International Journal of
Information and Education Technology

Abstract

In the distance learning environment students are often working from remote locations. All or most of their interaction will be through the online course management system. Since students cannot attend a physical lab classroom there is a need for accessible labs to serve remote students and improve their understanding of data warehouse (DW) and the textbook materials. For the DW course specifically, a platform that supports student exploration of several features such as SQL, DW, Online Analytical Processing (OLAP), as well as design of the DW is needed. A data warehousing course that meets many recommendations from industry and academia has been successfully offered for several years at our school. The DW course is offered solely in the online format using Oracle products and datasets for labs. The class incorporates a data warehouse design process that includes planning the star schema as well as defining the metadata, physical design, and application views. The paper describes the lab for the data warehousing course, its design and implementation, the exercises students will complete in both design and data analysis, and the data warehousing tool itself.