TanQuery: a tangible system for relational algebra learning

Abstract

This paper introduces TanQuery, a tangible system prototype aimed to support the learning process of relational algebra (RA). In this system, RA operators and operands are represented by tokens that can be manipulated by the user to interactively create query trees. The design of TanQuery incorporates components to detect and track tokens, and to analyze and execute query trees. A working prototype has been developed and tested for usability. The results of prototype test, allow to observe that students found this type of interface pleasant, however, we need to make general improvements to prototype and realize further user studies.