DE Oracle @ UMUC

Interview Transcript: Database Systems Technologies Track

Yulia Nemchinova

Usability Specialist - IT

Graduate School of Management and Technology

Published: 0 2004

Category: » University-showcase » Classes-programs

Yulia: Hello. I'm Yulia Nemchinova , Distance Education. Today we're delighted to meet with Dr. Mary Hoferek , who is a Program Director for Database Systems Technologies Track.

Mary: Thank you very much, Yulia. It's a pleasure for me to be here. As you know, I'm always delighted to be talking about database technology. And I want to thank you for your interest in our program and for this opportunity to talk about it.

Yulia: Thank you. My first question would be to you, Mary, if you could please tell us a little bit about the Database Systems Technologies Track. I know you've put a lot of effort to make this program what it has become today. And if you just please could tell us a little bit how this program differs from other programs in the area.

Mary: Sure. Really there are two key things about this program that make it unique. The first is the fact that we have a nice depth of course offerings. As you know, we have eight courses as part of our track. And we also have a remote access laboratory, which really gives our students the opportunity to apply concepts and theories and to learn by doing hands-on exercises. And I think that really is a key component for our program.

Yulia: Could you please tell what courses today are offered as a Database Systems Track? You know I've been a student in this track and at that time you only had two courses, one was the relational databases and another advanced relational databases. What else do you have today?

Mary: We have eight courses. And you're right, many, many programs have two courses. But we have eight. And the first is a basic relational database course. It's designed for students with no background in database technology. And then we have an advanced relational with some object relational at the very end of that course. The third course we have is distributed databases. And as you know, this is a very hot area now because a lot of the mobile capabilities are having small database components. We also have an object-oriented database course because that course really has, or that technology has really influenced the relational database area. We also have a data-warehousing course, which is a very popular course because it's an area where a lot of development is going on today. We have a data-mining course where students can go in and actually try to do some data mining. We have a database administration course, which allows students to get some of the basic knowledge and skills to become database administrators. And last, our newest addition is a database security course. And we are very pleased to have that opportunity to offer the course. As you know, security is a very hot topic right now, and it's also a very important topic. So we are pleased to be able to add this to our curriculum. So those are basically the eight courses then that we have as part of our program today.

Yulia: This is good. This sounds pretty well like a very strong program. What do you think, well, besides the course offerings that you have so many courses to offer, what other things do you may find that attract students to take classes in your program?

Mary: I think right now the database technology area is a very hot one because there are a lot of changes going on. And it's also an area where a lot of the basic underpinnings for our society are based on databases; for example, any banking system, any stock market system, any healthcare system, certainly our defense missions. And just a whole cadre of applications is resting on database technology. So it's an area that affects our lives on a daily basis. And it's an area that a lot of people therefore have an interest in. I think the second reason that we're seeing a lot of students coming into our program is that there's a lot of innovation going on right now in the database arena. So there's a lot to learn. And there's a lot of nice technical challenges that UMUC students tend to be attracted to. And lastly, I think students are interested in our database program because of our online, or rather our remote access laboratory capability. UMUC students are students who like to take technology and apply it. And they like to try to do some hands-on exercises to expand on their knowledge of theory and concepts. And that's really a key component for our curriculum is the database laboratory.

Yulia: About the remote access laboratory, if you could please tell a little bit more how this operates, what kind of hardware and software you already have and offer to our students?

Mary: Well, I think we're very lucky because we have servers that allow us to have our students dial in and come in from their home terminals. So we have the ability for students who are around the world, as long as they have an Internet connection and can hold that Internet connection, they can come into our servers. And that gives us a lot of capability to provide that access to our students. We also have onsite laboratories for our students. And we serve face-to-face students, as well as our online students with this capability. We currently have Oracle. We have a very nice partnership with the Oracle Corporation, and we're very grateful for that opportunity to provide a state-of-the-art environment for our students. As I said, I think the laboratory is something that our students really like and it's something that enhances our capability. In addition, we're trying to get workbooks for each of our courses. We're not there yet, but we're trying to because when I first started, my chairman said to me, “Can you design a laboratory experience for students who come from different backgrounds, who have different capabilities, and who may be in different places?” For example, he said, “Can you design a laboratory experience for one of our soldier students who are in a foxhole someplace?” And with the exercises we have, it's fairly open. In other words, we have students designing their own small databases. And so we can accommodate students, for example, who are interested in biotechnology. They can create a small database with a biotechnology application. Or we can have students who just design home systems, things where they keep track of CDs or something like that. And because it's open-ended, we can accommodate a lot of students, including our soldier students who might be in a foxhole somewhere. So it's a standalone laboratory experience, and it's something that I think our students are very responsive to.

Yulia: I also would like to ask you about the Database Lab Web page that we have to support the database courses.

Mary: Actually I'm glad you asked that question because, as you know, you were really one of the key components in terms of, or a key person in terms of designing that Web page. And through that we actually, I would say, reduced the questions that students ask of us by 98%. It has been a very, very effective tool for us to use. Our students come in and they can figure out how to access our servers. They can link in and download software. And they can actually see through those Web pages how to access and work with our system. So they have been a very, very effective tool for us. And we really appreciate your doing it.

Yulia: Well, I was just an implementer of your idea. I think I'm not mistaken; the idea comes from you, right?

Mary: Well, you were very effective at it.

Yulia: Thank you. The last question I have is what are your plans for the database program track?

Mary: Right now, particularly given our budget constraints, we probably will not have new courses being designed and developed. And right now I think we have a tremendously rich course offering anyways. But what I'd like to see is increased laboratory capability. We have some software that we haven't been able to install yet. We'd like to have more workbooks developed so that our students can in fact have samples of code that run in all of the database courses. And we'd really I think focus on the laboratory component in trying to bring new tools and install those tools into our laboratory. So that's going to be the focus, and I think the other thing is we'd like to enhance the course content offerings and try to move from a text-based system to other types of offerings and content control.

Yulia: Well, thank you very much for the interview, Mary. It was really nice to talk to you. Thank you.

Mary: Well, I want to thank you, Yulia, for all of your support for the database program. And I'd also like to thank the UMUC administration. And also our students for their support and encouragement as we've designed and developed these courses. The students in particular have been wonderful. They've been wonderfully responsive and they really, you know, some days I'd come in and I'd think, oh, we're really trying hard, we're working hard. But are our students getting what we are trying to offer them? And I just had a very nice email from one our students. He's unfortunately in Iraq, but he was talking about his fond memories of UMUC, and how much the database program meant to him. And that's the kind of thing that I'd like to see, is to have our students come back and say, you know, you really helped us out. It was a great program. We had a wonderful experience there. And that's really what it's all about. So, I appreciate the students in particular being patient as we've gone through these changes, and also the wonderful support we've had.

END