Which term describes a collection of related data held in structured format within a database?

The term that describes a collection of related data held in a structured format within a database is "tables." In database management systems, a table is a set of data organized in rows and columns, where each row represents a record and each column represents a field within that record. This structure allows for efficient data storage, retrieval, and management, making it easy to relate this data to other tables in the database.

Tables are integral to relational databases, where relationships among different tables can be established through keys, enabling users to perform complex queries and data manipulation. Thus, identifying and using tables is fundamental to understanding how data is organized and how databases function.

In contrast, rows refer specifically to individual records within a table, while fields represent the attributes of those records, corresponding to the columns in the table. Views serve a different purpose as they are virtual tables created from queries that present data from one or more tables, but they do not hold data themselves in a structured format. Therefore, the correct characterization of a structured collection of related data in a database is indeed a table.