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Work-in-Progress CHI 2015, Crossings, Seoul, Korea Designing Interactive Query Interfaces to Teach Database Systems in the Classroom Lilong Jiang The Ohio State University Columbus, OH USA [email protected] Arnab Nandi The Ohio State University Columbus, OH USA [email protected] Abstract Database systems have often been considered an unexciting topic for undergraduate curricula. To remedy this, we describe a novel interactive electronic textbook for teaching undergraduate database systems courses. Designed for touch-driven tablets, the textbook embeds a fully capable database. Expressions, figures and explanations in the textbook are live, interactive elements. In contrast to canned illustrations and animations, students can interact with each textbook element. The rapid feedback loop with the database allows the user to explore and understand the full scope of valid and invalid queries to the database. Wireless connectivity allows the instructor to track classroom performance in real-time, merging textbook instruction with in-class demonstrations, allowing for the scaling out of classrooms. We discuss the design of this concept, and share a preliminary evaluation of a prototype implementation used in the classroom. Author Keywords Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s). Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). CHI’15 Extended Abstracts, April 18–23, 2015, Seoul, Republic of Korea. ACM 978-1-4503-3146-3/15/04. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2702613.2732900 databases; education; touch; interaction ACM Classification Keywords H.5.m [Information interfaces and presentation]: Miscellaneous. 1479 Work-in-Progress Figure 1: Interactive Textbook Prototype on the iPad CHI 2015, Crossings, Seoul, Korea Introduction Focus: Relational Algebra With the proliferation of data-driven processes in all walks of life, the ability to use, create and manipulate databases has become a necessary and important skill. Database education is needed at several levels – end-users are often unaware of the language to use to interact with the database. Users – both students and data practitioners – may also be unaware of the schema, i.e. organization of the database, or the data itself. In such cases, educational material about databases is a valuable tool, both from an educator’s and practitioner’s standpoint. Technologies that aid end-users with databases are highly valuable both from an educator’s and practitioner’s standpoint [2]. As a start, we focus on relational algebra, a typically hard-to-teach topic in databases. All elements of the text, e.g., formulae, figures, and long-form explanations are interactive and connect with a live database. For example, to explore the projection operation, tapping on one or more attributes of a relation generates a new projection, with the corresponding expression being rewritten in the text (Fig. 1 shows a prototype of this). Unlike canned animations with exactly one outcome, the user can try all possible combinations and internalize the principles of the projection operator. Interactive Features Given the ubiquity of computationally powerful smart phones and tablets amongst students in today’s classrooms, we envision a modern interactive electronic textbook (ebook) that embeds a feature-rich database directly into the ebook itself. Unlike traditional ebooks with animated figures and popups, the textbook is a live database that can be experimented with. For each component, our focus is on interacting with fundamentals and the data, allowing the user to intuit and internalize the concepts, instead of learning by rote. In this paper, we describe the design considerations of an interactive textbook built in the context of undergraduate database curriculum at Ohio State. While prior work in pedagogy using “clickers” [5], interactive control [4, 6] and Read-Eval-Print Loops (REPLs) [1] have focused on basic polls, math, and programming languages – applying it to database education is a compelling opportunity. This interactivity blurs the lines between textbook instructions and in-class exercises, and allows students to appreciate topics without requiring the tedious configuration or background instruction. The interactive features and user interface are illustrated in Figure 2. Each page in the book covers a different algebra operator, and is divided into two parts: the left part introduces a specific relational algebra operator, while the right part demonstrates the operator. Interactive Querying We build upon ideas from the direct manipulation-based Gestural Query Language [3], allowing for intuitive and user-friendly querying using touch cues. The desired features of an ideal query language include the direct manipulation, closure and composition, feedback, and expressivity. Specifically, users are able to perform queries directly with gestures on the relation and once the query is specified, the animation feedback will show how the query result is generated. As mentioned previously in an example, a projection query can be specified by tapping on one or more attributes. Once specified, the expression will be updated to show the current specified query. Then, the selected attributes will be highlighted and then moved into the result area. 1480 Work-in-Progress CHI 2015, Crossings, Seoul, Korea Reactive Text There are two types of reactive text in our document. One is used to explain the concept. For example, if users tap the “unary operation” reactive text, it will pop up a dialog to give an explanation of this concept. The other is used to represent a query, and when tapped, will trigger an execution over the sample data. Conversely, any interaction with the sample data changes the text to reflect the query, derived using Query-By-Example heuristics. For example, when users tap the reactive text of a query representation, the system will automatically issue this query and walk through the query to show how the query result is generated. If the user queries directly over the relation, the reactive text will be changed accordingly. will see the first selected attribute being included in the result set, followed by the second selected attribute, giving insight into the composability of projection operators. Relational Sandbox algebraic expression Name, Age ( Name = Anna (PEOPLE)) Anna 29 Figure 3: Relational Sandbox student usage )) instructor) insights) touch-driven interactive queries embedded relational database reactive text step-through controls results algebraic expression Figure 2: Direct Manipulation and Interactive Querying Step-by-step Querying In order to allow the student to revisit each step of the explanation, we provide a slider so that the student can control the animated query sequence and learn each operation at their own pace. For example, two attributes are selected in Figure 2, when users move the slider, they A relational sandbox is provided as the last page of ebook, where the student is shown a relation, and they can subset any part of that relation using touch actions, and the ebook will construct a sample relational expression for them based on the highlighted values, if possible. Figure 3 gives an example where a valid algebra expression is constructed according to the highlighted values. Real-time Analysis of Class Participation The network connectivity of the devices provides a novel opportunity for the instructor to gain real-time insights into usage. Since the ebook is in fact a web application, each student’s touch actions can be tracked from a central location, allowing for the instructor to have a real-time dashboard of in-class performance during the class itself. While similar ideas in interactive clickers [5] have been investigated, the insights here can be far more 1481 Work-in-Progress CHI 2015, Crossings, Seoul, Korea fine-grained, and do not require any extra action on the student’s part. Preliminary Results As a first step, we have prototyped a chapter on relational algebra, a typically hard-to-teach topic in databases. The system is implemented as a HTML / Javascript application with a backend written in python. In order to test whether our ebook helps users understand the relational algebra better, we performed an in-class study. We asked 24 students to use ebook to learn relational algebra, and conducted a post-class survey. For each relational algebra operator, we asked the students whether the ebook helped them understand the concept. As shown in Table 1, most students think the ebook helps them understand the relational algebra operators better. Conclusion We introduce a novel blend of a textbook and an interactive database query interface that aids students to understand relational algebra. The ebook allows students to issue queries interactively, observe the query process, and grasp a better understanding of the underlying database concepts. Preliminary survey results from an in-class trial of a prototype show that most students think the interactive textbook will help them understand relational algebra. Going forward, there are still several challenges that are needed to be addressed. For example, allowing users to input the relational algebra expression and observe the query results is a highly desirable feature. Additionally, expanding the relational algebra into other database concepts, for example SQL, is an ideal next step. Acknowledgements This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under CAREER award IIS-1453582. Table 1: Ebook Survey Operator Very Helpful Neutral Not Helpful Projection Selection Rename Union Intersection Difference Cartesian Product Inner Join Outer Join Sum Count Average Max Min 18 20 19 16 18 15 16 12 14 18 21 18 20 19 6 4 4 8 6 9 8 11 8 5 2 5 3 4 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 References [1] McDirmid, S. Usable Live Programming. SPLASH Onward! (2013). [2] Nandi, A. Breathing life into database textbooks. CIDR (2015). [3] Nandi, A., Jiang, L., and Mandel, M. Gestural Query Specification. VLDB (2014). [4] Papert, S. Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. Basic Books, Inc. (1980). [5] Schell, J., Lukoff, B., and Mazur, E. Catalyzing Learner Engagement Using Cutting-Edge Classroom Response Systems in Higher Ed. CTHE (2013). [6] Victor, B. Learnable Programming. Worrydream.com (2012). 1482