Need More Data

Each fall I teach an undergraduate course in database modeling.  In this course we learn how to design relational databases and use SQL to manipulate the database and the data within the tables.  It is a good course but we are challenged with the limited data in our databases.

I created sample databases for us to use to execute our SQL queries but these databases are limited in size (about 12 records in the transaction table).  As a result, we are not able to produce meaningful results from our queries.  This limitation takes away from our exercises but I don't have time to create the number of records we need for the database.  Also, we want the data to provide us with the ability to spot realistic trends to support more analysis of the data.  As a result, we not only need a large amount of data but it has to be realistic.

I would really like to get my hands on transactional data from a real company.  If we were able to dummy up the data (to protect the intellectual capital of the organization) we could create a relational database with this data and perhaps return some value to the organization through a set of queries they could use to analyze their own data.

Maybe I'll be able to get a hold of some data before the fall semester.