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Databases in Disguise

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ANGEL Course Management System

The ANGEL Course Management System uses a database backend to track student and course data through out a course.

Why it's a Database

In order for the ANGEL ccourse management system to properly function, ANGEL must be able to access and track several types of data including:

Your Access Account userid
The courses and group you are enrolled in
The students and instructors enrolled in each course
The location of uploaded files for each courese and group
Grades for each student in each quiz/drop box for each course
Calendar for each group, course and person

All of this functionality requires a database backend, even if users never see a database entry or search screen.

Data from Multiple Sources (Tables)

ANGEL is actually a relational database, meaning that data is stored in multiple tables, some of which come from outside of ANGEL. The diagram shows a simplified diagram of data relations.

ANGEL Data Tables - Read Text Below

A student who logs in to ANGEL will be able to access a Personal calendar, change his or her forwarding address and change personal settings even if they are not enrolled in a course. Thus the Profile containing this information is one table.

To determine which students belong in which courses, ANGEL pulls data from the Registrar database table listing Penn State students and the courses they are enrolled in. It also pull data from another table of official course information including course title, instructor ID and student ID's in the roster. The Personal Profle table is connected to the course data via student ID's in the roster.

In addition to the data pulled from the Registrar, each course must contain information about student grades, which files are uploaded, and content from the Syllabus, Lessons tab (Dropbox, Message Boards) and other content found in a course.

The interface pulls data from the separate tables together and formats them so that it appears to be a seamless interface.

Why it's Important

Although users cannot "reprogram" the ANGEL database, the concept is still useful for understanding how some ANGEL functions work.

Course Tool Reports

Many ANGEL grade and activity reports are pulling items from a database and printing out a report. A database is needed to track how students perform on quizzes and where they go, and who has logged in in order to generate the reports.

Course CALENDAR vs. Profile Calendar

In the table above, it shows that each student has a Personal Calendar to which he or she can add individual entries. However, the ANGEL system also feeds calendar entries from the course into personal calendars based on the student Acccess Account userids in the roster.

Thus an individual calendar is composed of data entries made by individuals and data fed to it from a course or group. Many students appreciate that course events automatically appear in their personal calendars.