Oxford Computer Consultants was set the challenge by the Open University to develop a database system that would meet the needs of trainees, co-ordinators, supervisors and trainers.

Objectives of the training database:

• To match participants, courses, rooms and tutors
• To make effective use of available resources

Phases of development:

• Development of the core system, a minimum working system
• Introduction of enhancements to core system
• The core system developed in Phase One had to have the structure and 'hooks' to allow the subsequent Phases of the database to develop without constraint.

The database itself consisted of ten tables which contained information on:

• courses and course requests
• staff and students
• departments
• rooms available and their allocation
• time slots
• classes
• participant status

The database system uses MS Access to plan and record class schedules, allocate rooms and has full planning and reporting capacity.

The Open University