Entity Framework Best Practices In Business Logic?

Question

I am using the Entity framework for the first time, and would like to know if I am using in the best practice.

I have created a separate class in my business logic

Answer 1

I would have the ctx as a private variable within each class, then create a new instance of this each time and then dispose when finished.

public class ArticleService
{
    private ArticleEntities _ctx;

    public ArticleService()
    {
        _ctx = new ArticleEntities();
    }

    public IEnumerable
 GetLatestArticles(bool Authorised) 
    {            
        return _ctx.Articles.Where(x => x.IsApproved == Authorised).OrderBy(x => x.ArticleDate);
    }

    public IEnumerable
 GetArticlesByMember(int MemberId, bool Authorised)
    {           
        return _ctx.Articles.Where(x => x.MemberID == MemberId && x.IsApproved == Authorised).OrderBy(x => x.ArticleDate);
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        _ctx.Dispose();
        _ctx = null;
    }

}

Then when calling this.

ArticleService articleService = new ArticleService();
IEnumerable
 article = articleService.GetLatestArticles(true);
articleService.Dispose(); // killing the connection

This way you can also add/update other objects within the same context and call a save method which saves any changes to the db through the Entity.