Database design: Best way to represent checkbox optional items?

Question

I have a table in MySQL that holds information about a users licence which has 15 optional qualifications that they may possess on their licence. These are represented as 15 checkboxes on the web form.

Is there a good way to store this information other than just having 15 BOOLs in the table with them being set True or False accordingly?

Thanks

Answer 1

A good way to approach this would be to have three tables:

1. Your table that holds details of user licence e.g. userLicence
2. A table holding a list of all checkbox options e.g. licenceOption
3. A mapping table detailing which options are applicable to which userLicence e.g. userLicenceOptionMapping