School of Computer Sciences Western Illinois University

School of Computer Sciences Western Illinois University

IS 342

ER ADDITIONAL PROBLEMS

CAR RENTAL SITUATION

A car rental company rents cars to renters (who may be private parties or corporations). The company likes to keep track of the renter’s name, phone#, address and driver’s license#. The renter has to sign a rental agreement, which includes the name, address of renter, renter’s phone, start and end dates, type of vehicle rented, license plate# and rental rate. On the cars, the company tracks the license plate#, mileage, and date last serviced.

RECYCLED TRACTOR

Recycled tractor buys used and damaged tractors, refurbishes them and then resells them. Recycled Tractor obtains the tractors from repair shops, auctions, farmers who simply want to sell their old tractors, and a variety of other sources in the agricultural industry. The individuals who search for the used tractors are called trackers. When a lead on a potential tractor is obtained, the tracker calls up the individual who wants to sell the tractor and asks them questions about the tractor manufacturer, model and the year the tractor was built. Sometimes, a lead has tractors at more than one location. For example, a farmer might own two or three other farms and have a tractor for sale at each location. Two individuals, called evaluators, are assigned to examine each tractor on site i.e. if there are two tractors, then four evaluators would be needed. An evaluator goes to the address of the tractor, appraises its value and then calls in a bid on the tractor. After both bids have been received, the tracker makes a judgement on the value of the tractor, then contacts the lead and makes an offer to the owner of the tractor. If the tracker and the lead can agree on the price, the tracker purchases the tractor.

CONFERENCE SITUATION

A conference [e.g. International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS] has different tracks corresponding to the different areas of the field. For e.g. there can be an AI track, a DSS track, OIS track etc. A track could in turn have one or more sessions. A session is a time period during which people who are interested in the track are treated to a presentation of research by different participants. Sessions have a session title [AI – Session 1] session chair, a start time, end time and a location. Both tracks and sessions have chairs [who are also researchers]. A participant [or participants] could present one or more papers in the conference. A paper could be presented by more than one researcher. A paper has a title, author(s) and affiliation [university or company] and discussant. A participant can present only once in each track/session. Typically, each presentation will be critiqued by a discussant. A conference has many participants. Each participant/researcher represents a University/Company. Participants could simply be attendees who sit and listen to presentations made by other participants; and/or they could participate as presenters [people who present papers]; and/or discussants [people who discuss presentations made by other researchers] or could serve on the executive committee, the committee that plans and organizes the conference. Assume that discussants, session and track chairs are also part of the executive committee.