Many nonprofit organizations rely upon volunteers and fundraising events to supplement their operating budgets. Unfortunately, these budgets are often so tight that they do not allow for supplemental purchases beyond daily operations. Many nonprofit organizations would love to have volunteer help who could create software to meet their specific…

Continuing to fill the literature gap, this research replicated and expands a prior study of student performance in database normalization in an introductory database course. The data was collected from four different universities, each having different prerequisite courses for their database course. Student performance on a database normalization…

In this article we discuss the use of RapidMiner, a data science software platform, in a Database Management Systems course. For further understanding of the database and the skill learned, students are given an assignment to complete, to not only use another software beside SQL Server Management Studio but also translate their findings in a more…

SQL is taught in almost all university level database courses, yet SQL has received relatively little attention in educational research. In this study, we present a database management system independent categorization of SQL query errors that students make in an introductory database course. We base the categorization on previous literature,…

Conceptual modeling of databases is a complex cognitive activity, particularly for novice database designers. The current research empirically tests a new pedagogy for this activity. It examines an instructional approach that stresses visualizing gradual transitions between levels of abstraction in different hierarchic levels of a relational…

This article details the process the authors--a doctoral student at the time, and a faculty member--engaged in to change the ways the University of Iowa (UI) asks for and reports student name, gender pronouns, sex, and gender identity. The UI Inclusive Student Records Initiative raises implications for practice and research. Two focus groups--one…

Discovery layers provide a simplified interface for searching library resources. Libraries with limited finances make decisions about retaining indexing and abstracting databases when similar information is available in discovery layers. These decisions should be informed by student success at finding quality information as well as satisfaction…