The Database Group at University of Hagen

Abstract

The database area has been one of those areas of computerscience which have very directly been driven by applicationrequirements; this is true today in three ways: First, the userswant more application specific support from the database, and theyexpect the DBMS to have more semantic application knowledge.Second, users want database support for new applications which aresometimes far from the traditional database applications andintroduce completely new requirements as well as the need tosmoothly integrate database technology with other advancedtechnologies 1995 in one application. Finally, theembedding of databases into interactive work environments - forinstance, the use of databases in cooperative environments(computer supported cooperative work) - forces the databasecommunity to reconsider some of the traditional beliefs aboutdatabases. The Database Group at Hagen University has felt theseapplication pressures in various projects for quite a time. As aconsequence the emphasis of our research has shifted from databasecore technology to application oriented research. Where the formerresearch projects were mainly centered around concurrency control,recovery, distribution, and other “classical” database topics, thenew research projects are concerned with the support of designenvironments, where design includes all activities of developingcomplex artifacts and, in addition, usually involves thecooperation of a variety of people. Design here includes areas likemechanical CAD, software engineering, VLSI-design, multimediaproduction and many others. A characteristic of design in all theseareas is the use of a variety of heterogeneous tools which leads tocomplicated interoperability and integration issues. A key motivating factor in our work on design-environments isconcurrent engineering which certainly is one of today's majorindustrial challenges. For computer science it opens new problems,and at the same time it requires integration of different fields.The above mentioned new requirements for databases apply inprominent ways, including the issues of managing complex data,interoperability and integration, and support of teamwork. The second research area is distributed learning environments.We are working towards systems that in future will offer, in anintegrated way, computer based training and multimedia learningmaterial, access to all sorts of information bases, communicationfacilities, conferencing systems, and simulation, experimentationand exercising environments. Such systems are not only importantfor the changing needs of university education (first of allcontinuing education), but also for industrial education andtraining systems, especially in geographically decentralizedorganizations. While this work is not a primarily database centeredone, databases play a key role as the repositories for distributedhypermedia information. Part of our work in this second research area involvesdeveloping advanced teaching material for computer based learningin computer science, and in cooperation with other faculties, inareas like mathematics, humanities, economy, and history. The Database Group in Hagen, including the computer basedlearning group, consists of about 20 scientists and technicians.About half of these are financed by research and developmentcontracts. A special unit is concerned with technology transfer anddatabase testing for certain types of applications. Closelyconnected to the Database Group is the Institute forAutomation, Production and Information Management. Thisinstitute was founded by three different groups of HagenUniversity: an economics group with a special background in PPS, anautomation group with the key area robotics, and our group. Thisinstitute acts as a platform for industry projects. The research in the Hagen Database Group is not narrow focusedbut tries to address the multi-faceted problems of design andlearning environments from different angles. The major projects aredescribed in the following, together with the main members of theresearch teams. For each project, a small selection of publicationsis listed. © 1995, ACM. All rights reserved.