Date: 31 May 2010
From: jyrki@diku.dk
Subject: Master's thesis on end-user development

Oral defence of M.Sc. thesis: Slutbrugerudvikling: Tilgængelighed og 
manipulation af data inden for kontaktallergiforskning

Defender: Søren Gade
Censor: Anne Mette Jonassen Hass
Supervisor: Jyrki Katajainen
Time: Thursday, 10 June 2010 at 17.30–18.30
Place: Computer room 3-1-25

Defence will be held in Danish

Abstract:

A national clinical database of contact allergy maintained by the
National Allergy Research Centre is central for the research done in
this field in Denmark.  Even though researchers using the database are
experts in their own field, they often have insufficient knowledge of
the manipulation of databases and have difficulties in formulating ad
hoc queries on their own.

In this thesis the question of end-user development is discussed, and
a system is provided that helps end-users, in this particular case
contact allergy researchers, to formulate ad hoc queries. The kernel
of the system is a new limited data model which is combined with a
professional database engine. The data model was an outcome of an
iterative test and development strategy where feedback received from
end-users had a considerable impact on the final design. To make the
interaction straightforward, the model uses denormalization and
contains precalculated aggregated columns.

The resulting system provides easy access to the contact allergy data
and, as validated, generates the same output as the original
system. Some of the test persons still experience difficulties when
formulating complicated queries, which is primarily due to lack of
understanding of set theory and logical expressions.  The thesis also
resulted in a series of tips for developers of data models and
database engines.

The thesis is available online at
http://www.diku.dk/~jyrki/PE-lab/Soeren/

PE-lab's home page:
http://www.diku.dk/~jyrki/PE-lab/