The Importance of Data

While data is often imperfect it is never-the-less important to strive for the most accurate data available to maximize the evaluation effort.

Cap-Chek's data design serves two important functions. First, it drives the evaluation process by presenting the evaluator with a "guided tour" of the evaluation process, prompting him or her to suppoly answers to significant queries and offering criteria for accurate assessments; second, it accumulates the responses from the evaluator for use in the current evaluation and to serve as a benchmark for future evaluations.

The Database

Cap-Chek employs the MySQL database management system, Community Edition. This was selected because of its low-cost, reasonably robust implementation, good performance and ubiquitous presence in many online applications.

The Data Model

A good data model should always preceed actual implementation efforts. While data models change frequently during the development process this effect can be mitigated by using appropriate tools to modify and maintain the database and keep it in sync with the current model. Cap-Chek uses MySQL Workbench for data modeling and database structure maintenance. This has resulted in efficient design and efficient ongoing maintenance.

The current data model can be seen here.

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