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    A school maintains a database of students' details and teaching resources on a central server. This data can be accessed by all teachers in the school.

    Question
    SLPaper 2

    A school maintains a database of students' details and teaching resources on a central server. This data can be accessed by all teachers in the school.

    Teachers may need to edit resources when preparing their lessons.

    When storing student details, data security is an important consideration.

    The school has appointed a database administrator (DBA).

    A DBA is required to carry out tasks such as ensuring there is a strategy to recover the database if it becomes corrupted and that the data is shared ethically.

    1.

    Suggest how the privacy of student data can be ensured.

    [3]
    Verified
    Solution

    Method #1

    latex{latex}latex\bullet$ Data masking or data obfuscation 1 mark

    • is the process of hiding original data with random characters 1 mark
    • e.g.: suppressing certain characters in the student address, student id etc. 1 mark

    Method #2

    latex{latex}latex\bullet$ Data encryption 1 mark

    • Conversion of data into non-readable gibberish creates highly secure results such as scrambling the student_ID 1 mark
    • The only way to gain access to the data is to unlock it with a key or password which only those authorized can access 1 mark
    2.

    Explain how concurrent use of the school database is possible in this situation.

    [3]
    Verified
    Solution

    Method #1

    Data masking or data obfuscation:

    • Is the process of hiding original data with random characters 1 mark
    • Example: suppressing certain characters in the student address, student ID, etc. 1 mark

    Data encryption:

    • Conversion of data into non-readable gibberish creates highly secure results such as scrambling the student ID 1 mark
    • The only way to gain access to the data is to unlock it with a key or password which only those authorized can access 1 mark

    Note

    Maximum 3 marks

    Explain how concurrent use of the school database is possible in this situation:

    • The ability of a database to allow multiple teachers to affect multiple transactions 1 mark
    • Allowing concurrent processing while ensuring transaction isolation 1 mark
    • Thus, ensuring the update of one teacher does not affect the update of another teacher 1 mark
    • While one transaction (by a teacher) is accessing a resource from a shared folder, it places a lock, an access restriction, on the resource, controlling the level of access allowed by another transaction by another teacher A1

    3

    3.

    Describe two ways that data security in the school's database can be maintained.

    [4]
    Verified
    Solution

    Way 1

    Minimizing permissions: 1 mark Restrict users to have permission only to the means to do their job. Some can view, modify and insert, while some can only view etc. 1 mark

    Way 2

    Auditing changes: 1 mark Log changes made to teachers and permissions through auditing. This gives a trail to follow should you have problems. Without authorization, no one gets grant of permissions. 1 mark

    Note

    Award [4 max]

    Note

    Award [1] for identifying a way of maintaining data security and [1] for a development up to [2 max]

    Note

    Mark as [2] and [2]

    4.

    Describe one strategy that could be used to ensure the data can be recovered if the database becomes corrupted.

    [2]
    Verified
    Solution

    Strategy #1

    Back-up; 1 mark Back-up copies of the entire database are made to ensure the database can be restored to the most updated version if it becomes corrupted; 1 mark

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    Related topics

    A.1 Basic conceptsA.2 The relational database modelA.3 Further aspects of database management

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