The database group at University of Hagen
Authors: Schlageter Gunter , Berkel Thomas , Heuel Eberhard , Mittrach Silke , Scherer Andreas , Wilkes Wolfgang 
Published: November 2005

The database area has been one of those areas of computer
science which have very directly been driven by application
requirements; this is true today in three ways: First, the users
want more application specific support from the database, and they
expect the DBMS to have more semantic application knowledge.
Second, users want database support for new applications which are
sometimes far from the traditional database applications and
introduce completely new requirements as well as the need to
smoothly integrate database technology with other advanced
technologies (e.g. neural nets) in one application. Finally, the
embedding of databases into interactive work environments - for
instance, the use of databases in cooperative environments
(computer supported cooperative work) - forces the database
community to reconsider some of the traditional beliefs about
databases.

The Database Group at Hagen University has felt these
application pressures in various projects for quite a time. As a
consequence the emphasis of our research has shifted from database
core technology to application oriented research. Where the former
research projects were mainly centered around concurrency control,
recovery, distribution, and other "classical" database topics, the
new research projects are concerned with the support of design
environments, where design includes all activities of developing
complex artifacts and, in addition, usually involves the
cooperation of a variety of people. Design here includes areas like
mechanical CAD, software engineering, VLSI-design, multimedia
production and many others. A characteristic of design in all these
areas is the use of a variety of heterogeneous tools which leads to
complicated interoperability and integration issues.

A key motivating factor in our work on design-environments is
concurrent engineering which certainly is one of today's major
industrial 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 in
prominent 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 an
integrated way, computer based training and multimedia learning
material, access to all sorts of information bases, communication
facilities, conferencing systems, and simulation, experimentation
and exercising environments. Such systems are not only important
for the changing needs of university education (first of all
continuing education), but also for industrial education and
training systems, especially in geographically decentralized
organizations. While this work is not a primarily database centered
one, databases play a key role as the repositories for distributed
hypermedia information.

Part of our work in this second research area involves
developing advanced teaching material for computer based learning
in computer science, and in cooperation with other faculties, in
areas like mathematics, humanities, economy, and history.

The Database Group in Hagen, including the computer based
learning group, consists of about 20 scientists and technicians.
About half of these are financed by research and development
contracts. A special unit is concerned with technology transfer and
database testing for certain types of applications. Closely
connected to the Database Group is the <i>Institute for
Automation, Production and Information Management.</i> This
institute was founded by three different groups of Hagen
University: an economics group with a special background in PPS, an
automation group with the key area robotics, and our group. This
institute acts as a platform for industry projects.

The research in the Hagen Database Group is not narrow focused
but tries to address the multi-faceted problems of design and
learning environments from different angles. The major projects are
described in the following, together with the main members of the
research teams. For each project, a small selection of publications
is listed.