The database group at University of Hagen
Authors: Gunter Schlageter, Thomas Berkel, Eberhard Heuel, Silke Mittrach, Andreas Scherer, Wolfgang Wilkes
Venue: ACM SIGMOD Record (1995)

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.