Introduction. Other titles in the series include: GCSE ICT Theory Pack 2 GCSE ICT Practical Course Pack 1. Steve McWeeney September 2006

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1 GCSE ICT Practical Course Pack 2 Introduction GCSE ICT Practical Course Packs 1 and 2 have been written to comply with the AQA Specification A for GCSE ICT. The material has been revised to match the changes made to the specifications in 2005, and is also suitable for the 2007 specifications. With the convergence in theory content under the new specifications, the packs can also be used with other examination boards. While the GCSE ICT Practical Course packs can be used on their own, they can also be used with GCSE ICT Theory Packs 1 and 2 and the Worksheets to form a complete GCSE ICT course. The three elements have been written to complement each other with the minimum amount of duplication. These two packs cover the practical elements of the course. This, the second pack, concentrates solely on database work. The work covers all the elements of database production, including analysis of data requirements, but there is less emphasis on the general identification of user requirements since this was amply covered in Pack 1. The students introduction to ICT practical work (pages 2 to 6) has been reproduced from Pack 1 to accommodate those who may wish to use this pack on its own. Pack 1 provides a set of separate tasks, each with a different context. This pack provides a number of closely related problems within a single context, thus bridging the gap between the approach required for the exam board set assignment and that needed for the project. There are consequently fewer individual problems than Pack 1 and it is more important that the work is done in the order in which it appears in the pack. The student record sheet (page 61) can be used to monitor individual progress and also to agree and set target dates for the student to complete each task. The week numbers are provided as a guide and, if followed, would mean that this practical course should be completed by the end of March in Year 10. The suggested timing is generous and most students should be able to complete the work in a shorter time than that suggested, leaving more time for their examination coursework. Suggested completion dates appear in the context letter or dialogue at the start of each task. If you use different dates then students should be given these before they complete their performance criteria so that the criteria contain the correct agreed completion date. In some instances, students are asked to mark the text. You may want to produce additional copies of these pages (ie pages 24 to 25 and 44 to 47) for students to use, so that their original copy is left unmarked. The various files needed by the students for each task may be downloaded from (see pages 48 and 49 for additional notes on the files). Note that inches are used as the unit of measurement in all desktop publishing and documentbased tasks. This is a deliberate choice since the unit of text size (ie the point) is 1/72 inch. Other titles in the series include: GCSE ICT Theory Pack 1 GCSE ICT Worksheets GCSE ICT Theory Pack 2 GCSE ICT Practical Course Pack 1 Steve McWeeney September 2006 Pearson Publishing Tel

2 GCSE ICT Practical Course Pack 2 Practical 1 Practical 1: The Junior Library Newington Library has a junior section which caters for young people up to the age of 16. Mr Jones, the librarian, is keen to computerise the library s records and has sent a series of memos outlining the requirements of the solution that is required. The first memo from Mr Jones is shown below. He outlines some details about two files that the database will have: members and books. Members and books Memo Obviously, since we are a library, we need to store details about our members and the books that we have. Members sometimes ask if we have a particular book. Occasionally, they will know the title and the author but, more often, they only remember the title. Some members can only remember one or two words from the title. Often, if a member has enjoyed a book by a particular author, they will ask if we have any more books by the same author. We only cater for members from the ages of 12 to 16. When a member reaches the age of 17, we write to them, pointing out that they are no longer eligible for membership and offering to enrol them in the main library. We like to maintain a friendly atmosphere in the library and so, when we write to members, we always use their first name at the start of the letter. Of course, the address label has to have the member s full name. The library service is paid for by the local council and we have to provide them with statistical information from time to time. For example, we must tell them the average age of our members and also the percentage of boys and girls who are members. Members, books, data and CSV files The members 1 What does Mr Jones say in the memo that explains why the members file will need to store the following data? a Member s date of birth. b Member s first name. c Member s street, town and postcode. d Member s sex. 2 Each member is given a unique six-digit membership number. Why is this necessary? 3 What two pieces of book data must the library store in the books file to meet the requirements outlined in the memo? Pearson Publishing Tel

3 GCSE ICT Practical Course Pack 2 Practical 4 Book issue design When a book is issued, the librarian needs to record the membership number of the member borrowing the book, the book number and the date. No other information is needed. If the membership number is known, the member s details can be found from tblmembers. If the book number is known, the book details can be found from tblbooks. A new table will be needed to store the loan details. The design for this table is shown below: Table name: tblloans Field name Data type Range Comment Loan number Autonumber Key field Membership number Book number Text Text 6 characters 15 characters Date Date Should automatically be today s date The Membership number and Book number fields in this table will be used to link to the two other tables that store membership data and book data. It is very important that the data type and ranges chosen for these fields are exactly the same in this table as they were in the original tables, otherwise the links between the tables will not be possible. When a book is issued, the librarian will input the membership number and the book number using a form displayed on the computer screen. These will be entered using a special drop-down list of valid numbers, which will ensure that the design meets the requirement to allow only valid data to be input. When the entry screen design is produced, the drop-down lists are shown using the symbol on the right. Drop-down list symbol When the librarian clicks on the arrow, a list of valid numbers will be shown. The librarian can also type in the number, but only valid numbers will be accepted. Part of the input screen design is shown on page 29. Copy and complete the design to show where the other information that the librarian wants to see on the input screen will be displayed. The information will be displayed in ordinary boxes, like the date box not in drop-down lists. Reread the memo on page 27 if you do not remember the additional information that is to be shown on the input form. The form will be given the name frmbookissue. Pearson Publishing Tel

4 GCSE ICT Practical Course Pack 2 Practical 4 Setting up the table 1 Set up the table tblloans, according to the design on page 28. The data type counter that you need for the loan number field is available from the drop-down list of data types. You will need to set loan number as the key field. To do this you should place the cursor anywhere on the loan number row and click the primary key tool on the toolbar. This has an icon that looks like a key as shown below. 2 Close your new table, saving it with the name chosen in the design tblloans. You should now see three tables in the database view window, ie tblbooks, tblloans and tblmembers. Setting up the query 1 Now set up the query qrybookissue following the design given on page 29. You will need to add all three tables to the query. Microsoft Access should show the links between the tables with lines, as in the diagram on the left. If these links are not present, click on the appropriate field in either tblbooks or tblmembers and drag to the corresponding field in tblloans. This will set up the link that Access needs to bring the correct data from the different tables together. 2 Make sure that you drag the membership number and book number fields from tblloans and not from tblmembers or tblbooks. Do not forget the other fields following your design on page 29. Save your new query as qrybookissue. Pearson Publishing Tel

5 GCSE ICT Practical Course Pack 2 Teacher s notes and answers Finding a book evaluation (page 22) The solution produces the required details of book number, title and author in the order specified. The list is automatically sorted so that the authors appear in alphabetical ascending order, and a particular author s titles are also sorted alphabetically. In order to achieve this, author and title had to be added to the query twice, once to display and once to sort. The correctly formatted, sorted and ordered lists can be seen in printouts obtained in Test 3 where two authors books are displayed. The system will find a book when all or any part of the title is known. Tests 3, 4, and 5 demonstrate the system working when a word from within the title, the start of the title or the end of the title is known. Test 1 shows that the system produces the required results when the whole of the title is known and entered. The system is fairly easy to use. The librarian runs the query and enters the title and the results are displayed. The system does not crash or report an error if there are no matching books in the database. However, if the librarian had to find a number of titles, one after the other, then the system might be a little awkward to use. After each list of results is displayed, the query must be closed down before it can be run again. If a number of members were waiting to obtain information then the system would be a little inefficient. It could be improved if some way could be found to have two buttons. One could be clicked to close the query and the other would allow the librarian to enter another search. This would speed up the system when several queries need to be done one after the other. Practical 3: Mailmerge Letter (page 23) Mailmerge design and test plan (pages 23) Choice of software a Microsoft Word will be used to produce the basic mailmerge document and for doing the mailmerge itself. b Microsoft Word allows us to merge the basic document with data from a Microsoft Access database, which we already have for the library. Also, the sample document that has been supplied is a Word document and it will be easier to stay within the same application when turning it into a mailmerge document. c Access will be used to select the particular data needed from the database. d The library already has a database of members stored in Access. I will be able to create a query that selects the records and fields needed by the mailmerge document. An Access query can supply data directly to a mailmerge document. Performance criteria 1 The solution must produce letters for the correct people only. 2 The letter must have the same layout as last year s. Pearson Publishing Tel