Database Courseware: Functionality and Classroom Usage Mario Guimaraes NSF Grant:

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 CSIS 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 courseware that 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 ?

Main Contributers Dr.Myers Steven Setzer Students in Directed Studies Senior Class Projects

Possible projects for Students 1) Implementing New Animations Pre-requisite: Java, Flash, or Visual Basic. 2) Evaluating and Designing Database Courseware. Pre-requisite: CSIS3310 or Database experience.

Illustration of ERD Conversion (p.1-2)

Illustration of ERD Conversion (p.2-2)

SQL Queries - Construction

SQL Query Animation w/Procedural Code

SQL animation w/ Relational Algebra

Concurrency – Simple Example

Concurrency – Credit Card Example