Results for “section_rule_id”

AI-generated from documented ETRM metadata — verify critical details on the linked pages.

Overview

OTA_SECTION_RULES is a transactional configuration table within the Oracle E-Business Suite Learning Management (OTA) module. Its purpose is to store the Question Bank assignment rules that govern how test questions are selected and assembled when an assessment is dynamically generated. The table records, for each combination of test and section, which question banks are eligible for use and how many questions should be drawn from each of those banks.

The table is functionally relevant only when the parent OTA_TEST record has TYPE_FLAG set to D, denoting a Rule-Based or Dynamic test. Static tests, which rely on explicitly enumerated question lists, do not consume the rows held here. Because the table joins a test and a section to a question bank, its characteristic role in a data model is that of a link (association) table, resolving a many-to-many relationship between test sections and question banks. The Data Vault classification above is a heuristic derived from the foreign key structure and should be treated as a modeling suggestion rather than a documented categorization.

Key Information Stored

The table defines thirteen documented columns, of which the following are the most significant for functional and reporting purposes:

• SECTION_RULE_ID — The surrogate primary key, enforced through OTA_SECTION_RULES_PK. It uniquely identifies each rule row and is the column other objects will reference.
• BUSINESS_GROUP_ID — The operating unit partition key that segregates data across business groups, essential to any multi-org query.
• TEST_ID — Foreign key to OTA_TESTS, identifying the parent assessment to which the rule belongs.
• SECTION_ID — Foreign key to OTA_TEST_SECTIONS, identifying the specific section of the test where the rule applies.
• QUESTION_BANK_ID — Foreign key to OTA_QUESTION_BANKS, defining the pool from which questions are drawn.
• NUMBER_OF_QUESTIONS — The count of questions to be pulled from the associated question bank for the section, which drives the generated test composition.
• SEQUENCE — Controls the ordering in which rules are evaluated or applied.
• OBJECT_VERSION_NUMBER — Optimistic locking column used by the application to detect concurrent updates.
• CREATED_BY, CREATION_DATE, LAST_UPDATE_DATE, LAST_UPDATED_BY, LAST_UPDATE_LOGIN — Standard EBS Who columns providing audit lineage.

Two unique indexes act as business-key candidates. OTA_SECTION_RULES_UK1 covers SECTION_ID combined with QUESTION_BANK_ID, ensuring a question bank is not associated with the same section more than once. OTA_SECTION_RULES_UK2 covers TEST_ID combined with QUESTION_BANK_ID, preventing a duplicated bank-to-test pairing. Together these constraints distinguish the surrogate key from the natural uniqueness rules that govern the data.

Common Use Cases and Queries

The primary operational use case is test generation. When a learner attempts a dynamic assessment, the application reads the rules for the test's sections and retrieves the configured number of questions from each designated bank. Administrators also use this data to audit and tune the composition of assessments.

A typical query retrieves all rules for a given test, joining to the section and bank definitions:

• SELECT sr.section_id, sr.question_bank_id, sr.number_of_questions, sr.sequence FROM ota_section_rules sr WHERE sr.test_id = :test_id ORDER BY sr.sequence;
• SELECT sr.test_id, ts.section_name, qb.bank_name, sr.number_of_questions FROM ota_section_rules sr JOIN ota_test_sections ts ON ts.section_id = sr.section_id JOIN ota_question_banks qb ON qb.question_bank_id = sr.question_bank_id WHERE sr.business_group_id = :bg_id;

Reporting scenarios include identifying tests that draw from a particular question bank, verifying the total question count configured per section, and detecting rule rows that overlap between the two unique-key constraints.

Related Objects

The table participates in three documented foreign key relationships and depends on the following objects:

• OTA_TESTS — Parent entity, joined via OTA_SECTION_RULES.TEST_ID. Its TYPE_FLAG determines whether these rules apply.
• OTA_TEST_SECTIONS — Joined via OTA_SECTION_RULES.SECTION_ID, defining the section to which each rule applies.
• OTA_QUESTION_BANKS — Joined via OTA_SECTION_RULES.QUESTION_BANK_ID, the source pool of questions.

These three foreign tables form the complete set of direct dependencies recorded in the ETRM metadata. Related dependent objects, such as the test generation application logic and question selection APIs within the OTA module, consume this table indirectly through these relationships.