of the COMPANY Database:
 The company is organized into DEPARTMENTs.
Each department has a name, number and an
employee who manages the department. We keep
track of the start date of the department manager.
A department may have several locations.
 Each department controls a number of
PROJECTs. Each project has a unique name,
unique number and is located at a single location.

Slide 3- 5
Example COMPANY Database
(Contd.)
 We store each EMPLOYEE’s social security
number, address, salary, sex, and birthdate.
 Each employee works for one department but may
work on several projects.
 We keep track of the number of hours per week that
an employee currently works on each project.
 We also keep track of the direct supervisor of each
employee.
 Each employee may have a number of
DEPENDENTs.

For each dependent, we keep track of their name,
sex, birthdate, and relationship to the employee.

Slide 3- 6
ER Model Concepts
 Entities and Attributes
 Entities are specific objects or things in the mini-world that
are represented in the database.

For example the EMPLOYEE John Smith, the Research
DEPARTMENT, the ProductX PROJECT
 Attributes are properties used to describe an entity.

For example an EMPLOYEE entity may have the attributes
Name, SSN, Address, Sex, BirthDate
 A specific entity will have a value for each of its attributes.

For example a specific employee entity may have
Name='John Smith', SSN='123456789', Address ='731,
Fondren, Houston, TX', Sex='M', BirthDate='09-JAN-55‘
 Each attribute has a value set (or data type) associated with
it – e.g. integer, string, subrange, enumerated type, …

Slide 3- 7
Types of Attributes (1)
 Simple
 Each entity has a single atomic value for the attribute. For
example, SSN or Sex.
 Composite
 The attribute may be composed of several components. For
example:

Address(Apt#, House#, Street, City, State, ZipCode, Country), or

Name(FirstName, MiddleName, LastName).
 Composition may form a hierarchy where some components
are themselves composite.
 Multi-valued
 An entity may have multiple values for that attribute. For
example, Color of a CAR or PreviousDegrees of a STUDENT.

Denoted as {Color} or {PreviousDegrees}.

Slide 3- 8
Types of Attributes (2)
 In general, composite and multi-valued attributes
may be nested arbitrarily to any number of levels,
although this is rare.
 For example, PreviousDegrees of a STUDENT is
a composite multi-valued attribute denoted by
{PreviousDegrees (College, Year, Degree, Field)}
 Multiple PreviousDegrees values can exist
 Each has four subcomponent attributes:

College, Year, Degree, Field

Slide 3- 9
Example of a composite attribute

Slide 3- 10
Entity Types and Key Attributes (1)
 Entities with the same basic attributes are
grouped or typed into an entity type.
 For example, the entity type EMPLOYEE
and PROJECT.
 An attribute of an entity type for which each
entity must have a unique value is called a
key attribute of the entity type.
 For example, SSN of EMPLOYEE.

Slide 3- 11
Entity Types and Key Attributes (2)
 A key attribute may be composite.
 VehicleTagNumber is a key of the CAR entity

type with components (Number, State).

 An entity type may have more than one key.
 The CAR entity type may have two keys:


VehicleIdentificationNumber (popularly called VIN)

VehicleTagNumber (Number, State), aka license
plate number.
 Each key is underlined

Slide 3- 12
Displaying an Entity type
 In ER diagrams, an entity type is displayed in a
rectangular box
 Attributes are displayed in ovals
 Each attribute is connected to its entity type
 Components of a composite attribute are
connected to the oval representing the composite
attribute
 Each key attribute is underlined
 Multivalued attributes displayed in double ovals
 See CAR example on next slide

Slide 3- 13
Entity Type CAR with two keys and a
corresponding Entity Set

Slide 3- 14
Entity Set
 Each entity type will have a collection of entities
stored in the database
 Called the entity set
 Previous slide shows three CAR entity instances
in the entity set for CAR
 Same name (CAR) used to refer to both the entity
type and the entity set
 Entity set is the current state of the entities of that
type that are stored in the database

Slide 3- 15
Initial Design of Entity Types for the
COMPANY Database Schema

 Based on the requirements, we can identify four

initial entity types in the COMPANY database:
 DEPARTMENT
 PROJECT
 EMPLOYEE
 DEPENDENT
 Their initial design is shown on the following slide
 The initial attributes shown are derived from the
requirements description

Slide 3- 16
Initial Design of Entity Types:
EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT, PROJECT, DEPENDENT

Slide 3- 17
Refining the initial design by introducing
relationships
 The initial design is typically not complete
 Some aspects in the requirements will be
represented as relationships
 ER model has three main concepts:
 Entities (and their entity types and entity sets)
 Attributes (simple, composite, multivalued)
 Relationships (and their relationship types and
relationship sets)
 We introduce relationship concepts next

Slide 3- 18
Relationships and Relationship Types (1)
 A relationship relates two or more distinct entities with a
specific meaning.
 For example, EMPLOYEE John Smith works on the ProductX
PROJECT, or EMPLOYEE Franklin Wong manages the
Research DEPARTMENT.
 Relationships of the same type are grouped or typed into
a relationship type.
 For example, the WORKS_ON relationship type in which
EMPLOYEEs and PROJECTs participate, or the MANAGES
relationship type in which EMPLOYEEs and DEPARTMENTs
participate.
 The degree of a relationship type is the number of
participating entity types.
 Both MANAGES and WORKS_ON are binary relationships.

Slide 3- 19
Relationship instances of the WORKS_FOR N:1
relationship between EMPLOYEE and DEPARTMENT

Slide 3- 20
Relationship instances of the M:N WORKS_ON
relationship between EMPLOYEE and PROJECT

Slide 3- 21
Relationship type vs. relationship set (1)
 Relationship Type:
 Is the schema description of a relationship
 Identifies the relationship name and the
participating entity types
 Also identifies certain relationship constraints
 Relationship Set:
 The current set of relationship instances
represented in the database
 The current state of a relationship type

Slide 3- 22
Relationship type vs. relationship set (2)
 Previous figures displayed the relationship sets
 Each instance in the set relates individual
participating entities – one from each participating
entity type
 In ER diagrams, we represent the relationship
type as follows:
 Diamond-shaped box is used to display a
relationship type
 Connected to the participating entity types via
straight lines

Slide 3- 23
Refining the COMPANY database
schema by introducing relationships
 By examining the requirements, six relationship types are
identified
 All are binary relationships( degree 2)
 Listed below with their participating entity types:
 WORKS_FOR (between EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT)
 MANAGES (also between EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT)
 CONTROLS (between DEPARTMENT, PROJECT)
 WORKS_ON (between EMPLOYEE, PROJECT)
 SUPERVISION (between EMPLOYEE (as subordinate),
EMPLOYEE (as supervisor))
 DEPENDENTS_OF (between EMPLOYEE, DEPENDENT)

Slide 3- 24
ER DIAGRAM – Relationship Types are:
WORKS_FOR, MANAGES, WORKS_ON, CONTROLS, SUPERVISION, DEPENDENTS_OF

Slide 3- 25
Discussion on Relationship Types
 In the refined design, some attributes from the initial entity
types are refined into relationships:
 Manager of DEPARTMENT -> MANAGES
 Works_on of EMPLOYEE -> WORKS_ON
 Department of EMPLOYEE -> WORKS_FOR
 etc
 In general, more than one relationship type can exist
between the same participating entity types
 MANAGES and WORKS_FOR are distinct relationship
types between EMPLOYEE and DEPARTMENT
 Different meanings and different relationship instances.

Slide 3- 26
Recursive Relationship Type
 A relationship type whose with the same participating
entity type in distinct roles
 Example: the SUPERVISION relationship
 EMPLOYEE participates twice in two distinct roles:
 supervisor (or boss) role
 supervisee (or subordinate) role
 Each relationship instance relates two distinct
EMPLOYEE entities:
 One employee in supervisor role
 One employee in supervisee role

Slide 3- 27
Weak Entity Types
 An entity that does not have a key attribute
 A weak entity must participate in an identifying relationship type with
an owner or identifying entity type
 Entities are identified by the combination of:
 A partial key of the weak entity type

 The particular entity they are related to in the identifying entity

type
 Example:
 A DEPENDENT entity is identified by the dependent’s first name,

and the specific EMPLOYEE with whom the dependent is related

 Name of DEPENDENT is the partial key

 DEPENDENT is a weak entity type

 EMPLOYEE is its identifying entity type via the identifying

relationship type DEPENDENT_OF

Slide 3- 28
Constraints on Relationships
 Constraints on Relationship Types
 (Also known as ratio constraints)
 Cardinality Ratio (specifies maximum participation)

One-to-one (1:1)

One-to-many (1:N) or Many-to-one (N:1)

Many-to-many (M:N)
 Existence Dependency Constraint (specifies minimum
participation) (also called participation constraint)

zero (optional participation, not existence-dependent)

one or more (mandatory participation, existence-dependent)

Slide 3- 29
Many-to-one (N:1) Relationship

Slide 3- 30
Many-to-many (M:N) Relationship

Slide 3- 31
Displaying a recursive
relationship
 In a recursive relationship type.
 Both participations are same entity type in

different roles.
 For example, SUPERVISION relationships

between EMPLOYEE (in role of supervisor or

boss) and (another) EMPLOYEE (in role of
subordinate or worker).
 In following figure, first role participation labeled
with 1 and second role participation labeled with
2.
 In ER diagram, need to display role names to
distinguish participations.

Slide 3- 32
A Recursive Relationship Supervision`

Slide 3- 33
Recursive Relationship Type is: SUPERVISION
(participation role names are shown)

Slide 3- 34
Attributes of Relationship types
 A relationship type can have attributes:
 For example, HoursPerWeek of WORKS_ON
 Its value for each relationship instance describes
the number of hours per week that an EMPLOYEE
works on a PROJECT.

A value of HoursPerWeek depends on a particular
(employee, project) combination
 Most relationship attributes are used with M:N
relationships
 In 1:N relationships, they can be transferred to the
entity type on the N-side of the relationship

Slide 3- 35
Example Attribute of a Relationship Type:
Hours of WORKS_ON

Slide 3- 36
Notation for Constraints on
Relationships
 Cardinality ratio (of a binary relationship): 1:1,
1:N, N:1, or M:N
 Shown by placing appropriate numbers on the
relationship edges.
 Participation constraint (on each participating
entity type): total (called existence dependency)
or partial.
 Total shown by double line, partial by single line.
 NOTE: These are easy to specify for Binary
Relationship Types.

Slide 3- 37
Alternative (min, max) notation for
relationship structural constraints:
 Specified on each participation of an entity type E in a relationship
type R
 Specifies that each entity e in E participates in at least min and at
most max relationship instances in R
 Default(no constraint): min=0, max=n (signifying no limit)
 Must have min≤max, min≥0, max ≥1
 Derived from the knowledge of mini-world constraints
 Examples:
 A department has exactly one manager and an employee can

manage at most one department.

 Specify (0,1) for participation of EMPLOYEE in MANAGES
 Specify (1,1) for participation of DEPARTMENT in MANAGES
 An employee can work for exactly one department but a
department can have any number of employees.
 Specify (1,1) for participation of EMPLOYEE in WORKS_FOR
 Specify (0,n) for participation of DEPARTMENT in WORKS_FOR

Slide 3- 38
The (min,max) notation for
relationship constraints

Read the min,max numbers next to the entity

type and looking away from the entity type

Slide 3- 39
COMPANY ER Schema Diagram using (min,
max) notation

Slide 3- 40
Alternative diagrammatic notation
 ER diagrams is one popular example for
displaying database schemas
 Many other notations exist in the literature and in
various database design and modeling tools
 Appendix A illustrates some of the alternative
notations that have been used
 UML class diagrams is representative of another
way of displaying ER concepts that is used in
several commercial design tools

Slide 3- 41
Summary of notation for ER diagrams

Slide 3- 42
UML class diagrams
 Represent classes (similar to entity types) as large
rounded boxes with three sections:
 Top section includes entity type (class) name
 Second section includes attributes
 Third section includes class operations (operations are not
in basic ER model)
 Relationships (called associations) represented as lines
connecting the classes
 Other UML terminology also differs from ER terminology
 Used in database design and object-oriented software
design
 UML has many other types of diagrams for software
design (see Chapter 12)

Slide 3- 43
UML class diagram for COMPANY
database schema

Slide 3- 44
Other alternative diagrammatic notations

Slide 3- 45
Relationships of Higher Degree
 Relationship types of degree 2 are called binary
 Relationship types of degree 3 are called ternary
and of degree n are called n-ary
 In general, an n-ary relationship is not equivalent
to n binary relationships
 Constraints are harder to specify for higher-
degree relationships (n > 2) than for binary
relationships

Slide 3- 46
Discussion of n-ary relationships (n > 2)
 In general, 3 binary relationships can represent different
information than a single ternary relationship (see Figure
3.17a and b)
 If needed, the binary and n-ary relationships can all be
included in the schema design (see Figure 3.17a and b,
where all relationships convey different meanings)
 In some cases, a ternary relationship can be represented
as a weak entity if the data model allows a weak entity
type to have multiple identifying relationships (and hence
multiple owner entity types) (see Figure 3.17c)

Slide 3- 47
Example of a ternary relationship

Slide 3- 48
Discussion of n-ary relationships (n > 2)
 If a particular binary relationship can be derived
from a higher-degree relationship at all times,
then it is redundant
 For example, the TAUGHT_DURING binary
relationship in Figure 3.18 (see next slide) can be
derived from the ternary relationship OFFERS
(based on the meaning of the relationships)

Slide 3- 49
Another example of a ternary relationship

Slide 3- 50
Displaying constraints on higher-degree
relationships
 The (min, max) constraints can be displayed on the edges
– however, they do not fully describe the constraints
 Displaying a 1, M, or N indicates additional constraints
 An M or N indicates no constraint
 A 1 indicates that an entity can participate in at most one
relationship instance that has a particular combination of the
other participating entities
 In general, both (min, max) and 1, M, or N are needed to
describe fully the constraints

Slide 3- 51
Data Modeling Tools
 A number of popular tools that cover conceptual modeling
and mapping into relational schema design.
 Examples: ERWin, S- Designer (Enterprise Application
Suite), ER- Studio, etc.
 POSITIVES:
 Serves as documentation of application requirements, easy
user interface - mostly graphics editor support
 NEGATIVES:
 Most tools lack a proper distinct notation for relationships
with relationship attributes
 Mostly represent a relational design in a diagrammatic form
rather than a conceptual ER-based design

Slide 3- 52
 Some of the Currently Available
Automated Database Design Tools
COMPANY TOOL FUNCTIONALITY
Embarcad ER Studio Database Modeling in ER and IDEF1X
ero
DB Artisan Database administration, space and
Technologi
security management
es
Oracle Developer Database modeling, application
Popkin 2000/Designer 2000
System Architect development
Data modeling, object modeling,
Software 2001 process modeling, structured
Platinum Enterprise Modeling analysis/design
Data, process, and business
(Computer Suite: Erwin, BPWin, component modeling
Associates Paradigm Plus
)Persistenc Pwertier Mapping from O-O to relational
e Inc. model
Rational Rational Rose UML Modeling & application
(IBM) generation in C++/JAVA
Resolution Xcase Conceptual modeling up to code
Ltd. maintenance
Sybase Enterprise Data modeling, business logic
Visio Application Suite
Visio Enterprise modeling
Data modeling, design/reengineering
Visual Basic/C++
Slide 3- 53
Extended Entity-Relationship (EER)
Model (in next chapter)

 The entity relationship model in its original form

did not support the specialization and
generalization abstractions
 Next chapter illustrates how the ER model can be
extended with
 Type-subtype and set-subset relationships
 Specialization/Generalization Hierarchies
 Notation to display them in EER diagrams

Slide 3- 54
Chapter Summary
 ER Model Concepts: Entities, attributes,
relationships
 Constraints in the ER model
 Using ER in step-by-step conceptual schema
design for the COMPANY database
 ER Diagrams - Notation
 Alternative Notations – UML class diagrams,
others

Slide 3- 55