{"data":[{"id":354,"title":"Database Design","edition_statement":"2nd Edition","volume":null,"copyright_year":2014,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":null,"license":"Attribution","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"unknown","description":"This second edition of Database Design book covers the concepts used in database systems and the database design process. Topics include: The history of databases Characteristics and benefits of databases Data models Data modelling Classification of database management systems Integrity rules and constraints Functional dependencies Normalization Database development process New to this edition are more examples, highlighted and defined key terms, both throughout and at the end of each chapter, and end-of-chapter review exercises. Two new chapters have been added on SQL, along with appendices that include a data model example, sample ERD exercises and SQL lab with solutions.","contributors":[{"id":3836,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Adrienne","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Watt","location":"City University","background_text":"Adrienne Watt holds a computer systems diploma (BCIT), a bachelor’s degree in technology (BCIT) and a master’s degree in business administration (City University). Since 1989, Adrienne has worked as an educator and gained extensive experience developing and delivering business and technology curriculum to post-secondary students. During that time, she ran a successful software development business. In the business, she worked as an IT professional in a variety of senior positions including project manager, database designer, administrator and business analyst. Recently she has been exploring a wide range of technology-related tools and processes to improve delivery methods and enhance learning for her students."}],"subjects":[{"id":3,"name":"Computer Science","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"QA76","visible_textbooks_count":137,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/computer-science-information-systems?locale=es"},{"id":61,"name":"Databases","parent_subject_id":3,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":6,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/databases?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":265,"url":"https://opentextbc.ca/dbdesign01/","year":null,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:38.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:38.000-05:00","name":"BCcampus"}],"formats":[{"id":523,"type":"PDF","url":"https://opentextbc.ca/dbdesign01/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":524,"type":"Online","url":"https://opentextbc.ca/dbdesign01/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":1631,"type":"eBook","url":"https://opentextbc.ca/dbdesign01/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4","textbook_reviews_count":15,"reviews":[{"id":1414,"first_name":"Krishnendu","last_name":"Ghosh","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Miami University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book is a thorough and covers the topics that is expected to be covered in a database design course. The topics are well organized. I was expecting material on NoSQL to be included and other recent updates in databases","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The material in the book was accurate.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The book covers the material required in database design well and will be relevant in future. The recent advances in the database design should be incorporated.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is clear and concise.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book is consistent in terms of terminology and organization of the concepts in every chapter.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The chapters in the book provide modularity. The instructor can select the topics accordingly.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The organization and structure is broad and comprehensive. I would hope there could have been more worked out examples.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The interface is great.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I did not find any errors in grammar","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I did not find any culturally insensitive or offensive material.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"This book is an ideal textbook for database design. The organization of the book helps in the understanding of the material at a low gradient. I hope the authors add more worked out examples.","created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1495,"first_name":"mary","last_name":"gable","position":"instructor","institution_name":"tidewater community college","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book covers all necessary areas and topics, but I did not see an overall index. I like the idea of having key terms at the end of each section.  It was a great book for database design and as an extra bonus, SQL was covered in greater detail than most texts on the subject.  It is complete with section review, exercises, and solutions.  Table of contents is complete, organized, and the topics are presented in the appropriate order.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Topics are described accurately and content is free of errors.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The topic here is traditional theory which does not change quickly as typical IT topics do.  All content is relevant and up-to-date examples are used.  Any updates should be easily implemented, but very few would be expected.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book was very clear and topics were explained thoroughly.  The terminology used was easy to understand.  Key terms for each section were conveniently located at the end of each section which explained the important terms.  This could easily be used as a section review.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text, terminology, and terms are consistent throughout all sections of the book.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The book was consistent with all the typical modules and sections with key terms, questions, and lab exercises which reinforced concepts covered in each section.  It is well-organized and reading flowed easily.  Terms were presented in the appropriate order and the text was not verbose.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Topics are presented in a logical fashion.  This organization is typical of all other database design courses I have seen.","interface_rating":2,"interface_review":"Many of the images are blurry and difficult to see.  I had to zoom very large and they were still sometimes very hard to read.  Navigation was typical of PDF documents and easy to move around and navigate throughout the document.","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"I found a few grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text is not insensitive or offensive.  Examples are typical business examples which are relevant and current.  Example database designs are very simple to comprehend so that emphasis is placed on learning the concepts.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I think this book would make an excellent textbook for a relational database design course.  It is complete with exercises and section reviews.  The exercises are very beneficial and solutions to examples and labs are included with the text which is very important to the student.  It would also be good to use for a SQL review.","created_at":"2017-08-15T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-08-15T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1608,"first_name":"Sally","last_name":"Hamouda","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Rhode Island College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The texts covers all the topics required for an introduction to data base management course.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The book is accurate and follows the conventions used in other popular references in the data base management system field.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The book is very relevant to the content covered in an introductory database management system courses.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The book text clear. The figures resolution is not excellent but readable. The naming of the attributes for some relations in the relational model chapter is not very descriptive in some cases. The exercises are limited in some chapters.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The naming of the attributes for some relations in the relational model chapter is not very descriptive in some cases. The exercises are limited in some chapters.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is easy to read and easy to divide in smaller sections that can be assigned within the course.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The flow of the book is very good and follows the state of the art for other very well know references in the same field.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The only thing to mention is the resolution of the figures that need to be enhanced.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I didn't see any grammatical mistakes.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive in any way. ","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"The book is very useful for introductory database management courses.","created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":1684,"first_name":"Adam","last_name":"Lee","position":"Fellow","institution_name":"University of Maryland","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book contains the Table of Contents and lists Key Terms for every Chapter. However, it will be better to include Index with corresponding page numbers and/or hyperlinks.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Content is accurate with many examples.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"Better to add some more brief introduction on non-traditional databases and maybe some compact comparison table as well.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"The figures and the tables are clear. Some itemized list may extend with longer explanations.\nChapter 3 may be improved by putting some sections as sub-sections under other sections.\nChapter 4 may explain the Physical Data Models as well.\nOn relational model, the Primary Keys should be highlighted, e.g. bolded.","consistency_rating":3,"consistency_review":"The whole book should be standardized with one ERD format. The early chapter uses the Chen's notation. The key chapter uses and explains the Crow's Feet notation. The appendix uses the UML.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The content includes all key components and topics about traditional database management systems.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"Chapters 8, 9 and 10 may be re-arranged in sequence.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The pages are all good.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The grammar reads well.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The content reads neutral on cultural relevance.","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":"Maybe CREATE VIEW and DROP VIEW can be added.","created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":1708,"first_name":"Benjamin","last_name":"Branch","position":"Professor-LSIS","institution_name":"North Carolina Central University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"It give a sound history and need for database without picking one other the other. It also comes in several formats from pdf to Kindle and etc. It provide a clear and unbiased history of data effort and societal engagement with data.\nIt give a good scope of data base design. It does not include any open source database topics like Hadoop or MongoDB or their influx on the database market, learning or industry.\n\nSuch would have to be supplemented materials.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"It accuracy is very good and it admits is covers most topics in databases.It's a great intro to databases book.\n","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"For a free book it is awesome. Even though cloud databases have existed since 1996, their use is now only becoming mainstream, but the basics of databases remains in tact.It does not include GIS or apps as extensions of databases in 2017.\n\nFor intro to database awesome, but not for an advanced databases course.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"it has the properly communication for a novice database person getting into the field.\nThe book give a great introduction to database and is clear throughout.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The book is written in a consistent manner and attempts not to lose the learner.\nThe book uses some mathematical formula and needs more.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The book is broken down well into many chapters and digestible chunks of thought that are easily builds upon previous learning.\nthe various chapters do a great job breaking down the database knowledge.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"the book is very well organized and thought out. \nIt give good examples for student to build up with homework to test their perceptions.\nThe book sets up the learning of material and give a learner an opportunity to apply it in homework. Also, vocabulary is used to add to the database literacy of the student.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"it was simple to use for an introductory course. Now real world experience would still need to be done in a hands-on manner.\nIt gave examples and key terms to support more learning for another course.\nAll graphics and layout were done very nicely for the online and pdf versions.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The grammar use was excellent.\nIt made clear objectives and outcomes for learning.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"not really applicable","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"A 3rd edition would be welcomed!!!","created_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-02-01T18:00:00.000-06:00"},{"id":2407,"first_name":"Morgan","last_name":"Benton","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"JMU","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"While the book at least mentions all of the key terms, it is not clear that these concepts are covered in sufficient depth to really serve as a practical guide for new practitioners. More explanation follows.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"I didn't spot any glaring inaccuracies in the book. However, because it was so short, I worry that there was not enough context provided or depth of explanation so that beginners in this field would be able to follow it with any degree of confidence. I think this book would require HEAVY additional guidance from an instructor. The pace of development is so fast these days, students need to be as self-sufficient in their learning as possible, and I'm not sure that is practical with this text.","relevance_rating":3,"relevance_review":"It is not clear that the authors have spent much time doing database development in the last ten years. Their suggested development methodology based on the waterfall model is all but obsolete. Over time, it has proven to be both inflexible and a bottleneck that delays the efforts of other developers working on a project. Their coverage in some chapters is oddly platform-specific. For example, the data types they introduce in detail in chapter 15 (SQL Structured Query Language) do not apply to all (or perhaps even most) DBMS, and the differences between DBMS implementations are likely to cause major difficulties if students were to try to apply these concepts in a context where they don't apply. SQLite, for example, only has about 3-4 native data types and it is one of the most commonly used environments these days due to its small size, portability, and the fact that it is built-in to browsers and mobile devices.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"As explained above in the \"Accuracy\" section, I worry that the explanations of key concepts were too short, not well organized, and therefore are likely to be unclear to beginners in this field.","consistency_rating":3,"consistency_review":"Most of the time the book stays at a very high level, but on occasion, and without warning it jumps into great depth. For example, chapter 11 (functional dependencies) takes a sudden and deep dive into the subject of set theory and related axioms. This is not consistent in tone or apparent level of understanding of the reader. This would be quite jarring from the perspective of a student.","modularity_rating":3,"modularity_review":"Although the chapter titles suggest modularity, I didn't feel there was a great deal of discipline in terms of where content was placed. For example, chapter 8 (The Entity Relationship Data Model) appears to be essentially the same as chapter 10 (ER Modeling). I think students being introduced to the concepts here would be very confused by this.","organization_rating":3,"organization_review":"I found the organization somewhat confusing. For example, both chapters 10 and 11 begin by introducing the concept of functional dependency. I would have expected the concept to be fully defined and explained in one chapter or the other, not both, or at the very least make it clear that the concept is broken up into multiple chapters. Some topics seemed to appear out of the blue in the middle of some chapters without warning. Chapters were inconsistent in terms of their length and the depth and care with which they treated a subject. For example, chapter 14 (Database Users) was extremely short, and could have been covered (perhaps was?) in a much earlier chapter like chapter 2 (Fundamental Concepts).","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"In general, navigating through the book was straightforward. However, many of the images were very small and of poor resolution. Furthermore, if you click on many of the images they are linked to different, unrelated images rather than larger, clearer versions of the same image.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I found only minor problems with grammar or diction.","cultural_rating":2,"cultural_review":"This book is not offensive, at all. However, it utterly fails to address the cultural contexts of data within organizations and society. Beginners to database design frequently fail to understand the impact that database structure can have on the structure and function of an organization. Sometimes organizations find themselves having to adapt to their data structures rather than the other way around. A good modern example is the concept of gender. It is now generally recognized that gender is a non-binary facet of identity. An otherwise well-meaning developer who reduced gender to \"male/female\" may cause unintended harm to the people whose data is being stored in a database. The traditional failure of the software community to consider, let alone address, issues like this is replete through the industry. Discussions of the ethical and sociocultural ramifications of data are completely absent from this text.","overall_rating":6,"overall_review":"While technically fairly accurate, this book falls short in some important dimensions of relevance and cultural sensitivity. I think the treatment of the subjects is uneven, redundant in some places, very high level in others, and of more depth than necessary in yet others. I would not feel comfortable using this book to teach introductory students.","created_at":"2018-11-26T00:40:53.000-06:00","updated_at":"2018-11-26T00:40:53.000-06:00"},{"id":2644,"first_name":"Carolyn","last_name":"LaMacchia","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"Content walks through the various pieces to build understanding. All components are there for relational database design.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Contents are accurate and presented without bias.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The content is up to date. Suggestion - the text focus is on designing for operational data. Add a chapter to describe data warehousing and data storage with large volume of data.  I am very impressed with the presentation of the concepts. I like that all of the examples of the concepts. I like the assignments and keywords too.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"Each concept includes an illustration. I really like this.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Yes, consistent","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Yes - For example some chapters can be eliminate - like describing normal form","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Data modeling is presented in the appropriate sequence. Each section is either independent on includes information presented in an earlier section","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"Its' a typical pdf. The copy I have does not include and internal navigation.","grammatical_rating":1,"grammatical_review":"Did not detect errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text is NOT culturally insensitive. I believe I picked the correct response of 5.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I really liked this text. I plan on incorporating it into one of my classes. I will have to supplement a bit to discuss data design for analysis that is fed from a operational database. But, that just is the nature of the course that I teach. I appreciate the effort that went into this book. I sincerely thank the authors for sharing. ","created_at":"2019-03-09T07:29:40.000-06:00","updated_at":"2019-03-09T07:29:40.000-06:00"},{"id":3220,"first_name":"Thyago","last_name":"Mota","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Metropolitan State University of Denver","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book does not cover relational algebra, which provides an important foundation for relational model mechanisms. From my personal experience teaching databases, discussing relational algebra makes it easier for students to later grasp SQL joins.  Other topics that I would have liked to have seen covered by this book are triggers, stored procedures, indexes, SQL DCL, security, database programming, and NoSQL. ","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The book is error-free but some exercises are Microsoft biased (e.g., the first exercise at the end of Chapter 16 requires students to download an MSI file). This problem can be easily modified by providing an .sql source file with the database schema for the exercise. ","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The book should have a chapter on NoSQL to make it more up-to-date with current trends in databases. ","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"Sometimes the book feels a bit \"too dry\" and this might negatively impact a student's motivation when reading it.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book's terminology is consistent with the one used in database systems.  ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"I felt that the text was written in such a way that could be easily broken out and adapted to the course that I teach.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"Chapter 14 (Database Users) does not have enough content to justify having it as a stand alone chapter. I suggest merging it with another chapter, perhaps with Chapter 13 that talks about software engineering in the context of database systems. ","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"Most images that I clicked (to make them bigger) redirected me to an entirely different picture. ","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"While English is not my first language, I felt the text was grammatically correct.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I didn't find the text to be culturally insensitive or non-inclusive.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I think the authors did a decent job. The text is clear and covers a fair amount of most of the topics commonly listed in introductory database systems courses in CS.  I hope the authors continue to add more content, improvements and updates. I will recommend this book to both my colleagues and students and can't wait for the next edition. ","created_at":"2019-10-25T22:25:23.000-05:00","updated_at":"2019-10-25T22:25:23.000-05:00"},{"id":4128,"first_name":"Amit","last_name":"Deokar","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"University of Massachusetts Lowell","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This book is quite comprehensive in its coverage of key topic areas expected to be covered in an introductory database course at the undergraduate (bachelor's degree) level. The authors should also consider including an introduction to star schema and snowflake schema topics in order to introduce datamarts and data warehouses in a separate chapter. Also, another chapter devoted to recent kinds of databases such as various types of NoSQL databases and similarities and differences of these databases (particularly from design and implementation viewpoints) as compared to relational databases would be useful to cover in an introductory database management course. Last, but not least, the authors should consider using an open-source database such as MySQL for demonstration of SQL concepts rather than MS Access (which is a proprietary and a desktop database software).","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The technical content in the book is quite accurate. Given that the book is meant for an introductory audience, some of the nuances of database design are not covered (which was expected).","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The core concepts in the book will be very relevant for the next several years. However, as pointed out in the comprehensiveness section, the addition of newer topics and the use of open-source software such as MySQL will make the book more relevant for students looking to immediately apply this knowledge in practice in their jobs/internships and so forth.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"Clarity and simplicity are perhaps the key strengths of this book. I like the simple explanations and examples provided by the authors that can help students quickly grasp the gist of the concepts in an intuitive manner.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The overall flow of the book and the writing style is fairly consistent. Students who understand the earlier chapters should be able to continue with the later chapters without much difficulty.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The book itself is quite modular, which is great. However, the nature of the topic area is such that understanding fundamental concepts discussed in earlier chapters is necessary for grasping the concepts discussed in later chapters. This dependency is unavoidable and authors have done a good job in making the book chapters as modular as possible.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"This 2nd edition of the book contains 16 chapters. While the book flows very well overall, I believe it would help the adoption of this book for a course, if the book were structured into 12 or 13 chapters (including a couple of new chapters suggested on data warehousing and NoSQL). This will help course instructors to easily use specific chapters of the book for each week. Alternatively, the authors can suggest different pathways for adoption for instructors teaching different lengths of courses (e.g., 6 weeks, 10 weeks, 14 weeks).","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"There were no major interface issues encountered while using this book. Figures and charts were blurry in some places and the distortion in size made it somewhat difficult to read those portions without interruption.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The book is well-written with no obvious grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The examples in the book are general and diverse and to my knowledge should not be offensive to any community.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"To assist instructors in teaching a course who want to adopt this book, I would request adding extensive exercises (along with an instructor's solution manual) and test bank to accompany the book. Ideally, if these materials can be easily integrated into standard course management systems, it would ease the book adoption process.","created_at":"2020-06-29T11:43:24.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-06-29T11:43:24.000-05:00"},{"id":4719,"first_name":"David","last_name":"Barbella","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Earlham College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This is very much a Database Design text, not a Database Implementation text, and in those grounds is reasonably comprehensive. The text covers much of the terminology I would want students to become familiar with, as well as the major concepts required for understanding database systems in the abstract. The text is on the shorter side, so some concepts are covered only briefly, or not at all. (For example, transactions and isolation levels are not covered.) There is also relatively little coverage of subqueries or more complex queries in general.\r\nThe text is not really a guide to implementation or use, and is focused mostly on design. SQL is covered only briefly, and alternatives to SQL not at all. A course covering that material in depth would want to supplement this text.\r\nThe text is very short - just 126 pages, plus the Appendices. (For comparison, several of the most widely-used traditional textbooks are 500 or more pages.) This brevity has some advantages, but it necessarily means that the coverage of many topics is brief, high-level, and sometimes includes only minimal context.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"I did not notice any real errors in the text, although in some places the text gives definitions or descriptions that, while technically correct, may not be particularly useful to an introductory student due to lack of context. The text also has an issue that almost any general explanation of SQL has, which is that SQL implementations vary so much that it's hard to make general statements about the language. The text handles this issue as well as any, however, and doesn't delve into most of the areas where implementations differ the most.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The text generally sticks to timeless design principles, so little about the text comes off as dated. There's a few minor things - for example, the Waterfall method is of important historical interest as one of the earliest attempts to formalize the process of software design, but is no longer considered to be best practice by most people. (Although some methods that are still in use use the method as a foundation.) However, on the whole, I would expect the text to remain largely evergreen.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"The text is generally written in a very accessible way - it feels like it was written for humans. One of the text's weaknesses, however, is that it in many places reads like an extended glossary, providing definitions of relevant terms but often very little context for why a beginner to databases should care about those things. Examples are often a bit sparse or under-explained. The middle section of the text is strongest, includes the best and clearest examples, and does the most to connect those examples to the text. \r\nThe focus on definitions extends to the end-of-chapter exercises, which for much of the text consist heavily of definitions problems, although some later chapters include more application. The approach to exercises varies from chapter to chapter; many chapters include only a single, straightforward application problem, while a few others dig a little deeper.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"While not inconsistent per se, the text introduces a fair amount of terminology and notation that it then does not continue to make use of.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Database Design isn’t necessarily a topic that lends itself especially well to modularity, especially when it comes to the basics, as many concepts build directly on top of each other in ways that make following a certain basic structure sort of unavoidable. That said, to whatever degree modularity is possible within that structure, the text does a fine job achieving it.\r\nThe decision to not use just one or just a few running examples throughout the text is both a strength and a weakness. It means that individual chapters can more easily be skipped or rearranged, but also means that readers need to internalize new examples as they’re used.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"There’s a little bit of redundancy; a few concepts are introduced more than once. On the whole, though, the text generally presents things in as sensible an order as is possible. \r\nSQL is introduced fairly late in the text - in chapter 15 of 16. Most of the basic functionality is covered, but in a very cursory way, and with examples that aren’t contextualized or explained. I’m not sure if a student who is not already comfortable with joins, for example, will get anything out of the section describing them. Even in a course that was focused only minimally on implementation, I would move that material much earlier.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"At least in the .pdf version, some of the images are a bit difficult to read, although almost all can be read if you zoom in. For the most part, the visuals are clear and clean, and the book's formatting is consistent.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I noticed no serious grammatical issues.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"The examples used the text are mostly fairly typical, in the business-world and course-management domains. \r\nOne list of books used in an example does include a novel called “Incubus Dreams,” which is not something I would have included. Name lists don’t suggest a ton of ethnic diversity. Text avoids using gender as an example of a binary field, which is nice.\r\nThere's no section of the text that specifically touches on ethics or that connects database design to a larger context. That isn't something I'd necessary expect that such a text would definitely have, however.","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2021-03-29T17:29:58.000-05:00","updated_at":"2021-03-29T17:29:58.000-05:00"},{"id":34922,"first_name":"Simon","last_name":"Jin","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"Metropolitan State University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"Considering this is a textbook for introductory class for Database Management/Design, this book well covered most of the necessary basics required for new learners who may not have any prior experience / knowledge. In most cases, however, little bit more information would be appreciated by the beginner readers: the current length seems to be not sufficient to cover in-depth insight for the concepts.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"In general, the textbook is accurate and unbiased.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"This textbook is certainly relevant. Due to the fast evolving nature of the content (i.e., fast evolving nature of IS world), updates will be required. For example, introduction to  NoSQL along with comparison between traditional relational database and NoSQL database.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"Text is clear and easy to follow. However, figures may need to be revised. The resolution of included figures is not high enough to be clearly displayed. Furthermore, when clicked, image with same resolution or even the wrong image was displayed which couldn't address the issue of pdf version.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"No inconsistency issues found in the textbook. The terminology used were consistent and relevant to the subject matter.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Due to the comprehensiveness \u0026 modularity of each chapter, each chapter can be used as a single source of class material independently or minimum reference to other chapters.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"Organization/structure/flow of this textbook is good. With consistent structure of chapter (i.e., Content, Key Terms, and Exercise), it is easy to follow. It would be better to have learning objectives for each chapter, though.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"No navigation issues found. Adding glossary and index, however, would help readers locate important concepts more easily.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No grammatical issues found.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"No culturally offensive issues found.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"In sum, this textbook is a good resource for new learners in the topic of Database design/management. 3rd edition with more contents and updates would be appreciated.","created_at":"2024-03-06T17:56:39.000-06:00","updated_at":"2024-03-06T17:56:39.000-06:00"},{"id":34958,"first_name":"Karen","last_name":"Scott","position":"Senior Lecturer","institution_name":"University of Texas at Arlington","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book is relatively short compared to most database texts, even those of an introductory nature, but it's still fairly comprehensive.  It includes all the major topics necessary to understand the standard database concepts like data modeling, design, and basic SQL; as well as some introductory implementation topics.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The majority of the book is accurate, error-free, and unbiased. However, there are some statements and examples related to normalization that are not quite on the mark.  For example, the section on normalization and how to progress through the different forms/stages is not exactly correct. Specifically, the book gives an incomplete definition of normalization, and the example of 1NF shows the wrong primary key. In addition, the figures in the book link to other unrelated figures when you click them to get a closer look.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The text focuses mainly on relational database concepts that are still up-to-date and very relevant in today's environment.  However, the book would be more comprehensive if it included more information about transaction management and concurrency control, which is fundamental in an operational database, but there is only cursory mention of these topics.  In addition, the text would be more current if it included topics such as cloud-based databases and big data/NoSQL.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is written in a way that is very easy to understand. It starts by providing information about the background and evolution of databases with clear explanations of the basic concepts, then progresses into modeling/design theories, normalization, and finally SQL. It's a very clear progression of topics, which makes it easy for a novice to learn and comprehend.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The author is consistent with regard to terminology and framework, which makes it easy to follow along from chapter to chapter. This is especially helpful for those just starting out with databases, which is the audience to whom this book seems to be geared.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The author does a good job of breaking down the chapters into smaller sections, each clearly identified with proper headings. The order of topics is appropriate and easy to follow. This is of great benefit to instructors and students alike when teaching an introductory database course.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book is organized with a clear and well-defined structure, and the flow from topic-to-topic and chapter-to-chapter is appropriate. Students should find it easy to learn and comprehend the topics, as they are presented in a very easy-to-follow manner.","interface_rating":3,"interface_review":"There is room for improvement with the digital interface of the book. Some of the images are low-resolution and become grainy when viewed on a larger screen, and as mentioned previously, some of the figures are not properly linked.  When clicking several images, there are different, unrelated images that open in their place. This makes it somewhat frustrating when trying to get a closer look.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I only found a couple of very minor punctuation errors with no grammatical errors to speak of.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"There is no offensive or culturally-insensitive content. The nature of the topic, database design, is somewhat cultural-neutral with very little opportunity for cultural insensitivity, although some texts do include examples that some might find insensitive or non-inclusive with regard to gender-related data.  However, I didn't see anything like that in this text.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I feel this text provides a good introduction to database design.  It's easy to read and understand, covers the baseics,  and follows a logical progression which is needed for someone just starting out.","created_at":"2024-03-26T10:58:37.000-05:00","updated_at":"2024-03-26T10:58:37.000-05:00"},{"id":35030,"first_name":"David","last_name":"Cartwright","position":"Associate Professor","institution_name":"Marshall University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This book teaches the topics found in most books about relational databases. It does not give an up-to-date view of other database types.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"I detected no biases while reading this book, and I found the information to be accurate.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The topic is relevant, but the material is dated","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is concise, teaching the students what they need to know in a \"non-bloated\" manner, which is refreshing.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"The book is consistent, except for its use of diagrams. Crow's foot diagrams to depict relationships throughout would be best.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The book has high modularity.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"It flows well.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"It has a functional interface.","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"I didn't see any glaring grammar errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"There are no obvious cultural misunderstandings in this text.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"First, this book teaches the fundamentals of relational database modeling well, even in its dated form. To use this text, I would include crow's foot notation for all examples and remove references to outdated database code.  I would also include more problems, especially in chapters 7-12, when students need to work through understanding how to create useful relationship models. Finally, the treatment of other types of database models should be included for completeness. I will use this book with updates in an upcoming class.","created_at":"2024-05-07T09:24:36.000-05:00","updated_at":"2024-05-07T09:24:36.000-05:00"},{"id":35478,"first_name":"Shobha","last_name":"Vatsa","position":"Lecturer","institution_name":"Old Dominion University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This book contains all the required information at an introductory level. It is good for people who want to get themselves familiar with DataBase concepts and terminologies.\nThe process of normalization should be illustrated in more depth to help in developing a better understanding of normalization.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The contents are accurately mentioned in this book.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The book contains all the relevant content required to develop basic learning in database systems.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"This book has clear text to make anyone understand the concepts.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book is consistent.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"Yes, the texts in this book are easily divisible into headings and subheadings.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book has been structured very well and organized.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"It is very easy to navigate between the chapters.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":3,"cultural_review":"The texts are not culturally intensive.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I found that this textbook provides a good introduction to database design for people with limited knowledge of databases. It's easy to read and understand the basics, and it gives all the necessary information in a simple and clear way, which is needed for anyone who is new to data management concepts. This textbook is good for anyone who wants to have a basic understanding of databases.","created_at":"2025-05-13T19:16:11.000-05:00","updated_at":"2025-05-13T19:16:11.000-05:00"},{"id":35668,"first_name":"Stefano","last_name":"Colafranceschi","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"James Madison University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text demonstrates excellent comprehensiveness across database design fundamentals. It systematically covers Foundational concepts: Database properties, DBMS architecture, data models Core design principles: ER modeling, normalization theory, functional dependencies, Practical implementation (SQL DDL etc) and Process methodology.  Extensive examples also nice","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content demonstrates strong technical accuracy: Definitions are precise and examples are correct.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"very relevant although some MS Access screenshots seem from earlier versions, some data types and syntax specifics reflect not the lastest standards. NoSQL databases, cloud databases, or modern distributed systems not much mentioned","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text excels in clear, accessible presentation, examples are sound, diagrams, syntax explanation and annotation help","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The format is very consistent,  chapter structure organized and effective","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Very much, self-contained chapters are nice for a sort of flexible sequencing","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The progression of the chapters is logically organized for an effectively supports learning","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"All good, some figures/screenshots could be higher resolution","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The writing is professionally edited with no grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"Examples are intentionally neutral (Database scenarios like employees, books, hotels) and universally applicable","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"This is a high-quality database design textbook!","created_at":"2025-11-11T08:25:40.000-06:00","updated_at":"2025-11-11T08:25:40.000-06:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/database-design-2nd-edition?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-04T02:07:43.000-05:00"},{"id":442,"title":"Relational Databases and Microsoft Access 365","edition_statement":"Version 4.0","volume":null,"copyright_year":2021,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":null,"license":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":"","accessibility_features":"","description":"This text is a free introductory text that introduces MS Access and relational database design. The motivation is to support an introductory database system course which, to the student, is either a service course providing an introduction to database concepts, or, as a prerequisite for more advanced study in the field.","contributors":[{"id":4145,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Ron","middle_name":null,"last_name":"McFadyen","location":"University of Winnipeg","background_text":"Ron McFadyen is a Professor in the Computer Science department at University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB."}],"subjects":[{"id":3,"name":"Computer Science","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"QA76","visible_textbooks_count":137,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/computer-science-information-systems?locale=es"},{"id":61,"name":"Databases","parent_subject_id":3,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":6,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/databases?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":358,"url":"https://www.acs.uwinnipeg.ca/rmcfadyen/CreativeCommons/","year":null,"created_at":"2018-09-07T12:22:39.000-05:00","updated_at":"2021-01-15T22:57:30.000-06:00","name":"Ron McFadyen"}],"formats":[{"id":609,"type":"PDF","url":"https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/relationaldatabasesandmicrosoftaccess365/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":4162,"type":"eBook","url":"https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/relationaldatabasesandmicrosoftaccess365/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":4163,"type":"Online","url":"https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/relationaldatabasesandmicrosoftaccess365/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":8,"reviews":[{"id":1243,"first_name":"Owen","last_name":"Morgan","position":"Faculty Instructor","institution_name":"Lane Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"Relational Databases and Microsoft Access provides a fairly comprehensive introduction to both relational database principles and using Microsoft Access to build and use these databases.  When reviewing this textbook I was delighted to see that the author chose to focus considerable effort on explaining  database design principles in an easy to understand manner.  The authors choice to begin the textbook by discussing related data in terms of verbalization's has helped me in introduce my beginning students to relational principles quicker than the current textbook I use.\n\nThe Microsoft Access portion of the textbook is not a comprehensive as other comparable textbooks as it lacks discussion of Reports and Macros.  These issues aside, the textbook goes into ample detail on Tables, Queries and Forms, using examples and hands-on activities in an easy to follow and understand manner.\n\nWhile the textbook includes lab activities and exercises, additional material would need to be created to use this text in a classroom setting.\n\nOverall, I would recommend this book as a good introduction to relational database theory by using Microsoft Access as the database tool.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"I found no issues with the accuracy the material presented in the textbook.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"This textbook is written to ensure that it will maintain its relevance as long as Microsoft Access is still in use.  The textbook does not rely upon any specific version of Access in its examples and exercises.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The clarity of the book is refreshingly clear.  The complex topics of relationships, normalization, and other design concepts are written in simple language and presented in a way that most students will not have difficulty understanding","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"I found no issues with the textbook in terms of consistency.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"The modularity of the textbook chapters and sub-section is adequate to serve as learning segments of a course.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The organization and flow of the textbook is done is a straightforward and correct manner to properly teach access principles.  The one area I might have changed would be to include greater discussion of the database design principles within the Access Chapters rather than have moved it to the rear of the textbook within its own section - but this is a person preference.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I found no issues with the interface of the textbook.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I found no issues with the grammar in the textbook.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I found no issues with the cultural relevance of the textbook.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":1329,"first_name":"Gregory","last_name":"Turcotte","position":"Instructor","institution_name":"Portland Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"I was very pleased to find an Access book that covers Entity Relationship Modeling and Normalization.  Having an Access book that includes database theory, such as the Boyce-Codd Normal Form, is very useful to me.  In this area, the book is very comprehensive.\n\nHowever, its treatment of topics typically covered in an early Access class may not be sufficient for it to be used as the primary book in a course.  The introduction of core concepts start out strong. Chapter 2 provides an adequate introduction to table design, and it goes into a good level of detail.  However, this pattern does not continue, as the next chapters jump directly into the details of query and form design. What's there is good, but more information as to how each object is used would be helpful.  Finally, using Access to create reports is omitted entirely.  This is unfortunate, as having a built-in reporting tool is something that makes Access unique in the world of database software.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Content is accurate, error-free and unbiased.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The fundamentals of relational-database design has changed little since the late 70's.  The book acknowledges this, and uses these fundamentals as its foundation.  It is likely to age well.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"Providing additional context for the use of queries and forms would help to with the technical nature of these topics.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book made consistent use of database terminology.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"This book appears to have been compiled so that it can be easily divided into modules.  For example, I plan to make use of the last for chapters of this book for their coverage of modeling and normalization.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The order each topic presented is logical.  Additional introductory prose providing context would smooth the transition between each topic in the first half of the book.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The text is easy to navigate.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No grammatical errors were noted.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"Nothing was noted as offensive in the examples provided within the book.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"Thank you for writing an Access book that incorporate relational database theory!","created_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2017-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":2159,"first_name":"Marcus","last_name":"Lacher","position":"Instructor","institution_name":"Minnesota State Community and Technical College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text does a solid job of providing a comprehensive explanation of basic relational database theory and Microsoft Access functionality, specifically regarding table structure. The breadth of detail on forms and queries is not as extensive as the chapter on tables, but it is good. As a resource for an Introduction to Microsoft Office applications, this text provides more than enough detail of tables, forms and queries to meet my objectives. While I did not notice any content on Access reports, this omission does not diminish the adequacy of this text for a basic computer applications course. In fact, I will likely only utilize half of this text to supplement my other Microsoft Office resources.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Did not notice any errors in the text's material or grammar. Not even any Canadian lingo -  which was a minor disappointment. :)","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"For the most part, the text is software-version-neutral. The examples and illustrations do not appear to be specific to any version of Microsoft Office, which will allow it to be relative for longer than the typical software text.","clarity_rating":3,"clarity_review":"The prose is consistent and easy to follow. However, while the chapter on tables is very detailed, the content on forms lacks clarity and needs additional examples. The Exercises are weak, and not extensive. Students would benefit from more hands-on examples. with accompanying illustrations.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Author does a fine job of presenting the material in a consistent manner. The framework from chapter to chapter is true.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is divided into appropriate chapters. I plan to use about 80 of the 221 pages for my course, primarily from the first six chapters.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The text's organization is on-point. I appreciated the early discussion of database theory followed by coverage of tables, forms, and then queries. This is the appropriate structure for creating and learning about databases. An over-arching exercise that tied these three objects together would bring even more flow to this structure.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"There were no issues regarding navigation of the text or it's images.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The grammar was spotless, and the author had no need to apologize for any grammatical errors. The author was wise to avoid any exercises utilizing terms like color or check.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I found no issues regarding cultural insensitivity.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2018-06-19T19:00:00.000-05:00","updated_at":"2018-06-19T19:00:00.000-05:00"},{"id":2625,"first_name":"Leigh","last_name":"Mutchler","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"James Madison University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book is a good introductory database text that covers database design and includes some Access basics.  A good table of contents is included but no glossary.  There are a few references to external sources, primarily classic works in the database field.  Creation and manipulation of Access tables, queries, and forms are introduced, but reports are not even mentioned.  Six small example database files are included at the textbook Website which could be used as-is with this book or expanded for more hands-on activities with Access. Numerous examples and exercises are provided throughout the book that again could be used as-is or used as the foundation for additional activities.  There are no PowerPoint slides sets but they aren’t necessarily required for this type of text.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The book had no obvious errors or biases. ","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"The coverage on database design is very good and so obsolescence is not an issue.  The Access content is up-to-date for Access 2013-2016, but now that 2019 has been released, the book will likely need to be updated. ","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The book is well-written and easy to understand.  Numerous figures and screen shots are included.  ","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The book’s use of terminology and structure is consistent throughout. ","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text starts with Access content and finishes with database design.  The book includes exercises throughout the text that make it easy to assign smaller reading sections.  It is written in such a way that it should be easy to cover the database design first and Access last if preferred. ","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The organization, structure, and flow of the book is good. The only issue found was the discussion of the MyUniversity database on p. 30 which the book states is found at the book Website but it is not – it will need to be newly created.  There are a couple other places where the instructions switch from one database to another without clearly stating it is doing that, but the example databases are different enough that is isn’t difficult to reason through which database is being discussed.  ","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"No interface issues were noticed.  The book is formatted nicely and looks very professional.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No grammar issues were apparent. The book is well-written.  ","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"No issues were apparent. The database examples were typical of those found in a database course.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"\r\nThis book may not meet the needs of everyone but should have some content that most everyone can use.  It covers database design more deeply than I would have expected for an introductory text.  Its overall Access coverage was very basic yet I was surprised in a couple places where in-depth query techniques were discussed.  For those wishing to have students complete a full Access project, adopters of this text will need to create that content.  It is possible that one or more of the Access example databases could be the foundation of a project but a good bit of time will need to be spent to expand them.  \r\n","created_at":"2019-03-06T09:36:41.000-06:00","updated_at":"2019-03-06T09:36:41.000-06:00"},{"id":3354,"first_name":"David ","last_name":"Owens","position":"Instructor (Non-Tenure)","institution_name":"Colorado State University","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"Good basic introduction to relational database design concepts using MS Access examples, but it did not include a comprehensive discussion with current examples/references for some of the Table of Contents topics. It could be improved by including additional descriptions/references for some database design topics, such as normalization (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/283878/description-of-the-database-normalization-basics), and more current examples (or references) from MS Access 2019/Office 365 versions (https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/access/). ","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"Content was accurate, error-free and unbiased.  However, some MS Access examples were not consistent with the version currently used at our university. ","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"Discussion and relevance of the relational database design topics was very good, but the MS Access examples were less relevant, since they were based on MS Access 2013-2016 versions. The book could be improved and require less updates if there were fewer internal MS Access examples and more use of external references, such as Microsoft Product Support (https://support.office.com/en-us/access) for examples.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"Well-written, but it could be improved with more current examples (or references to examples) for MS Access queries, forms and reports. ","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"Consistent structure and terminology throughout the book. ","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"Chapter and sub-section modularity were adequate to allow reorganizing the course topics as required.","organization_rating":3,"organization_review":"Organization was not ideal for the way I would cover the material in my course, but the modularity was adequate to allow reorganizing the topics without causing significant problems for the students.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The text is easy to navigate.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No grammatical errors were noted.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"No culturally offensive examples in the book.","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":"This version does not meet my needs in its current form, but I would consider using it as a supplementary textbook for an introductory CIS courses. While it covered most relational database design topics very well, the MS Access examples were not as good as the references I provided in my feedback.","created_at":"2019-12-06T13:29:59.000-06:00","updated_at":"2019-12-06T13:29:59.000-06:00"},{"id":3938,"first_name":"Catherine","last_name":"Puopolo","position":"Adjunct Faculty","institution_name":"Bunker Hill Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"Comprehensiveness rating: 4 \r\nThe text delivers an in-depth and comprehensive explanation of relational database theory and design. The learning outcomes focus on Microsoft Access skills necessary to create a new database, construct data tables, design forms and create queries. Report objects are not addressed and should be.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Content was presented clearly and accurately.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"There might be a slight variation in the menus depending on the Access version that you’re currently using. Yet, the concepts are virtually the same for Access 2010, 2013 and 2016.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"Author’s language and style are suitable for a second-year course on database systems. Readability factors to include interest, quality of print, sentence complexity, and word choice are good,","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"There is consistency regarding terminology and outline.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"Sequencing of the chapters is appropriate and consistent with the same structure, layout and organization of the content.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"There is consistent format from chapter to chapter. I was impressed with the relevant exercises at completion of each lesson. Good visuals such as tables and figures in the examples. But I would like to see more visuals in exercises.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The information is organized logically and is it well-structured.  Easy to navigate. There should be a glossary, however.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I encountered no problems with the grammar.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"Found no cultural insensitivity.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"The author overall did a splendid job. I would highly recommend this textbook.","created_at":"2020-06-10T12:51:15.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-06-10T12:51:15.000-05:00"},{"id":3976,"first_name":"Rose","last_name":"Ferro","position":"Associate Professor in Computer Information Systems","institution_name":"Bristol Community College","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This text provides a reasonably comprehensive review of relational database principles using Microsoft Access. Given that this textbook was designed for second-level students, with no intended prerequisite, the level of detail that is included to familiarize the students with the MS Access software is well detailed and appropriate. Newly introduced concepts are followed by hands-on examples that reinforce the knowledge being conveyed. Pre-build, introductory databases are available as support material for the exercises (where applicable). The author elaborates on theories and approaches to new concepts in a relatable manner that is easy to follow. Although the text covers Tables, Forms, and Queries, it does not touch upon Reports, which I would have found helpful, even as a brief reference. Upon review, I would recommend this book and would even consider incorporating the introductory chapters into my first-level courses while leaving the advanced chapters to my second-level students.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"Ideally, the text would have been updated to reflect the MS Office 2019 version. Although most of MS Access has remained the similar throughout the multiple upgrades between the 2007 and 2019 versions, there are some differences. For example, some of the Data Types that are outlined and detailed in this text are not relevant in MS Access 2019. I also noticed that the author made multiple references to the \"cursor\", when in fact, it should have been referred to as the \"insertion point\". It is not a critical concern, but something that I make a point to discern when working with my students.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"As previously stated, MS Access ages well and is mostly relevant even though this text was designed with visual aids from the 2007 version. Most, if not all, of the concepts and theories covered within this book are still applicable and would be relevant today. With the idea of remaining relevant, one additional modification that I would recommend for an updated version of this text would be to eliminate the reference to Gender as a Table Field. There are plenty of other, relevant fields that could be substituted in its place.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"I like the approach that the author took in explaining the idea of verbalizing the table data to make it easier for students to understand. I also appreciate that the author included troubleshooting techniques as MS Access specific tasks were being relayed.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The author provided a consistent layout as well as utilized consistent terminology throughout the text.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text can be easily segmented into different concepts as well as by the different MS Access objects (i.e. Tables, Queries, Forms) if necessary. As previously mentioned, the introductory levels could easily be used to familiarize, first-level, students with the MS Access software.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The topics were presented in a logical manner that increased in difficulty with a well explained approach to each new concept.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The images were clear and reasonably abundant.","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"As previously mentioned, I did notice use of the term \"cursor\" when it should have been referred to as the \"insertion point\".","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"Although this is not culture specific, as previously mentioned, I would suggest eliminating the Gender Field from the Employees Table and substitute it with something more appropriate and relevant.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"Overall, I would recommend this text to anyone looking to explore Relational Databases via Microsoft Access.","created_at":"2020-06-11T22:50:19.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-06-11T22:50:19.000-05:00"},{"id":35269,"first_name":"Karen","last_name":"Scott","position":"Senior Lecturer","institution_name":"University of Texas at Arlington","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This author does a good job of covering most of the Access features in a comprehensive manner, but creating Reports--a very important function--is barely mentioned. In addition, since the examples are not from the newest version of Access, some of the newly-added and improved features are not covered. Regarding database modeling, I feel normalization should have been covered in more detail. Normalization and relational data modeling concepts are introduced, but the depth of coverage is somewhat lacking. For example, 1NF through BCNF are discussed, but there is not a lot of information about how to decompose a 1NF table into 2NF and then into 3NF/BCNF. Since normalization is at the heart of creating a proper relational database design, I feel the subject should have been discussed in more detail.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"The book doesn't have any obvious errors or inaccuracies.  Although it would be ideal to update the examples with the newest version of Microsoft Access, the version shown is sufficient. It just doesn't have some of the newer/improved features.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"Although there are newer database models out there, the relational model still remains the most popular model in use today. Therefore, the relational database concepts covered in this book are completely relevant in today's database environment.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"I feel the author's language, grammar, examples, and choice of graphics provide a good level of clarity. However, I feel it would have been better to cover the database modeling/design techniques before exploring the Access DBMS.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The author is very consistent throughout the text with the use of terminology, writing style, and presentation of examples.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The book is divided into manageable chapters and sections which are clearly titled and, for the most part, flow well from one to the next.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The topics are presented in a clear fashion. However, I feel it would be a more logical progression to introduce the reader to the data modeling and design concepts first then move onto coverage of the DBMS (Access).","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The text has a good, consistent interface throughout. The table of contents is detailed and helpful to jump directly to specific topics.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text is well edited and didn't have any noticeable grammar errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text does not include any cultural biases, nor does it contain offensive or insensitive subject matter.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"This book is an easy read and a good introductory database text. I would recommend it for someone interested in learning about the basics of database design and how to create and manage a database using Microsoft Access. However, I would recommend skipping ahead to the data modeling and design sections first then circling back to the Access chapters.","created_at":"2024-10-11T07:33:35.000-05:00","updated_at":"2024-10-11T07:33:35.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/relational-databases-and-microsoft-access?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-04T02:08:03.000-05:00"},{"id":913,"title":"The Discipline of Organizing: 4th Professional Edition","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2013,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":"9780999797013","license":"Attribution-NonCommercial","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"unknown","description":"We organize things, we organize information, we organize information about things, and we organize information about information. But even though “organizing” is a fundamental and ubiquitous challenge, when we compare these activities their contrasts are more apparent than their commonalities. We propose to unify many perspectives about organizing with the concept of an Organizing System, defined as an intentionally arranged collection of resources and the interactions they support. Every Organizing System involves a collection of resources, a choice of properties or principles used to describe and arrange resources, and ways of supporting interactions with resources. By comparing and contrasting how these activities take place in different contexts and domains, we can identify patterns of organizing. We can create a discipline of organizing in a disciplined way. The 4th edition builds a bridge between organizing and data science. It reframes descriptive statistics as organizing techniques, expands the treatment of classification to include computational methods, and incorporates many new examples of data-driven resource selection, organization, maintenance, and personalization. It introduces a new “data science” category of discipline-specific content, both in the chapter text and in endnotes, marked with [DS] in editions that contain endnotes.","contributors":[{"id":5283,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Robert","middle_name":"J.","last_name":"Glushko","location":null,"background_text":"Bob Glushko is an Adjunct Full Professor at the University of California at Berkeley in the Cognitive Science Program, which he joined in 2017 after fifteen years at the School of Information. Before joining the Berkeley faculty in 2002, he had more than twenty years of R\u0026D, consulting, and entrepreneurial experience in information systems and service design, content management, electronic publishing, Internet commerce, and human factors in computing systems. He founded or co-founded four companies, including Veo Systems in 1997, which pioneered the use of XML for electronic business before its 1999 acquisition by Commerce One. Veo's innovations included the Common Business Library (CBL), the first native XML vocabulary for business-to-business transactions, and the Schema for Object-Oriented XML (SOX), the first object-oriented XML schema language. From 1999-2002 he headed Commerce One's XML architecture and technical standards activities and was named an \"Engineering Fellow\" in 2000. In 2008 he co-founded and for several years served as a Director for Document Engineering Services, an international consortium of expert consultants in standards for electronic business. From 2005-2010 he was a member of the Board of Directors for OASIS, an international consortium that drives the development, convergence, and adoption of \"open standards for the global information society,\" and and also served on the Board of Directors for the Open Data Foundation, dedicated to the adoption of global metadata standards for statistical data. He is the President of the Robert J. Glushko and Pamela Samuelson Foundation, which sponsors the annual Rumelhart Prize in Cognitive Science and the Glushko Dissertation Prizes for outstanding Cognitive Science Ph.Ds."}],"subjects":[{"id":3,"name":"Computer Science","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"QA76","visible_textbooks_count":137,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/computer-science-information-systems?locale=es"},{"id":61,"name":"Databases","parent_subject_id":3,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":6,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/databases?locale=es"},{"id":23,"name":"Information Systems","parent_subject_id":3,"call_number":"QA76","visible_textbooks_count":27,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/information-systems?locale=es"},{"id":90,"name":"Library Science and Museum Studies","parent_subject_id":9,"call_number":"Z665-718.8","visible_textbooks_count":25,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/library-science-and-museum-studies?locale=es"},{"id":9,"name":"Social Sciences","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"H1","visible_textbooks_count":285,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/social-sciences?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":892,"url":"https://berkeley.pressbooks.pub/","year":null,"created_at":"2020-09-23T23:27:31.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-09-23T23:27:31.000-05:00","name":"University of California, Berkeley"}],"formats":[{"id":1799,"type":"PDF","url":"https://berkeley.pressbooks.pub/tdo4p/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":1800,"type":"eBook","url":"https://berkeley.pressbooks.pub/tdo4p/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":1801,"type":"Online","url":"https://berkeley.pressbooks.pub/tdo4p/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":3,"reviews":[{"id":4927,"first_name":"Kristine","last_name":"Woods","position":"Instructor","institution_name":"Emporia State University","comprehensiveness_rating":4,"comprehensiveness_review":"This text is comprehensive and the linked footnotes broaden its scope. Due to the reiterative manner the text introduces concepts, perhaps it would be good practice to only assign relevant sections to students for required reading.  Students may find the material kind of dense, so berry pick from the sections and encourage reading the whole thing for those who want more comprehensive coverage. Then they can use the links and key points to access the sections that expand the explanations as in an encyclopedia.","accuracy_rating":4,"accuracy_review":"Content is accurate but sometimes written with an assumed technical background and so is either too \r\nhigh level or too technical for those new to these ideas.  Unfortunately it could be deemed too basic \r\nfor those with technical backgrounds who could benefit from understanding the legacy processes inherent\r\nin memory institution practices which have stood the test of time.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"It is relevant and the interlinkages available throughout connect themes and topics.  Strives to expand the boundaries of the Discipline of Organizing and may seem too Information School for some and too Library Science for others.  For example, a basic explanation of the meaning of bibliographic control is unfortunately glossed over. From a traditional standpoint the abstract definition of resources to be organized, without enough corresponding attention to the more granular aspects of the discipline of organizing, renders it approachable but not foundational.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"Although the Svenonius (2000) quotes provide a good framework, her ability to translate complex and philosophical themes into practical applications for examples is not achieved due to too much use of technical terms without sufficient explanation.  Parts such as the allegory of organizing a kitchen are helpful and useful.  Students may find it dense and conceptual: more theoretical and philosophical than practical and suited to a survey course in information science.  There are numerous real world examples, preferring principles over specific applications or implementation.","consistency_rating":4,"consistency_review":"Style is inconsistent as it a compendium from different contributors without sufficient structure to smooth \r\nit out and fit together. Some topics are covered in-depth and others only in passing, especially tradition \r\naspects of bibliographic and other library centric practices.  This collaborative process used in creating the text is both a strength and weakness.  The scope is broader but the topics lack cohesion. The writing is uneven, with some sections very relatable and others abstruse.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"This e-book version  has a lot of features that are not available in the print edition including the ability to link to and from the author’s notes, expanded illustrations, interactive self-checks of chapter content, case studies to help convey content, and the ability to add bookmarks and your own notes to the text.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The book is entertaining with examples that will likely keep student interest, but may lead to following rabbit trails. Unfortunately classical foundations are obscured by the forward focus and this undermines the stability and structure.  Using other resources portraying more of the historical and traditional grounding would improve and contextualize the concepts and provide a scaffold for appreciating the long roots of the field and prepare for the future of this interdisciplinary field.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"The e-book and online formats make the links more accessible than in the pdf version.\r\nThe tags are color coded with different fields to show connections and themes.\r\nThe companion website (https://www.ischools.org/Discipline-of-Organizing) and case studies (https://www.ischools.org/Discipline-of-Organizing-Case-Studies-Overview/) are helpful","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The book is written with correct language and I did not notice any grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"Seems good for a basic overview of the information science and theory, but does display a somewhat automated digital bias and fails to capture the appreciation for the important role and work of catalogers and metadata specialists in organizing and making resources accessible and doing so following informed judgment and ethical guidelines.  This is essential to honoring the important function of providing access as well as understanding bias and the need to keep a human in the loop to provide oversight and correction.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I have used whole chapters and significant excerpts of the text for several years in an organization of information course.  I purchased a previous edition which I found valuable and worth the price, and still for sale on Amazon, so an open text version, especially an updated and expanded digital version would be beneficial to students and educators alike.  Overall, I enjoyed the book and find the new edition better integrated and evolving.  However, I do  not recommend this as a book to be read from cover to cover in a semester.","created_at":"2021-05-14T22:24:14.000-05:00","updated_at":"2021-05-14T22:24:14.000-05:00"},{"id":33415,"first_name":"Bobbie","last_name":"Long","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Emporia State University","comprehensiveness_rating":3,"comprehensiveness_review":"Glushko provides excellent foundational information for any organization of information class. Using this resource as a supplemental textbook or as a spine with newer, supplemental readings will provide students with both an overview of the topic as well as a basic for further studies in cataloging, metadata, and similar coursework.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Glushko is only limited by the date in which the book was written.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"Glushko does a great job of make organization relatable to everyday topics and situations.","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"This textbook uses introductory language that students can easily understand.","consistency_rating":3,"consistency_review":"Instructors may find that some of Glushko's terms are not what is currently used in the field. However, to be fair, some terms are ambiguous among scholars, so the fault is not the author's.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"Chapters are a good length for students and easily mesh with supplemental readers or another textbook as a spine.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"Glushko begins with little assumed knowledge and walks the reader through the topics in a meaningful way.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"Glushko is clear in presentation.","grammatical_rating":4,"grammatical_review":"None noticed.","cultural_rating":4,"cultural_review":"None noted.","overall_rating":8,"overall_review":null,"created_at":"2021-10-18T06:20:17.000-05:00","updated_at":"2021-10-18T06:20:17.000-05:00"},{"id":35188,"first_name":"Rebecca","last_name":"Kuske","position":"Digital Archivist","institution_name":"University of Wisconsin-Stout","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This text is comprehensive, and it would be a valuable foundational book for students in Library and Information Studies. Certain chapters, like Chapter 27: Organizing Resources, may also be useful for other professions and education programs. Chapter 27, for example, gives detailed context as to why things are organized the way they are. This can help students organize as well as locate resources as well. Each topic discussed in this book is fleshed out, and there are extensive examples of each topic.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The content is accurate. Some examples are older, but the author is careful to keep concepts applicable to the evolving capabilities of organization.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"This book continues to be relevant, and it provides an effective base to organization topics. Topics and concepts discussed are still applicable in 2024, and the real-world examples are general enough that they can be applied or discussed by current students.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"This book discusses theoretical and philosophical concepts with real world, practical, and career specific examples. This is what originally attracted me to this book, and I have used the case studies, in particular, to build and inform course assignments. It speaks about organization at an introductory level, allowing all levels to use this book and follow along.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Style is consistent through the book. Organization as a concept and discipline is not only relevant to information professionals. This book uses more widely used terms for organization related concepts that could be applied to other fields and education programs. It also makes it easier to be used throughout time as standards, terminology, and technology evolves.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The chapters were easy to navigate, and they were rightsized for students to digest. The organization of the book made the process for selecting and communicating what chapters/sections to read for my students simple.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The topics addressed were practical, and the book guides the reader through the topics thoroughly and logically. The book begins with more general concepts and narrows down all the way to specific organization related case studies. There is an entire chapter that goes into the organization of this book. This both gives insight and clarity to decisions made by the author and gives another real world example of applying organization effectively.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I utilized the e-book format. The e-book is accessible and usable.  The e-book version allows for more capabilities like linking to author notes, examples, illustrations, and other text. I found the placement and use of quotes and illustrations to be logical and helpful in understanding the topics being addressed in the text.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I did not notice any grammatical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I found no issues of cultural insensitivity.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I used specific chapters for an organization course in a MLIS program. I used the book's natural order, but I did skip chapters where necessary. The case studies were extremely useful for my students to understand how organization can be directly applied.  Overall, this book gave great context to organization techniques and helped answer the 'why' for standards in the information profession.","created_at":"2024-07-31T12:08:43.000-05:00","updated_at":"2024-07-31T12:08:43.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/the-discipline-of-organizing-4th-professional-edition?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-04T02:07:45.000-05:00"},{"id":915,"title":"The Crystal Ball Instruction Manual","edition_statement":"version 1.1","volume":"Volume One: Introduction to Data Science","copyright_year":2020,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":"9781715320041","license":"Attribution-ShareAlike","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"unknown","description":"A perfect introduction to the exploding field of Data Science for the curious, first-time student. The author brings his trademark conversational tone to the important pillars of the discipline: exploratory data analysis, choices for structuring data, causality, machine learning principles, and introductory Python programming using open-source Jupyter Notebooks. This engaging read will allow any dedicated learner to build the skills necessary to contribute to the Data Science revolution, regardless of background.","contributors":[{"id":5285,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Stephen","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Davies","location":"University of Mary Washington","background_text":"Stephen Davies, Associate Professor of Computer Science, earned a Ph.D. (2005) in Computer Science from the University of Colorado, Boulder, after having received an M.S. (1995) in Electrical Engineering from Colorado and a B.S. (1992) in Electrical Engineering from Rice University. He joined the UMW faculty in 2006, and has taught courses in database schema theory, Web application development, computational science, data mining, and object-oriented analysis \u0026 design, among other topics."}],"subjects":[{"id":3,"name":"Computer Science","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"QA76","visible_textbooks_count":137,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/computer-science-information-systems?locale=es"},{"id":61,"name":"Databases","parent_subject_id":3,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":6,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/databases?locale=es"},{"id":23,"name":"Information Systems","parent_subject_id":3,"call_number":"QA76","visible_textbooks_count":27,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/information-systems?locale=es"},{"id":59,"name":"Programming Languages","parent_subject_id":3,"call_number":"QA76","visible_textbooks_count":26,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/programming-languages?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":894,"url":"https://libguides.umw.edu/c.php?g=424302\u0026p=7124772","year":null,"created_at":"2020-09-28T20:32:51.000-05:00","updated_at":"2020-09-28T20:32:51.000-05:00","name":"University of Mary Washington"}],"formats":[{"id":1805,"type":"PDF","url":"http://stephendavies.org/crystal1.pdf","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":1806,"type":"Hardcopy","url":"https://www.blurb.com/b/10649881-the-crystal-ball-instruction-manual-volume-one","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":3,"reviews":[{"id":4500,"first_name":"Patrick","last_name":"Earl","position":"Instructor","institution_name":"Kutztown University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book provides a great introduction to the world of data science, using Python as the main driver. Python is a good choice as it has become the de facto programming language used in the field with its many libraries that fit the bill.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Book is accurate to current information in the field of data science.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The book is relevant since it seemingly uses Python 3. Pandas (and NumPy) dropped support for Python 2 at the start of 2020.  Unless something more popular than pandas comes along, this book will be relevant for the foreseeable future. The text is organized in a way that appears to make it simple to update.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"Concepts are introduced and explained as necessary. Readers with no experience should have no problem when starting at the beginning of the book.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"Book uses consistent terms and doesn't appear to blindside the user with any new information or undefined terms.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"This book would be useful for people who are versed in Python programming, but the chapter structure feels a bit off. Concepts related to the programming side (like functions) are found in later chapters. The author has their reasons which are explained in the book, but to an outsider it may be off putting. This book still offers a modular view where certain sections can be extracted as needed.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"Book is organized well and topics are introduced as needed. Only complaint was about the ordering of the chapters, which I commented on in the \"Modularity\" section.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"Table of Contents works as expected in the PDF version. Images appear fine and the book is free of any distracting display issues. \r\nMy only gripe is that I couldn't find a table of contents that included the subsections found within the chapters.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I saw no glaring grammatical errors while reviewing this text. I found the author's writing to be quite enjoyable at times.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I didn't see any issues with statements that could be seen as culturally insensitive.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I've enjoyed this book and plan to use it as the main or supplemental textbook in one of my future courses.","created_at":"2020-12-31T14:40:08.000-06:00","updated_at":"2020-12-31T14:40:08.000-06:00"},{"id":33685,"first_name":"Thomas","last_name":"Blamey","position":"Math Faculty","institution_name":"University of Hawaii Maui College","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"I found the text to be complete and sufficient for an introduction to data science with python.  This was remarkable as there are OER textbook for python, but few on data science \"using\" python.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"I found no errors in my readings.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"As I mentioned above, this was a fabulous find for me as I have embarked upon a start up data science cert (and class with python) for our college.  Although there are a few publishers with this content (truly not many), this is actually the first OER text to specifically capture my content (data science \u0026 python).","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text was a clear and easy read, as it should be for an introduction to this area of study.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"I found the text to be consistent and had an easy structure to follow.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text had many sections, which will make it easy to utilize only the sections I find important to cover in my specific class.  This is appreciated as modularity is so important for teachers who have unique courses that might not use all of the text book.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The topics flowed as I expected they should - building in a natural/logical way.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"I found no issues with navigation or distortion in the etext.  It was a good read.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I found no grammatical errors or technical errors.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"I found no issues with insensitive or offensive content.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"Although I am so grateful for this OER text, it was writing from the lens of a computer scientist, which most are.  My course is from the lens of a non-computer scientist, more of \"user\" of python in the area of data science.  But, again...I am thankful for this remarkable resource.\r\nMahalo.","created_at":"2022-02-08T12:28:44.000-06:00","updated_at":"2022-02-08T12:28:44.000-06:00"},{"id":34992,"first_name":"Xuan","last_name":"Wang","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"University of Texas Rio Grande Valley","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The author has covered the basic information on how to use Python for data analysis, presenting a perspective beneficial for students interested in data science who lack a foundation in data analysis. Additionally, the author recommends Jupyter Notebook as the integrated development environment (IDE) for running Python code, which is one of the most popular tools for this purpose. Overall, this book is comprehensive for beginners with no coding background and those interested in the field of data science.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The author ensures that the content provided is accurate, error-free, and unbiased. For every concept or new material introduced, the author gives an example, making the content very easy to follow and understand.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The content is up-to-date. Python is considered one of the most popular open-source tools for working with data analysis. It is very important for students to understand and know how to run Python code to execute data analysis. This book provides a great foundation and starting point for students interested in entering the field of data science.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The text is very accessible and easy to understand, perfectly suited for beginners. There are no difficult terms to understand in the textbook.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text is internally consistent, with all chapters relating to Python and providing examples of how to use Python for data analysis.","modularity_rating":4,"modularity_review":"I think the author might consider adding more sections on machine learning since this concept has already been introduced. Machine learning encompasses many different methodologies, so I would suggest adding a couple of new chapters to the textbook. Alternatively, the author could consider writing a book dedicated solely to machine learning with Python.","organization_rating":4,"organization_review":"The overall organization of the book is quite easy to follow and understand. The only concern is the absence of a conclusion chapter, appendix, and references for this book. The last chapter, which evaluates a classifier, leaves the impression that the book has not fully concluded.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"The book is very easy to navigate. The examples, figures and tables are also easy to follow and understand.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"I did not find the grammatical issues in the textbook.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"There is no insensitive or offensive way in this textbook.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"N/A","created_at":"2024-04-09T20:09:06.000-05:00","updated_at":"2024-04-09T20:09:06.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/the-crystal-ball-instruction-manual-volume-one-introduction-to-data-science?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-04T02:04:57.000-05:00"},{"id":1121,"title":"Evidence-based Software Engineering","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2020,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":"9781838291303","license":"Attribution-ShareAlike","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":"","accessibility_features":"","description":"This book discusses what is currently known about software engineering, based on an analysis of all the publicly available data. This aim is not as ambitious as it sounds, because there is not a great deal of data publicly available. The intent is to provide material that is useful to professional developers working in industry; until recently researchers in software engineering have been more interested in vanity work, promoted by ego and bluster. The material is organized in two parts, the first covering software engineering and the second the statistics likely to be needed for the analysis of software engineering data.","contributors":[{"id":5616,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Derek","middle_name":"M.","last_name":"Jones","location":null,"background_text":"Derek M. Jones"}],"subjects":[{"id":3,"name":"Computer Science","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"QA76","visible_textbooks_count":137,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/computer-science-information-systems?locale=es"},{"id":61,"name":"Databases","parent_subject_id":3,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":6,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/databases?locale=es"},{"id":35,"name":"Applied","parent_subject_id":7,"call_number":"QA37.3","visible_textbooks_count":48,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/applied?locale=es"},{"id":7,"name":"Mathematics","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"QA1","visible_textbooks_count":177,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/mathematics?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":1100,"url":"http://knosof.co.uk/","year":2020,"created_at":"2022-01-07T18:50:23.000-06:00","updated_at":"2022-01-07T18:50:44.000-06:00","name":"Knowledge Software"}],"formats":[{"id":2773,"type":"PDF","url":"http://knosof.co.uk/ESEUR/ESEUR.pdf","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":3344,"type":"Hardcopy","url":"https://www.amazon.com/Evidence-based-Software-Engineering-publicly-available/dp/B09RQ98SCL/","price":{"cents":3399,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"4.5","textbook_reviews_count":2,"reviews":[{"id":35068,"first_name":"Christoph","last_name":"Csallner","position":"Professor","institution_name":"University of Texas at Arlington","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The book covers the data that is publicly available on building and maintaining software systems. The book is comprehensive in the sense that it systematically covers that available data. The book is not comprehensive in the sense that for some areas of software development there is little to no publicly available data. While other books may then instead report on private data, this book just omits such software development areas.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The book is very accurate in the sense that the book's author also provides the underlying data and code. This allows readers to study the data and redo the data analysis. Specifically, the book's author maintains a public repository of the software engineering data the book discusses (in addition to the book author's own code for analyzing and visualizing that data) as a public GitHub repository (https://github.com/Derek-Jones/ESEUR-code-data).","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"The book is up to date and the book's author has posted updates to the book's GitHub repository (https://github.com/Derek-Jones/ESEUR-code-data).","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The writing is clear and tight. There is little (if any) fluff.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The writing is consistent.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is highly modular. Each section is broken into sub-sections and sub-sub-sections with their own descriptive titles. Paragraphs are compact and focused on the relevant point.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"The book's sections make sense.","interface_rating":5,"interface_review":"Text and figures are well laid out and are easy to read.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"The text is well edited.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The book focuses on publicly available software development data and thus avoids the made-up worked examples commonly found in traditional textbooks.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I wish every book would provide this level of access to the data underlying the book.","created_at":"2024-05-22T22:16:29.000-05:00","updated_at":"2024-05-22T22:16:29.000-05:00"},{"id":35748,"first_name":"Chris","last_name":"Brown","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Virginia Tech","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"The text provides a comprehensive overview of a wide variety of topics related to evidence (e.g., research, statistics, etc.), factors influencing software development (e.g., human cognition, economics, etc.) and software engineering (e.g., practical development and maintenance of software applications). The index is effective and while there is no formal glossary at the end, key terms are adequately defined by the author within the text.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"Overall the content appears to be accurate and error-free. The author admits bias towards Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies, which make up the bulk of evidence and software engineering.","relevance_rating":4,"relevance_review":"Evidence-based software engineering is critical as software increasingly impacts modern society, and engineering practices are necessary for developing high-quality applications. Overall the content is well-motivated and relevant to our time. This book was published in 2020, but the majority of content seems relevant to software engineering today. One concern is that software engineering in particular is rapidly evolving, for instance with the recent use of generative AI and large language models. The methods for collecting evidence and development concepts described in this book may still apply, but I imagine AI-driven software development will transform the field of software engineering as a whole. However, the evidence to characterize the impacts of AI in software engineering, as described by this book, probably does not exist yet!","clarity_rating":4,"clarity_review":"The text is written in a very clear and accessible manner. The nature of the content is complex and covers a variety of non-technical and interdisciplinary topics in detail (e.g., concepts related to human cognition, research, etc.), so it may be too technical and not suitable for certain audiences (e.g., undergraduate students or novice programmers). However, \"the intended audience is software developers and their managers\" and experience building software systems is assumed. I would also recommend this for graduate-level courses, especially for research-track graduate students in computing and software engineering.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The text is very consistent with terminologies and frameworks. The application of evidence for the various development concepts is also consistent.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The text is easily divisible into modules that could be assigned to differen sections within a course. In general, the book is organized based on human and cognitive aspects, software development and development ecosystems, and then details about data, research, etc. Within these sections are relevant modules that could be applied to a variety of courses (e.g., the software development-related sections could be used as modular reading for specific aspects of the software development lifecycle).","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Overall the structure is excellent. The author did a good job of thoughtfully organizing the chapters and sections within each chapter to convey details to the reader in a clear and logical way.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"Overall there are no issues with the interface and navigating the document . All of the text, charts, and figures are displayed well. One minor point of personal preference is the figure placement in the margin makes the readability more difficult.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No spelling/grammatical errors were detected.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"The text acknowledges being biased towards Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies based on software development practices and the research data this work is based on, but overall seems to be inclusive and incorporates research/examples from diverse cultures.","overall_rating":9,"overall_review":"I am planning to incorporate this book into my software engineering-related courses (undergraduate and graduate)---with the goal of providing evidence-based foundations for students to understand effective development practices. I also hope to help them, as future software professionals, make informed decisions grounded in empirical evience to improve software quality, reduce defects, increase productivity, etc. As a researcher in this area, this also motivates me to contribute to the collection of evience to support effective software engineering work (and convey these results to practitioners).","created_at":"2026-01-20T20:21:41.000-06:00","updated_at":"2026-01-20T20:21:41.000-06:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/evidence-based-software-engineering?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-04T02:05:18.000-05:00"},{"id":1638,"title":"Research Data Management in the Canadian Context","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2023,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":"9780771431876","license":"Attribution-NonCommercial","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"unknown","description":"Research Data Management is a term for all the things that researchers do to structure, organize and maintain data before, during and after doing research. RDM is also an emerging discipline that is concerned with researching and developing ways to manage research data more effectively. But what is research data? Where is the push towards formal Research Data Management coming from? What are the requirements of good data management? Research Data Management in the Canadian Context: A Guide for Practitioners and Learners looks at these questions and more, all with a focus on Canadian guidelines, regulations and infrastructure.","contributors":[{"id":7007,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Emily","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Carlisle-Johnston","location":"Western University","background_text":"Emily Carlisle-Johnston has been Research and Scholarly Communication Librarian at Western University since 2020. She works with faculty looking to incorporate Open Educational Resources (OER) in their teaching, which includes helping faculty find and evaluate OER, assessing licensing options for re-use and adaptation of OER, and supporting the use of Open publishing software such as Pressbooks. Prior to this role she worked at eCampusOntario, where she led the editorial workflows for creation of OER. Emily completed the SPARC Open Education Leadership Fellow program in 2022. ORCID: 0000-0002-5391-723X"},{"id":7008,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Danielle","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Dennie","location":"Concordia University","background_text":"Danielle Dennie has been the Head, Vanier Library at Concordia University in Montréal since 2021. She has also been the Research Data Librarian at Concordia since 2018. She has a Masters in Applied Microbiology from INRS-Institut Armand Frappier as well as a Masters in Library and Information Studies from McGill University. She was the lead on Concordia University’s Institutional RDM Strategy. ORCID: 0000-0003-3771-2450"},{"id":7009,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Émilie","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Fortin","location":"Université Laval","background_text":"Émilie Fortin has been Research Data Management and Digital Preservation Librarian at Université Laval since 2021. Prior to this, she was the librarian responsible for digital production, preservation and conservation of collections. She completed her Master’s degree in Information Science at Université de Montréal, spending a year at the Haute école de gestion in Geneva. She is involved in the Digital Research Alliance’s Preservation Expert Group as well as the Partenariat des bibliothèques universitaires du Québec (PBUQ) working group on research data management, and is also a regular participant in iPRES conferences on digital preservation. ORCID: 0000-0002-9717-6840"},{"id":7010,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Elizabeth","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Hill","location":"Western University","background_text":"Elizabeth Hill is the Data Librarian at Western University in London Ontario. She provides access and data literacy instruction to data sources at Western. She has an external advisor role with Statistics Canada. Elizabeth is active in various data communities and working groups in participant and leadership roles. Her research interests include supporting researchers, and she has published on topics related to data delivery systems and data librarianship in Canada. ORCID: 0000-0002-9715-238X"},{"id":7011,"contribution":"Author","primary":false,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Kristi","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Thompson","location":"Western University","background_text":"Kristi Thompson is the Research Data Management Librarian at Western University, and previously held positions as data librarian at the University of Windsor and data specialist at Princeton University. Kristi supports research projects, administers data archiving software, works with Western’s Research Ethics boards, and is involved at a national level with developing research data infrastructure. She co-edited the book Databrarianship: the Academic Data Librarian in Theory and Practice and has published on topics ranging from data anonymization algorithms to intergenerational psychology. ORCID: 0000-0002-4152-0075"}],"subjects":[{"id":3,"name":"Computer Science","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"QA76","visible_textbooks_count":137,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/computer-science-information-systems?locale=es"},{"id":61,"name":"Databases","parent_subject_id":3,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":6,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/databases?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":1613,"url":"https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/","year":2024,"created_at":"2024-04-09T22:51:31.000-05:00","updated_at":"2024-04-09T22:52:27.000-05:00","name":"Western University"}],"formats":[{"id":4175,"type":"Online","url":"https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/canadardm/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":4176,"type":"PDF","url":"https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/canadardm/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null},{"id":4177,"type":"XML","url":"https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/canadardm/","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":"5","textbook_reviews_count":1,"reviews":[{"id":35017,"first_name":"Narda","last_name":"Davis","position":"Assistant Professor","institution_name":"Howard University","comprehensiveness_rating":5,"comprehensiveness_review":"This book is very comprehensive and covers material from a multitude of angles.","accuracy_rating":5,"accuracy_review":"The material is an accurate account of research data management in the Canadian context.","relevance_rating":5,"relevance_review":"I believe this book is very relevant if you are seeking to analyze a compartmentalize research data on a molecular level. This brings another dimension of data management that needs to be explored.","clarity_rating":5,"clarity_review":"The material is presented in a clear manner and is easy to understand.","consistency_rating":5,"consistency_review":"The framework and terminology is consistent throughout the text.","modularity_rating":5,"modularity_review":"The modules allow the reader to grasp bite size chunks of material and absorb them before moving onto the next module of material.","organization_rating":5,"organization_review":"Clear organization and vision.","interface_rating":4,"interface_review":"There were no interface issues or conflict in navigation of this text.","grammatical_rating":5,"grammatical_review":"No grammatical errors have been detected in the text thus far.","cultural_rating":5,"cultural_review":"This material is free from inappropriate or offensive material and deals strictly with metrics and data analysis.","overall_rating":10,"overall_review":"I am enjoying learning new avenues to interpret and incorporate data analysis as a professor of Evidence Based Medicine and Reasearch. I look forward to incorporating some of this newfound tactics in the Biostatics course upcoming this fall.","created_at":"2024-04-23T08:49:45.000-05:00","updated_at":"2024-04-23T08:49:45.000-05:00"}],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/research-data-management-in-the-canadian-context?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-04T02:06:21.000-05:00"},{"id":1837,"title":"Operating Systems and Infrastructure in Data Science","edition_statement":null,"volume":null,"copyright_year":2023,"ISBN10":null,"ISBN13":"9783728141682","license":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike","language":"eng","accessibility_statement":null,"accessibility_features":"","description":"Modern data scientists work with a number of tools and operating system facilities in addition to online platforms. Mastering these in combination to manage their data and to deploy software, models and data as ready-to-use online services as well as to perform data science and analysis tasks is in the focus of Operating Systems and Infrastructure in Data Science. Readers will come to understand the fundamental concepts of operating systems and to explore plenty of tools in hands-on tasks and thus gradually develop the skills necessary to compose them for programming in the large, an essential capability in their later career. The book guides students through semester studies, acts as reference knowledge base and aids in acquiring the necessary knowledge, skills and competences especially in self-study settings. A unique feature of the book is the associated access to Edushell, a live environment to practice operating systems and infrastructure tasks.","contributors":[{"id":7490,"contribution":"Author","primary":true,"corporate":false,"title":null,"first_name":"Josef","middle_name":null,"last_name":"Spillner","location":"Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften (ZHAW)","background_text":""}],"subjects":[{"id":3,"name":"Computer Science","parent_subject_id":null,"call_number":"QA76","visible_textbooks_count":137,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/computer-science-information-systems?locale=es"},{"id":61,"name":"Databases","parent_subject_id":3,"call_number":null,"visible_textbooks_count":6,"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/databases?locale=es"}],"publishers":[{"id":1812,"url":"https://vdf.ch/operating-systems-and-infrastructure-in-data-science-e-book.html","year":2025,"created_at":"2025-05-22T16:37:17.000-05:00","updated_at":"2025-06-03T22:57:55.000-05:00","name":"vdf Hochschulverlag"}],"formats":[{"id":4723,"type":"PDF","url":"https://digitalcollection.zhaw.ch/items/ed1a3e7b-420c-479b-add1-a10f990d9a4c","price":{"cents":0,"currency_iso":"USD"},"isbn":null}],"rating":null,"textbook_reviews_count":0,"reviews":[],"url":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/operating-systems-and-infrastructure-in-data-science?locale=es","updated_at":"2026-05-04T02:01:57.000-05:00"}],"links":{"self":"https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects/databases.json?locale=es?page=1","total_pages":1,"total_count":7}}