Customer Reviews

Microsoft Office Access 2007: Introductory Concepts and Techniques (Shelly Cashman Series)

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it's a brief presentation of Access 2007 - three chapters, a special feature emphasizing web-related topics, seven appendices, and a Quick Reference Summary, but that's enough for you to learn and understand the basics of Access 2007.

Each chapter presents a project and its complete solution in an easy-to-understand approach. PLAN AHEAD BOXES get you ready to create projects by getting you to think strategically about what you want to do way before you start to work. Once you're ready there will be STEP-BY-STEP, SCREEN-BY-SCREEN INSTRUCTIONS with each step explaining why you're doing what you've been asked to do, or showing you the result of performing a certain action. Found on the screen accompanying each step, but not in an obtrusive way, are CALL-OUTS that present information you'll need to know when you need to know it. EXPLANATORY CALL-OUTS are in black and summarize what's happening on the screen while NAVIGATIONAL CALL-OUTS in red show you where to click. Found within many of the step-by-step sequences are Q&As that raise the kinds of questions you would ask if you were sitting in front of an instructor. EXPERIMENTAL STEPS get you to explore, experiment, and get confident with that new Office 2007 user interface. OTHER WAYS BOXES AND QUICK REFERENCE SUMMARIES at the end of most of the step-by-step sequences show other ways to do a given task. BTW (by the way) is in the margin and provide (more) background information, tips, and answers to common questions that complement the topics covered.

How the book is laid out: CHAPTER ONE Creating and Using a Database: Designing a Database, Creating a Database, Creating a Table, Previewing and Printing the Contents of a Table, Creating Additional Tables, Creating a Report, Using a Form to View Data, Changing Document Properties. CHAPTER TWO Querying a Database: Creating Queries, Entering Criteria, Sorting, Joining Tables, Calculations, Crosstab Queries. CHAPTER THREE Maintaining a Database: Updating Records, Filtering Records, Changing the Database Structure, Mass Changes, Validation Rules, Changing the Appearance of a Datasheet, Multivalued Field in Queries, Referential Integrity, Ordering Records, Special Database Operations.

Each of these chapters end with ... MORE ... information and really fun Web-based exercises and games. Then comes a section on the INTEGRATION FEATURE: Sharing Data Among Applications, Importing or Linking Data from Other Applications to Access, Exporting Data from Access to Other Applications, and XML.

Appendices abound: A - Project Planning Guidelines, B - Introduction to Office 2007, C - Access 2007 Help, D - Publishing Office 2007 Web Pages to a Web Server, E - Customizing Access 2007, F - Steps for the Windows XP User (the book was written for Vista users, it's funny because I didn't find too many problems using it with XP Professional), G - Business Certification Program.

But what I love dearly about this - and the other Shelly Cashman 2007 books - are the Student Activities (and the hand-holding, as described above, that goes along with these books. (I have all 2007 desktop application manuals.) Along with the project you're working on are extensive hands-on activities at the end of each chapter that help you reinforce what you've just learned, and it does it with PLENTY hands-on assignments, some of which may challenge you to think and apply what you've just learned.

I've never seen the Instruction Edition for sale here, but that's not to say it doesn't exist. For instructors, there are resources available on a CD, so they say. That CD includes teaching and testing aids, like an INSTRUCTOR'S MANUAL that has Access files, chapter objectives, lecture notes, teaching tips, classroom activities, lab activities, quick quizzes, figures and boxed elements summarized in the chapters, and a glossary page. Files called the LECTURE SUCCESS SYSTEM correspond to certain figures in the book, allowing the teacher to step through the creation of a project in a chapter during a lecture without entering large amounts of data. There's SAMPLE SYLLABI, which can be easily customized. The syllabi cover policies, class and lab assignments and exams, and procedural information. FIGURE FILES for every figure in the book are available in electronic form ready to present as a slide show or to print transparences. POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS provide slides for each chapter with presentations based on chapter objectives. SOLUTIONS are included for end-of-chapter exercises, as well as the chapter reinforcement exercises. RUBRICS AND ANNOTATED SOLUTION FILES provide a customizable framework for assigning point values to laboratory exercises. Annotated solution files correspond to the grading rubrics making it easy for the teacher to compare students' results with the correct solutions whether their homework was received as hard copy or e-mail. In the TEST BANK & TEST ENGINE (ExamView), you get standard question types (multiple-choice, true/false, completion) and objective-based question types (modified multiple-choice, modified true/false and matching). Critical Thinking questions are also included (essays and cases with questions each) for every chapter with page number references, and when appropriate, figure references. A version of the test bank can also be printed if that's what you prefer. The test bank comes with a copy of the test engine, ExamView. LAB TESTS and TEST OUT EXERCISES parallel the In the Lab assignments and are supplied for the purpose of testing students in the lab on the material covered in the chapter or testing students out of the course. And of course, the DATA FILES for students.

Pretty excellent for an "introduction" to the application.

UPDATE: In order to get the best learning experience from the Shelly Cashman "Introductory" books for Office 2007 apps is to also have handy some other instructional text to back it up ... because you WILL be left wondering. Sometimes an Office 2003 text will help if you can find a way to adapt it to the 2007 software, but because Office 2007 is far more powerful than Office 2003, you may still be left wanting. If you're going with this particular series, try to get either the "Complete" or "Comprehensive" levels for the application you want to learn. Mind you, the "Introductory" issue is a great basic book: lots of hands-on projects, written instructions, pictures, explanations, etc., etc. But, going straight for the "Complete" edition will net you not only new information and more projects and stuff, but you'll get ALL of the "Introductory" edition. If you can go all out and get the "Comprehensive" edition you'll receive - in that one book - ALL of the "Introductory" edition AND ALL of the "Complete" edition, AS WELL AS whatever two or three chapters were added to make it deserve a "Comprehensive" distinction.

But there's something that's maddening about all of these books. Nowhere in the independent hands-on exercises will you see an example of what it looks like if you've correctly completed a project - know what I mean? If you're teaching yourself, you want that feature. It's helpful. Another thing it does is get cute and throw at you an instruction to create or do something that hasn't yet been introduced - so how would you know how to accomplish and finish the project? That's not useful, it's not cute, and for what the book costs, it sure as hell ain't funny. Fortunately, Maryland has a fantastic library system and I'm able to borrow whatever "Comprehensive" edition I need. But for those of you who don't have that resource, take heed to what I said in the beginning, or maybe you can get your hands on an Instructor's edition that more than likely has everything we're missing as mere students.

Got this book to learn Access. It's very helpful, user-friendly, well-organized. I've quickly learned how to use this very complex program with the excellent resources in this book and offered through Shelly/Cashman. Highly recommend this to self-taught data managers.

book arrived quickly and in better condition than i expected from an online source...i would definitely do business with again.

If you find yourself having to use Access for a living I suggest a different job. Access is like Excel on Steroids and its bore muscles really develop quite well with great definition.
Access is the program you wake up to in the afterlife when you have been bad all your life.

I had accidentally ordered the wrong book, and I have returned it. I'm sure it's a great book, but I just didn't need it at this time.