Data Warehousing in the Context of a Bologna
Undergraduate Degree
José Victor Ramos
Informatics Engineering Department
Polytechnic Institute of Leiria
Leiria, Portugal
jose.ramos@ipleiria.pt
Abstract—Facing the incessant growth of data that
organizations have to deal with on a daily basis, decision support
systems and data warehousing techniques assume a vital
importance in supporting the decision making process. Taking
this necessity in consideration, the Bologna process was an
opportunity to introduce data warehousing competences in the
undergraduate degree of Informatics Engineering at Polytechnic
Institute of Leiria (IPL). The paper focus some aspects related
with this adaptation, the difficulties and challenges during the
implementation process and the solutions adopted, towards an
effective acquisition of competences by students.
Keywords—data warehousing; decision support systems;
acquisition of competences; Bologna process; Informatics
Engineering
I. INTRODUCTION
In the past few years there was a rapid growth in the
decision support systems’ industry since most of the
organizations understood the strategic importance of these
systems in data analysis and supporting the decision making
process. With an increasing demand of skilled professionals in
this area, higher education institutions are responsible for
giving an appropriate answer to marketplace needs.
The Bologna process presented an opportunity for higher
education institutions to fulfill these marketplace needs,
adapting their curricula, in order to improve educational quality
and to guarantee that students acquire competences to enter
immediately in the marketplace after finishing an undergraduate
degree. Facing this reality, some of the competences typically
belonging to pre-Bologna graduate degrees, with five years
duration, were shifted to undergraduate degrees, with three
years duration. The course of Decision Support Systems
exemplifies this change, since it belonged to the 8th semester of
a graduate degree, while in the Bologna framework it receded
to the 4th semester. Adding this course to the curriculum was a
challenge and the implementation revealed more complex than
initially expected in the adaptation plan [1].
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes how
the course relates to the rest of the Informatics Engineering
curriculum, the course objectives and the techniques used in
instruction and assessment. Section 3 describes course
operation, with particular emphasis on theoretical, laboratory
and tutorial classes, the team project, knowledge assessment, as
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Rui Oliveira
Informatics Engineering Department
Polytechnic Institute of Leiria
Leiria, Portugal
rui.oliveira@ipleiria.pt
well as the challenges we faced and the feedback from the
students. Section 4 focus the software tools used in the course.
Finally, the conclusions and further developments are
summarized in section 5.
II. COURSE CONTEXT
The undergraduate degree in Informatics Engineering has a
three years duration, with 180 ECTS (European Credit Transfer
and Accumulation System), and two specializations,
Information Systems (IS) and Information and Communication
Technologies (ICT). In the beginning of the 4th semester, the
student selects the specialization he/she wants to pursue. Each
specialization has four main profiles, with Software Engineer
common to both. The other profiles for IS specialization are
Database Engineer, Knowledge Engineer and Enterprise
Information Systems Engineer. For ICT specialization the
profiles are Systems Engineer, Network Engineer and
Multimedia Engineer.
Decision Support Systems course integrates the Database
Engineer and Knowledge Engineer profiles. The course
belongs to the 4th semester and has 30 hours for theoretical
classes, 45 hours for laboratory classes, 5 hours for tutorial
classes and 82 hours of autonomous student work, totalizing
162 hours, the equivalent to 6 ECTS.
In the following a short description of the objectives/skills,
teaching/learning methodology and assessment methodology is
presented.
A. Objectives/Skills
The main goals/competences of the course are:
x Identify the technologies needed to implement a data
warehouse.
x Define the architecture of a data warehouse.
x Design a data warehouse to find answers for critical
business questions.
x Design and implement the Extract, Transform and
Load (ETL) process.
x Design and implement the reporting system.
x Use On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) tools to
analyze data from a data warehouse.
B. Teaching/Learning Methodology
The teaching/learning methodology adopted in the course
follows project based learning, in consonance with the
methodology adopted in the undergraduate degree of
Informatics Engineering [1]. Development of team projects
promotes work planning and organization, search and
acquisition of knowledge, and also development of
autonomous ability, initiative, critical analysis and evaluation
of solutions [2].
The contact teaching includes theoretical, laboratory and
tutorial classes. The autonomous learning comprises study, e-
learning and the team project.
C. Assessment Methodology
The main assessment methodology adopted in the course is
based on continuous evaluation, in consonance with the
methodology adopted in the undergraduate degree of
Informatics Engineering. Continuous evaluation promotes a
more regular and intensive work by the students, allowing an
effective acquisition and development of competences [1], [3].
Besides continuous evaluation there is also a final
evaluation, outside classes’ period, typically for a small
number of students, since the majority opts for continuous
evaluation.
In order to optimize student’s work, a mechanism for
reusing assessment components was implemented, allowing
students to keep the grade of a component in which already got
approving for the remainder epochs of final evaluation.
III. COURSE OPERATION
This section describes the main options for course
operation, with particular emphasis on the different
teaching/learning and assessment approaches implemented.
A. Theoretical Classes
Theoretical classes are essential for the exposition and
understanding of the theoretical concepts. The methodology
adopted for the data warehousing process is the methodology
developed by Ralph Kimball [4], [5], [6].
The content of the theoretical classes is as follows:
x Introduction to Decision Support Systems.
x OLAP and Data Warehousing.
x Data Warehousing Process.
x Dimensional Modeling.
x The ETL process.
x Administration and Maintenance of Data Warehouses.
x Data Warehousing Project.
x Business Intelligence and Data Mining.
The first three topics are introductory and the purpose is to
lead students to think in broader terms and to have the
management perspective of an organization. The next topic,
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dimensional modeling, fills most of the theoretical classes since
it is the core of the course. The last three topics concern issues
that broaden the knowledge of students in the data warehousing
area.
The Bologna process brought some changes in the contents
of the theoretical classes, particularly the simplification of
administration and maintenance topic.
The main difficulty, as expected, was dimensional
modeling, because of its complexity. Students, at this point in
the academic path, are mostly prepared to solve problems with
one solution, using convergent thinking. Dimensional
modeling, however, needs divergent thinking, where multiple
solutions are possible for the same problem.
B. Laboratoty Classes
The main topics covered in laboratory classes are the
following:
x Normalization vs. denormalization.
x Implementation of ETL mechanisms.
x OLAP tool for data analysis.
The first topic puts students in contact with the
denormalization concept, its advantages and disadvantages, and
its importance in the context of data warehousing. The second
topic fills most of the laboratory classes and is one of the key
aspects of this course. In the last topic students use an OLAP
tool to analyze data from the data warehouse, to create reports
and ad-hoc queries. Like in theoretical classes the methodology
adopted for the data warehousing process is the methodology
developed by Ralph Kimball [4], [5], [6].
The implementation of a data warehouse in laboratory
classes is quite complex and most of the students face for the
first time a software system with these features and magnitude.
One of the challenges for students has been to understand the
data warehouse in the end user’s perspective and system’s
perspective. To help students understand the system, several
documents were prepared to give a broader view of the system
and simultaneously understand the implementation details.
Among those documents are the dimensional model, the logical
data map, algorithms for data extraction, transformation and
loading and the transformation error logger. Figure 1 presents
the architecture of the data warehouse plan.
Since the transition to Bologna three different approaches
were introduced in laboratory classes to teach the
implementation process of a data warehouse.
x Graphical programming.
x Graphical programming and PL/SQL programming.
x PL/SQL programming.
The initial approach, graphical programming, was based on
the existent one before Bologna, with of course the necessary
adaptations.
In the following these three approaches are described along
with a critical analysis to outline the advantages and
disadvantages of each.
 Figure 1. Data Warehouse Architecture Plan.
1) Graphical Programming
This approach was introduced in the initial course edition,
scholar year 2007/2008, after the transition to Bologna, and the
software tool adopted to implement a data warehouse was
Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB).
In this course edition there was no problems in the
implementation of a data warehouse, despite the students
mentioned the complexity of the system and the software tool.
The second edition of the course, scholar year 2008/2009,
brought unexpected difficulties and it was clear that students
were not prepared to implement such a complex system and to
use a software tool like OWB, which has a slow learning curve.
The reason for this discrepancy in two consecutive scholar
years has to do with the fact that with the transition to the
Bologna process, in scholar year 2007/2008, most of the
students that attend the course were actually from 3rd year.
Only in 2008/2009 the course was attended by 2nd year
students, as planned in the curriculum, and the preparation,
maturity and study autonomy were found not adequate. We
already expect something like that but despite all the efforts it
was clear that the challenge was huge and laboratory classes
had to be restructured.
The main difficulties in this approach were the following:
x Learning curve of the software tool.
x More concern of the students with the software tool
than the implementation of the data warehouse.
x Complexity of the system to implement.
x Weak perception by students of the objectives and
utility of the data warehouse after the implementation
process.
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2) Mixed Approch: Graphical and PL/SQL Programming
In scholar year 2009/2010, based on the problems of the
previous edition, significant changes were introduced in
laboratory classes, in order to assure a higher efficiency in the
acquisition of competences by students.
The main change was in the approach used to implement
the data warehouse, in this case done mostly by programming
in SQL and PL/SQL code. The software tool selected was
Oracle SQL Developer, because it's a quite simple
development tool. During the implementation of the data
warehouse OWB was only used to show the implementation of
some mappings from the ETL process in a graphical
environment.
With the adoption of this approach we started to build a
didactic platform for teaching the ETL process, allowing the
immersion of students in a data warehousing environment, with
the following mandatory features:
x Fast adaptation to the environment.
x Fast adaptation to the programming language/software
tools for structural manipulation of the environment.
x Focus on fundamental concepts of the ETL process,
supported by the state of the art.
x Simplicity of the scenario for easy understanding and
adaptation.
The absence of prebuild published environments around the
desired mandatory features evidenced the need for an
implementation in-the-house. As a result, a didactic platform
was developed, under the form of a data warehouse prototype,
with basic functionalities and scalable [7].
 The utilization of the didactic platform for partial
implementation of the data warehouse in laboratory classes was
valuable, considering the knowledge and maturity of the
students. This new approach was considered more suitable by
most of the students, and particularly by those repeating the
course, since it allowed a more exact notion of details and
complexity of the system to implement, and as well as the
perception of the objective and utility of the data warehouse.
Another important change had to do with the way students
worked in the laboratory classes, they started to work
individually, one student per workstation. In the first three
semesters students usually work in groups of two elements in
laboratory classes, so this change was not easy in the
beginning, however it was crucial since it improved in a
significantly way the autonomy of the students, one of the main
goals of the Bologna process.
3) PL/SQL Programming
Once initial difficulties with the introduction of the didactic
platform for teaching the ETL process were overcome, in
scholar year 2010/2011 some minor adjustments were
introduced in order to optimize this approach. Graphical
programming, and the software tool OWB, were definitely
abandoned, and the implementation of the data warehouse was
done exclusively in SQL and PL/SQL code.
An important aspect we tried to improve was the perception
by the students of the objective and utility of the data
warehouse. To achieve that, before the implementation a
demonstration was performed, to show the concept in the end
user’s perspective and system’s perspective, through OLAP
operations (e.g., drill-down, roll-up), ad-hoc queries, and its
utility from a practical point of view. This was possible
because the didactic platform at this point was fully functional,
which was highlighted by students, since it allowed them to
have, from the beginning, a full vision of the final result it is
supposed to get with the implementation of the data warehouse
during the semester.
Table 1 presents a synthesis of the advantages and
disadvantages of the two main approaches used in laboratory
classes, graphical programming and PL/SQL programming.
The mixed approach is not relevant for this comparison.
TABLE I. MAIN APPROACHES FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DATA
WAREHOUSE
Approach Advantages Disadvantages
Graphical Fast implementation Low level of detail
Programming Complexity of the High abstraction
solution quite low Slow learning curve
PL/SQL High level of detail Complexity of the solution
Programming Low abstraction quite high
Fast learning curve
Reusing of code
C. Team Project
The course includes the development of a team project in
order to promote planning and organization, search and
acquisition of knowledge, and also to develop autonomous
ability, initiative, critical analysis and evaluation of solutions.
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In pre-Bologna, the team project consisted in the full
implementation of a data warehouse, that is, business
requirements gathering, dimensional modeling, ETL process
implementation, reports and data analysis. With Bologna
process the team project focus only on business requirements
gathering, dimensional modeling and design of the ETL
process. Nevertheless, students are confronted with the
modeling of a complex software system which, combined with
some immaturity on the ability to structure solutions and
abstract reasoning, created inherent difficulties.
In 2007/2008, the first course edition, after the adaptation
to the Bologna process, students results were quite satisfactory,
even though, as mentioned before, the course was mainly
attended by 3rd year students, as result of changes in the
curriculum. In the second edition, scholar year 2008/2009,
students revealed more difficulties to do the team project, with
results beneath the expected.
The main factors that lead to this situation were:
x Difficulty of students to understand the difference
between the relational and the dimensional model.
x Weak abstract reasoning for dimensional modeling.
x Difficulties in structuring solutions.
x Difficulties in mapping requirements.
x Complexity of the problem.
To overcome these difficulties some strategies were
defined, namely the use of real world case studies in data
warehousing and the introduction of tutorial classes for the
team project. Among the case studies we must mention SAD-
IES (the acronym in English stands for Decision Support
System for Higher Education Institutions), developed at IPL.
The main advantage of this case study is in the fact that
students are well familiarized with the business processes,
since most of them are related with academic activities (e.g.,
admission in courses, evaluation, attendance to classes, etc.).
D. Tutorial Classes
The tutorial orientation classes provide the guidance of
students, organized in small groups, or individually, in solving
problems and supervision of activities related to the course.
Some tutorial classes are dedicated to the study of real
world projects in data warehousing, as a way to help students
to consolidate the acquired knowledge and to overcome some
difficulties in dimensional modeling.
E. E-Learning
The introduction of new technologies in the learning
process allows news ways of interaction and communication
between students and teachers, and among students.
The using of content management platforms (e.g.,
Blackboard, Moodle) has been established at IPL long before
the Bologna process. Besides the interaction tools in the
platform students have access to all the materials and content
of the course (e.g., slides, knowledge verification tests, real
world case studies in data warehousing, etc.).
F. Knowledge Assessment
The knowledge assessment includes two different types of
assessment, continuous evaluation, during the period of classes,
and final evaluation at the end of the semester.
1) Continuous Evaluation
Most of the students opt for continuous evaluation, which
integrates the following elements:
x Theoretical Written Test (TWT) (45%).
x Practical Computer Tests (PCT) (25%).
x Team Project (25%).
x Class Participation (CP) (5%).
TWT evaluates knowledge related with the data
warehousing process, whereas PCT evaluates the
implementation of a data warehouse. In the team project
knowledge related with the data warehousing process, and
particularly with dimensional modeling, is evaluated. CP has a
weekly periodicity and regardless of its small weight in the
final grade is a motivation factor for most of the students.
2) Final Evaluation
Knowledge assessment in final evaluation comprehends
two elements, a Theoretical Written Test a Practical Written
Test, each with a weight of 50%.
G. Evolution of the Model
To successfully introduce a data warehousing course in an
undergraduate degree two aspects are particularly relevant.
x Dimensional modeling.
x Data warehouse implementation.
The evaluation results and feedback from the students show
that the PL/SQL programming approach is the most
appropriate since it allows students to focus mainly on the
software system to implement and the level of abstraction is
lower. In graphical programming the functionalities inherent to
objects, and the way objects interact, create an additional level
of abstraction that deviates the focus of students from the main
point, which is the implementation of a data warehouse.
Besides the issues inherent to each one of the approaches
the other key factors for the success of the PL/SQL
programming approach are:
x Demonstration of the data warehouse concept.
x Didactic platform for teaching the ETL process in data
warehouses.
x One student per workstation.
The challenge to introduce data warehousing competences
in the undergraduate degree of Informatics Engineering was
successfully accomplished. Although, in a future adaptation of
the study programme, the possibility of the Decision Support
Systems course to transit from the 4th semester to the 5th
semester can make the difference in student’s maturity and
preparation to more easily deal with a highly complex area,
such as data warehousing.
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IV. SOFTWARE TOOLS
Software tools and the underlying infrastructure are vital to
teach Decision Support Systems courses, and particularly data
warehousing technologies. In order to implement a data
warehouse it is necessary to select several software tools,
namely, a Database Management System, a Modeling tool, an
ETL tool and an OLAP tool. The Database Management
System used to implement the data warehouse is Oracle 11g
[8], [9]. For dimensional modeling Oracle Data Modeler was
chosen. To implement the ETL process first we adopt OWB
11g and later with the adoption of the PL/SQL programming
approach the option was for Oracle SQL Developer. Finally,
Oracle Discoverer 11g was the software tool for data analysis,
reports and ad-hoc queries.
Most of the work performed by students in this course is
quite similar to the work developed in the data warehousing
industry, but the software tools used in the industry usually are
not suitable for instruction. The main reasons have to do with
the complexity of the tools, the learning curve and a set of
additional features that are not necessary in an academic
environment. Even though, in database courses of the
undergraduate degree in Informatics Engineering the option
was for professional tools, Oracle software tools, since they are
valuable when students enter the marketplace.
V. CONCLUSIONS
The shift of content and competences typically belonging to
pre-Bologna graduate degrees, with five year duration, to
Bologna undergraduate degrees, with three year duration, put
several challenges during the implementation process. Decision
Support Systems course exemplifies this change and it took a
few editions to optimize the operation and guarantee an
effective acquisition of competences by students in data
warehousing.
The main contributions in our model are the changes
introduced in dimensional modeling and particularly in data
warehouse implementation. The development of a didactic
platform for teaching ETL process helped students to improve
the perception of the utility of a data warehouse, not only in the
end user’s perspective but also in a system’s perspective and
from a practical point of view.
REFERENCES
[1] IPL, Adequação do Ciclo de Estudos do Curso de Licenciatura em
Engenharia Informática, Instituto Politécnico de Leiria, 2007.
[2] T. Markham, J. Larmer, and J. Ravitz, Project Based Learning
Handbook, Buck Institute for Education, 2003.
[3] J. Biggs, Teaching for Quality Learning at University, The Society for
Research into Higher Education, Open University Press, 2003.
[4] R. Kimball, The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit, John Wiley & Sons,
1998.
[5] R. Kimball, The Data Warehouse Toolkit, John Wiley & Sons, 2002.
[6] R. Kimball and J. Caserta, The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit. John
Wiley & Sons, 2004.
[7] R. Oliveira and J. Ramos, Implementation of a Didactic Platform for
Teaching ETL in Data Warehouses, in press.
[8] Oracle, Oracle 11g Data Warehousing Guide, 2007.
[9] Oracle, Oracle 11g PL/SQL Language Reference, 2009.