Learning Objectives

  • Recognize Armstrong’s axioms to infer all functional dependencies for a relational schema
  • Describe Boyce Codd Normal Form (BCNF)
  • Decompose a relational schema into 3NF based on the schema’s functional dependencies

How to Complete this Lesson

Complete the following learning activities: (3.75–4.25 hours total)

  1. Attend the class meeting (60 minutes)
  2. Start the project proposal (60 minutes)

    • Meet with your team to discuss the project, including everyone’s expectations for contributions (30 minutes)

      It is recommended, but not required, for you to complete the project as part of a team. In practice, the individual workload for each member of a team is less than when working by yourself.

    • Write the section(s) of the proposal that are assigned to you (30 minutes)

  3. Complete the optional homework on logical database design (90–120 minutes)
  4. Take the quiz (10 minutes)

Due

As a reminder, the following is due this lesson:

Further Information

Edgar F. Codd defined first normal form (1NF) in his seminal paper “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks” (Codd 1970). He later defined the second and third normal forms (2NF and 3NF) and contributed to the development of Boyce-Codd normal form (BCNF), which eliminates all redundancy that can be discovered from the functional dependencies among attributes. Higher-level normal forms exist, such as fourth normal form (4NF), which addresses redundancy due to multivalued dependencies. 4NF was invented by Ronald Fagin, Professor Barry Fagin’s cousin.

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