More on Oracle APEX for Teaching and Learning

1. More on Oracle APEXfor Teaching and Learning Alastair Monger - al.monger@solent.ac.uk Sheila Baron - sheila.baron@solent.ac.uk Jing Lu - jing.lu@solent.ac.uk Faculty of TechnologySouthampton Solent UniversitySouthampton, SO14 0YN More on Oracle APEX for Teaching and Learning

2. What is Covered? • What is APEX, Aim of Paper and Course Context • Administration, Scalability and Reliability for Teaching • Teaching and Learning of Introductory Database Application Development • Promotion and Monitoring of Engagement and Feedback of Learning • Teaching and Learning of more Advanced Database Application Development • Summary and Conclusion More on Oracle APEX for Teaching and Learning

3. What is APEX (1), Aim of Paper (2), and Course Context (3) 1. Application Express (APEX) is essentially a free web-based development tool for building web-based database applications. 2. This paper aims to extend from the experiences of Tomlinson and Gardner (TLAD last year!) by focusing on an evaluation of APEX in respect of: • Administration, Scalability and Reliability for Teaching • Teaching and Learning of Introductory Database Application Development • Promotion and Monitoring of Engagement and Feedback of Learning • Teaching and Learning of more Advanced Database Application Development 3. (i) New “Introduction to Databases” unit at level 1 delivered to 150 students split into 9 groups (maximum 20) with 2 hours of mainly practical based class contact per week. (ii) Also at level 2 - “Database Application Development” More on Oracle APEX for Teaching and Learning

4. Administration, Scalability and Reliability for Teaching - 1 Essentially, shared APEX workspaces, each allocated to class, and mapped to the same OEHR Oracle schema. Each student is a “Developer” user. APEX Workspaces and their Administrators (Taken from the “Administration of the University APEX Development Environment” Appendix) More on Oracle APEX for Teaching and Learning

5. Administration, Scalability and Reliability for Teaching – 2 Figure 1 – View of the Users of one of the APEX Workspaces More on Oracle APEX for Teaching and Learning

6. Teaching and Learning of Introductory Database Application Development The students were required to develop (using 2-Day APEX Guide) an application which would enable HR users to view and manage locations (international company sites). This included: • A report of the locations. • A form which enables locations to be inserted, updated and deleted. • A home page containing links to these report and form pages. Figure 2 - Deployed APEX Application Assessment Results 1. Eventually, 90% of students successfully developed applications. 2. Other measures: “Average Time Taken” & “Application Errors” reasonable! (from the Monitoring Activity” facility discussed later) More on Oracle APEX for Teaching and Learning

7. Promotion and Monitoring of Engagement and Feedback of Learning - 1 “Application Window“ very useful! Figure 3 – View of the Applications of one of the APEX Workspaces More on Oracle APEX for Teaching and Learning

8. Promotion and Monitoring of Engagement and Feedback of Learning - 2 “Monitoring Activity” useful – but treat cautiously! Figure 4 – Page Views by User of the Workspace More on Oracle APEX for Teaching and Learning

9. Teaching and Learning of more Advanced Database Application Development Apex, also used for the first time this year, in our Level 2 database unit (used to use Oracle Forms). Aim: • To illustrate the pros and cons of such tools in relation to more specialist front end development tools • To overcome student belief (based on use of iSQL*Plus) that database vendors do not provide useable front end development tools Need to integrate Apex with ‘multi-user issues’: • Assessment 1: db design and implementation using SQL (this year basics) • Assessment 2: multi-user issues + db vendor specific front end development tool Second assessment requires a written report discussing one of : • Database access control (Apex  application based on views) • Database audit (Apex  application displays records created by a trigger) • Database concurrency (Apex  use of sequences for PKs) • Similar topic of student’s choice subject to tutor approval (eg database / XML integration). More on Oracle APEX for Teaching and Learning

10. Findings of Multi-user issues and Apex work Findings: Students like Apex (hated Oracle Forms) = helps with prejudice aim 2 Shared workspaces mean students can not use own db schemas for Apex work therefore appropriate views, triggers and sequences created by tutor = increases student confidence, can concentrate on reasons for using such schema objects rather than implementation (covered in first assessment) Apex activity monitoring was not as effective as expected in tracking students interfering with each other’s work = need other anti-plagiarism mechanisms (eg demos) Apex does not handle compound keys well = need to eliminate these from schema Student tend to want to concentrate on application level security features = opportunity for discussion on relative merits Next year (when students will already have completed new level 1 unit) there will be more scope as unit will cover stored procedures, XML integration in first semester

11. Summary and Conclusion Strengths/Issues in “Summary and Conclusion” . Very brief summary below: • Administration, Scalability and Reliability for Teaching Convenience of mapping a workspace to a class and schema … but limitations of shared workspaces • Teaching and Learning of Introductory Database Application Development 90% of students developed at least a basic application … but 10% struggled • Promotion and Monitoring of Engagement and Feedback of Learning Accessibility of “Application Window” and “Monitoring Activity” … but some statistics unclear • Teaching and Learning of more Advanced Database Application Development More usable (and likeable) than Oracle Forms … but compound keys and some other limitations Therefore generally positive evaluation – APEX is an appropriate tool for T&L of databases! More on Oracle APEX for Teaching and Learning