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Database Courseware: Functionality and Classroom Usage. http://coffee.kennesaw.edu NSF Grant: 008914. Mario Guimaraes mguimara@kennesaw.edu. Recent Improvements. Recovery (Logical versus Physical writes) Concurrency – Triggers SQL: distinct, outer join, order by clauses
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Database Courseware: Functionality and Classroom Usage http://coffee.kennesaw.edu NSF Grant: 008914 Mario Guimaraesmguimara@kennesaw.edu
Recent Improvements Recovery (Logical versus Physical writes) Concurrency – Triggers SQL: distinct, outer join, order by clauses More description in the concurrency modules Making more friendly w/ more help windows • Set of Exams for each topic • Evaluations
Mission • Tutorials, exercises and animations to help understand fundamentals of database systems.
Problem/Motivation • It is difficult to communicate breadth and depth of concepts in a single course. • Most schools follow a similar structure to KSU. 1 core db class CSIS3310 1 elective db class CSIS4310 graduate Database classes but not a standard as to what is taught.
NSF-CCLI-EMD (proof-of-concept) • 2 year, 75K • Originality • Evaluation • Dissemination
Related Research & Uniqueness • Animations have been successful in programming courses • Very little coursewarethat focus on databases • Arizona State University at Dietrich, Suzanne; Urban, Susan D., • WinRDBI (Relational Algebra, Tuple Calculus, Domain Calculus, SQL) • 2nd DB Course (OODBMS, ORDBMS, DB on WWW, etc.)
Method of Use • Display one Exercise in Scenario (Problem Specification) to E-R E-R to Tables Normalization, Denormalization, SQL procedural animation SQL construction SQL animation through Relational Alg. Embedded SQL Concurrency, Recovery, Triggers Assign exercises related to the scenario
Evaluations • Forms filled out by students and instructors at Kennesaw State University • Evaluations requested at End of Semester evaluations (Improvement) • Control Groups (Objective) • Evaluations by Faculty and Students from other campuses (7 Faculty, one Provost and two Oracle DBA) • Evaluation by measuring amount being used • Evaluation built into the software
Result • 94% of students find the implementations helpful to understanding the topics. • “1) ER to Tables understand versus memorizing 2) SQL queries: associates known code with unknown (multiple code windows), Reduces learning time. 3) Concurrency: allows students to control their own pace. Reduces learning time. Students who are unsatisfied with the class as well as the satisfied students praised the software • Faculty: high evaluations of the software • Control groups showed students who used the software obtained better results in the SQL model • 10 institutions evaluated the software.
Dissemination • Conferences – SIGCSE, ACM/SE, Others • Papers, Workshops, Birds-of-Feathers • Direct Contact w/ Faculty from other Institutions • Addison Wesley, Navathe, etc. • International
Main Suggestions Received • Not a Standard Interface (Java, VB, Flash) • Problem Specification to Diagram Module • Lacks module for Faculty to insert their own problems • Needs more exercise • Flash part is too flashy • Java needs to be more flashy • VB: doesn’t run on some computers • NSF: conclude evaluation report
CCLI-EMD (full proposal) • Interactive Tests mapped to Animations • New Exercises. More advanced topics and/or creating more examples in current topics ?? • Defining Standard Interface. Which Interface to choose: Java or Flash ?
