Retrieval Number: B3524078219/19©BEIESP
DOI: 10.35940/ijrte.B3524.078219
International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE)
ISSN: 2277-3878, Volume-8 Issue-2, July 2019
5418
Published By:
Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
& Sciences Publication
Abstract: Innovations in information technology resources hae
given wings to the development and advancements of new age
learning environments. This chapter reviews some of the existing
virtual laboratories and proposes a virtual laboratory for
Database sytems. The proposed Database virtual laboratory is a
complete Learning Management System(LMS), which has been
designed after careful consideration of all the necessary
parameters for any LMS like the pedagogy of teaching and
learning, student engagement, pitfalls, and cognitive levels. The
use of our own Database Management System (GU_DB) in the
Virtual laboratory has proved significantly advantageous in terms
of student and teacher communication. The students rating in a
questionnaire after the end of the evaluation phase showed
encouraging results.
Index Terms: Computer Science Education, Database Systems,
Learning Centric Pedagogy, Virtual Laboratory.
I. INTRODUCTION
Laboratory work is an integral part of computer science
courses. The rise of technological advancements has led to
innovations and improvement in the online educational
system, including online learning courses. The innovative
approaches help the courses to be designed as per the
changing requirements of the next generation learning. In
order to achieve effective learning for science subjects,
laboratory work should be integrated with e-Learning
environments. For courses like Computer Science laboratory
work is an integral part of learning, thus providing a virtual
laboratory environment for computer science courses can
prove beneficial for effective learning.
Virtual laboratories offer flexibility allowing students to
visit laboratories at their convenient time and enabling them
to revise concepts as and when needed. Additionally, Virtual
laboratories are beneficial in situations where the students are
deprived of the laboratory infrastructure or have insufficient
access to the laboratory resources.
The joint ACM-IEEE Curriculum Task Force (1989)
recommends that computer science courses should be
supported by extensive laboratory work. Kuox et al. (1996)
discuss the ACM working group on computing Laboratories
guidelines for the use of laboratories in computer science
education. It discusses the relevance between the lecture and
Revised Manuscript Received on July 22, 2019.
Bhumika Shah, Department of Computer Science, Gujarat University,
Ahmedabad, India.
Dr. Jyoti Pareek, Department of Computer Science, Gujarat University,
Ahmedabad, India.
Sandip Patel, Department of Computer Science, Gujarat University,
Ahmedabad, India
Vivek Patel, Department of Computer Science, Gujarat University,
Ahmedabad, India.
the laboratory, the pedagogy, the support of other resources
like internet, teacher, institute, technology, etc. In computer
science courses, laboratories are an integral part of the
learning experience. The instructors must consider all the
objectives of the subject while designing tasks for
laboratory-related work. The Learning objectives provide a
clear idea about the outcome expected from the course getting
designed. As, In today’s world, students are turning towards
e-Learning environment, it is essential that e-Learning
environments integrate virtual laboratories to provide
complete learning.
This paper describes the development of a Virtual
laboratory in Database systems, which is a complete Learning
Management System, with clear Learning objectives designed
for the student. The system has been developed, keeping in
mind all the cognitive levels. A learning-centric pedagogy is
followed in the Learning management system to ensure that a
balance is maintained between student-centric and
teacher-centric pedagogy. The pedagogical perspective helps
in providing the much-required guidance to the students,
which is often lacking in many online environments. The
virtual laboratory aims to provide advanced technological and
pedagogical experience to the user. The heart of the Virtual
laboratory developed is the database management system
used in the background. In the earlier part of the research,
authors have developed their own Database management
system(GU_DB), which is used in the Database virtual
laboratory in the back-end as the database. The database
virtual laboratory is carefully designed to provide specific
hints to the user so that when the user makes any mistake
while writing the SQL queries, the hints help the users to
recall the concepts learned and hence the student can learn
from his own mistakes (pitfalls). The effectiveness of the
system was evaluated by recording the learning experience of
postgraduate students of computer science department after
using Database Virtual laboratory. The students rating in a
questionnaire after the end of the evaluation phase showed
encouraging results
RELATED WORK
A whole heap of research already exists on e-Learning
systems and different online learning materials or learning
courses. However, all those e-Learning contents involve
delivering the content only; very few of them include live
student interaction or student engagement. In the past,
researchers have suggested that the learning activities should
be adaptive based on the
environment and student needs.
It promotes courseware reuse
and adaptive educational
Database Virtual Laboratory for Guided
Learning
Bhumika Shah, Jyoti Pareek, Sandip Patel, Vivek Patel