From Blackboard to Green Screen — Delivering a Semester of In-Depth Database Lectures via YouTube

Torsten Grust

Datenbank Spektrum, December 2020. Published by Springer, DOI 10.1007/s13222-020-00362-8.

We report on the conversion of two advanced database courses from their classical in-lecture-hall setup into an all-digital remote format that was delivered via YouTube. While the course contents were not turned on their heads, throughout the semester we adopted a video style that has been popularized by the live coding community. This new focus on the live interaction with the underlying database systems, led us (1) to adopt the idea of SQL probe queries that are specifically crafted to reveal database internals and (2) a study of database-supported computation that treats SQL like a true programming language. We are happy to share videos, slides, and code with anyone who is interested.

HTML version available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s13222-020-00362-8.