South & City College Birmingham

Division: Information and Communication Technology

BTEC Level 3 Diploma in IT – Group (2.2)
Unit No: 5 – Unit Title: Data modelling
Task No: 1
Feedback Sheet

Task-1 – Uses of Spreadsheets Data Model

Learner’s name: Gemal Dabab ID: S45429002

Qualification: BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in IT (RQF)
Unit number & title: Unit 5: Data Modelling
Corrections to
Issued: 17.09.2018 1st hand-in: 28.09.18
be returned by: 16 Nov 18

Achieved?
(Y/N)
Ref. Assessment Criteria Evidence Feedback from Tutor
st nd
1 2

Task 1 U5 -P1 N A report Minor errors.

(a) Explain how spreadsheets can be used
to solve complex problems.

Task 1 U5 –P2 N A report Minor errors.

(b) Explain how the features of spreadsheet
software are used to support the
decision-making process.
Learner’s Comments: I DECLARE THAT THE EVIDENCE I HAVE SUBMITTED FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT IS MY OWN WORK.

Learner’s Signature: Gemal Dabab Date: 28.09.18

Assessor’s general comments: A good attempt.

a) Minor corrections
b) Minor corrections . Add the missing info.
Where needed, make sure you word the sentences so that you are the sp/s s/w developer and not their
employee.
Add Refs.

Tutor’s Signature: Bahman Parsapour Date: 5 Nov 2018

Internal Verifier’s comments on assessment:

IV Name: IV Sign: Date:

How to use spreadsheet as a tool for data modelling

Case Study: (Gallery Languagea school)

Name: Gemal Dabab (ID: S45429002)
Unit Tutor(s): Bahman Parsapour 1
South & City College Birmingham
Division: Information and Communication Technology
BTEC Level 3 Diploma in IT – Group (2.2)
Unit No: 5 – Unit Title: Data modelling
Task No: 1
Identify information and sources:

• Information required

This is the information required for the spreadsheet. I will identify all the information
needed for the spreadsheet data model for my case study that includes, for example, the
profit that the language school is going to make by the end of the year. Another one would
be the entry level for the new student’s what level should they be put in. Starting and
ending dates for the courses are also important information that is required as some
language courses are longer than the others.

• Information that is already available

Some of the information I need for the data model will already be available from the
scenario. Information that I already have would be the languages that the language school
offers, for example, English, French, Spanish and Arabic. Another available information that
the language school should know would be the average class size for each subject, for
example how many students come and study English each year at the school. The cost of
having a new language added to the school is also an available Information.

• Additional information needed

There may also be additional information that the school data model needs that is not given
in the scenario. I will need to find out where this information can be found, that is the
source of this information for my case study that includes, for example, the date of the
graduation, date of awards and lastly the qualification obtained. Another example of
additional information needed could be how much are the students willing to pay for the
courses or the form of advertising.

• Sources of additional information

Sources of additional information are identifying the sources of any additional information
that I will need for my spreadsheet data model. For example, the internet is my go-to place
for additional information, but I must be careful that the information is correct also as
noting down exactly where they are located. Another Source of additional information that I
could use for my case study would be lots of paper-based sources from the college or my
local library. There is a lot of sources to get additional information from another example
would be primary sources such as public questionnaires and interviews that I can carry out
myself, but I must be careful that I’m asking the right people.

• Requirements for verifying the information sources

Name: Gemal Dabab (ID: S45429002)

Unit Tutor(s): Bahman Parsapour 2
South & City College Birmingham
Division: Information and Communication Technology
BTEC Level 3 Diploma in IT – Group (2.2)
Unit No: 5 – Unit Title: Data modelling
Task No: 1
All the information that I use for the spreadsheet needs to be trustworthy and reliable so
that I can be confident that my data model will be useful and accurate. Verifying my
information sources involves making sure that they are perfect and usable. The way to do
that is by finding out two things who has provided the information and how up to date is it.
On the spreadsheet data model, I must keep my information that I get of the sources up to
date because most information gets less useful as it gets older. I will need to keep my
information relevant and good enough for the model. For my case study, verifying sources
of information would involve that the language books for the student are reliable and useful
at all times.

Factors affecting the quality of information:

• Currency of data

The currency of data is how recent it is. As I mentioned before old data which I will avoid
tends to be less useful than up to date, recently produced data. I’ll try my best to avoid old
data that lost its currency as it may make the information that I use for the data model a lot
less useful, for example looking at my case study the student’s information (Currency of
data) needs to be up to date which includes house address, full name, Birth date, place of
birth and personal telephone numbers.

• Accuracy of data

The accuracy of data is how it has no errors and also how detailed it is. Accurate data can be
processed into a good and useful model. In my case study, the language school needs to
make sure that the personal details of the students and teachers are accurate as it is very
important to keep personal information accurate just in case of an emergency. I will try to
avoid inaccurate data as the errors will produce poor results from my data model.

• External factors

The external factor is something that is outside the data model, but which may still
influence it. An external factor can be anything that may have an effect on how good the
information is. An example from my case study would be the language school could have a
data model to predict the average amount of students for each course throughout the year
based upon how many students attended last year.

o Analysing the information

Name: Gemal Dabab (ID: S45429002)

Unit Tutor(s): Bahman Parsapour 3
 South & City College Birmingham
Division: Information and Communication Technology
BTEC Level 3 Diploma in IT – Group (2.2)
Unit No: 5 – Unit Title: Data modelling
Task No: 1
 Analysing information is a key component of spreadsheet, beyond being a widespread data
storage platform. As far as calculating the profitability of the language gallery school there
are various methods to achieve that, each with a specific purpose.

Total cost and income made by the school within a month can be calculated instantly by
dragging over the cells that need totalling and using the total function. One amazing feature
portraying to calculating the total using the drag method is that it allows for possible “what
if” questions to be investigated because the total calculated responds automatically to
changes made in the cells. This will Aid analysis and finding ways to gain profit. So course
prices can be increased to see its effects on sale. Certain expenditures can be removed to
see effect on total cost per month.

A similar way to sorting the expenditure from the highest to the lowest would be heat maps
or formatting on cells which can be used to in order to make it easier to spot which
expenditure is mostly contributing to the increase in the overall cost in a more visual and
friendly way.

VLOOKUP can be an effective way to list out students with outstanding payments from the
full list of registered students.

A bar chart can be created to visualise how many students attend each course and therefore
which course is proving to be in demand.

A plot diagram showing a trend in the number of newly registered student over a whole
year and spotting the period where there is greater demand for the courses and possibly
pushing marketing tools to focus on this period in order to help increase sale.

o Identifying alternatives

Analysing information produced is likely to be one of many possible solutions. Many people
consider all the known alternatives before recommending or implementing a solution and
they do this by trying to approach the analysis from a different direction, an example that
links to my case study would be language school staff have held a brainstorming session and
have identified a number of possible solutions to their high absenteeism problem on
Mondays. All the ideas have been documented and evaluated as to their practicality. An
Example of the solutions they have identified would be Allow teachers to start later than the
current starting time, Increase the number of staff members and allow staff members to
work fewer days each week and lastly Offer an attendance bonus.

Name: Gemal Dabab (ID: S45429002)

Unit Tutor(s): Bahman Parsapour 4
South & City College Birmingham
Division: Information and Communication Technology
BTEC Level 3 Diploma in IT – Group (2.2)
Unit No: 5 – Unit Title: Data modelling
Task No: 1
o Identifying the consequences of implementing the alternatives.

Once the language school identified alternative methods of information analysis and sources
of data, they must be able to make a right decision about which one to use. A great starting
point for making this choice is to identify the quality of the information produced from
implementing each of the alternatives. In other words, the language school has to identify
the right solution from the alternative information by checking would the information be
any better, is it more or less reliable/current, would it take longer to produce the data
model or less and lastly is the data that the school picked is more or less expensive

o Making a decision.

After the language school identifies the consequences of implementing each of the
alternatives, they must be able to understand which the best and worst alternatives,
therefore, choose the one which has the best balance of quality and practicality.

o Justifying the decision.

After deciding must always justify the choice of information and understanding the
consequences of implementing the alternatives should provide good, solid reasons for why
they have made that choice in particular. In my case, the language school needs to justify
the choice of solution (offer an attendance bonus) they should have provided good, solid
reasons for why they have made that choice.

o Communicating decision(s) to others (e.g. client, supervisor, project sponsor), as

appropriate.

Communicating decisions is very important. It is important for everyone involved in the data
modelling project to be informed of the decisions made.

The client is someone from the scenario who wants to use the data model when it is
finished. The client knows what is required and needs to be kept up to date with the
decisions made. Communicating with the client would not be every day but instead having
regular meetings or maybe skype calls every now and then would keep the client happy. The
most recommended way to communicate with the client would be in person or as I said
skype calls are also a great form of communicate.

All workplaces including the language school need a great supervisor who needs regular
updates on progress and an early heads-up of any problems that develop. This is so that
they can support the project and are easily able to update anyone else (staff/students) who
need how the project progressing. The most common way to communicate with supervisors
would be face to face conversations.

Name: Gemal Dabab (ID: S45429002)

Unit Tutor(s): Bahman Parsapour 5
South & City College Birmingham
Division: Information and Communication Technology
BTEC Level 3 Diploma in IT – Group (2.2)
Unit No: 5 – Unit Title: Data modelling
Task No: 1

The available features of Excel spreadsheet software for decision making

• Entering and editing data

Data in a spreadsheet is organised into columns made up of cells. Each cell looks like a
rectangle in the spreadsheet. Every cell has a reference so that it can be used in calculations.
The cell reference is the column letter (from above the cell) and a number (from the left of
the cell) for example B2. The language school can take advantage of column feature to
organise inputted information into tables. Such information can be student details, new
language courses taught in the school, cost of each course, teachers wages, school expenses
such as electricity etc. Facilities provided by the school including computers and laptops
used for educational purposes by the student. Editing data when changing something in a
cell. The language school would use this to edit/update the results of students another
example that the school would use the editing tool would be when changing the prices of
course if needed.

• Formatting data

The best way to work with information collected is to organise it into tables. A table can
then format to make it easy to read and work with. Column titles are going to be in a Bold
format, so they may stand out from the reaming of the table. Outstanding payment can be
coloured with a red colour, so they may be easier to identify and chased if needed. Below is
an example of a well formatted data with titles in bold and border clearly shown. Currency is
inserted, and data is sorted from the highest payee to the least paying student.

Student Subject Fees

alic spanish £322.00
sami Arabic £232.00
gemal German £223.00
jack German £223.00
ali English £123.00
sam English £123.00

• Using formulae and functions

Formulae are the calculation which starts with = to let the spreadsheet know that the cell
contains something that needs to be working out. For example, trying = A2 *B4 would
multiply the numbers in cells A2 and B4 together and the answer would be shown in the cell
containing this formula. This is used in the language school for multiplying and calculating
staff members payments and students’ loans. Functions are more complex calculations
Name: Gemal Dabab (ID: S45429002)
Unit Tutor(s): Bahman Parsapour 6
South & City College Birmingham
Division: Information and Communication Technology
BTEC Level 3 Diploma in IT – Group (2.2)
Unit No: 5 – Unit Title: Data modelling
Task No: 1
which are already inside the spreadsheet waiting to be used it also relates to the staff
payments and students’ loans.

• Validation (and verification) of data

Many mistakes can be made when data is typed into a spreadsheet. Two ways of reducing
data entry errors are validation and verification of data. The computer can help with
validation and provides some support for verification. Validation occurs when data entry is
checked to make sure that it is good (Valid). Looking at my case study list box is a great
Validation choice which gives you the option to choose from a pre-set choice for the data
entry for example what course are you looking for (English, French, spinach, Arabic) or what
is your gender (M, F). Verification is when data entry is checked o make sure that it is
correct (Verified). A computer does not have the intelligence to make sure that something
typed in is actually correct. To make sure that everyone in the school is entering data
correctly is to type the same data twice, for example, sign up for a course that needs your
email address to be verified.

• Analysing and interpreting data

You will need to carefully explore the data you find in order to get useful information from
it. This is similar to analysing the information (as outlined in the section entitled stages in
the decision-making process), but here the analysis is from the bottom up. Data can be very
large and often takes the form of an enormous table of numbers in a spreadsheet. An
effective data model will analyse their numbers to interpret them into something more
understandable. Sorting and filtering can bring some older and sense to large datasets.

Excel is also a great tool to measure the success of the school by calculating the Breakeven
point by drawing a graph line for both the total cost with the total income. This will give the
manager an idea of where cost is equal to income after which profit is made.

A bar chart can also be used to visualise totals of various expenditures together in one
diagram. This will give the manager an idea of where spending is focused and possibly think
of ways to manage and lower these costs where possible.

• Presenting data.

How data is presented is always important and a lot of time and skill can be required to get
it right. There are often large quantities of data, for example, a hundred thousand items or
more. the presentation is one of the tools used to bring meaning to this data. Charts can be

Name: Gemal Dabab (ID: S45429002)

Unit Tutor(s): Bahman Parsapour 7
South & City College Birmingham
Division: Information and Communication Technology
BTEC Level 3 Diploma in IT – Group (2.2)
Unit No: 5 – Unit Title: Data modelling
Task No: 1
an excellent way to present data which is a great way to showcase the % of passes and fails
for a particle course in the language school also to present it to the sponsors as it makes it
much easier to understand.

Examples of Charts and Diagrams in Excel spreadsheet:

• Bar Chart:

A simple bar chart can used to compare the number of students attending which course and
compare them against each other to visually see which course has the highest demand.

No. of Students Attending per curse

350

300

250

200

150

100

50

0
English Arabic Spanish French German Dutch

• A Line Diagram

This is an effective tool to spot the trend and note which entry date has the highest demand
during the whole year. And marketing during the peak date can help further increase profit.

Name: Gemal Dabab (ID: S45429002)

Unit Tutor(s): Bahman Parsapour 8
South & City College Birmingham
Division: Information and Communication Technology
BTEC Level 3 Diploma in IT – Group (2.2)
Unit No: 5 – Unit Title: Data modelling
Task No: 1

Student TurnOver per academic year

2500

2000

1500

1000

500

0
jan feb march april may june july aug sept oct nov dec

We can see that June is the Month during which the Gallery School receives most newly
registered students

• Pie Charts

A pie chart is a great way to subdivide a total of an entity that is composed smaller fraction
and breaking these fractions into respective sizes by means of percentage weight.

So, the Gallery School can subdivide its total revenue into its smaller pieces that make up
the total and see which course is generating the most revenue.

Revenue generated per Language

11%

28%
11%

19%
11%

20%

English Arabic Spanish French German Dutch

Name: Gemal Dabab (ID: S45429002)

Unit Tutor(s): Bahman Parsapour 9