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Database Theory in Action: Learning Logical Modelling with Iltis

Authors Tristan Kneisel , Fabian Vehlken , Thomas Zeume

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LIPIcs.ICDT.2026.28.pdf
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Subject Classification

ACM Subject Classification
  • Theory of computation → Logic
  • Social and professional topics → Computing education
Keywords
  • Educational support systems
  • Logic
  • Database theory
  • Natural language processing

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Abstract

Important learning objectives in database education are to learn how to design database schemas and how to write queries to access data stored in a database adhering to a schema.
In this article we report on results from [Tristan Kneisel et al., 2025] where this learning objective is addressed for the related educational task of modelling with logical formalisms. Two key steps in logical modelling are to (a) choose a suitable vocabulary, that is, e.g., which first-order symbols to use and with which intended meaning, and then to (b) construct actual formal descriptions, i.e. first-order formulas over the chosen vocabulary. While (b) is addressed by several educational support systems for formal foundations of computer science, (a) is so far not addressed at all - likely because it involves specifying the intended meaning of symbols in natural language. We propose a conceptual framework for educational tasks where students choose a vocabulary and implement it for tasks for designing propositional and first-order vocabularies within the Iltis educational system.

Cite As Get BibTex

Tristan Kneisel, Fabian Vehlken, and Thomas Zeume. Database Theory in Action: Learning Logical Modelling with Iltis. In 29th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 365, pp. 28:1-28:5, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026) https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2026.28

Author Details

Tristan Kneisel
  • Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
Fabian Vehlken
  • Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
Thomas Zeume
  • Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

Funding

Supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), grant 532727578.

References

  1. Serge Abiteboul, Richard Hull, and Victor Vianu. Foundations of databases, volume 8. Addison-Wesley Reading, 1995. Google Scholar
  2. Ronald Fagin, Phokion G. Kolaitis, and Lucian Popa. Data exchange: getting to the core. ACM Trans. Database Syst., 30(1):174-210, 2005. URL: https://doi.org/10.1145/1061318.1061323.
  3. Gesellschaft für Informatik e. V. Empfehlungen für Bachelor- und Master-Programme im Studienfach Informatik an Hochschulen. https://gi.de, 2016. URL: https://dl.gi.de/handle/20.500.12116/2351.
  4. Iltis: Formal foundations of computer science online. URL: https://iltis.rub.de.
  5. Iltis: Logical modelling - inference workflows. URL: https://iltis.rub.de/modelling-pipeline-showcase/.
  6. Joint Task Force on Computing Curricula, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society. Computer Science Curricula 2013: Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Computer Science. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 2013. Google Scholar
  7. Tristan Kneisel, Fabian Vehlken, and Thomas Zeume. Logical modelling in cs education: Bridging the natural language gap, 2025. URL: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.21384.
  8. Tristan Kneisel, Fabian Vehlken, and Thomas Zeume. Logical modelling in cs education: Bridging the natural language gap. In Alexandra I. Cristea, Erin Walker, Yu Lu, Olga C. Santos, and Seiji Isotani, editors, Artificial Intelligence in Education, pages 457-463, Cham, 2025. Springer Nature Switzerland. URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-98459-4_34.
  9. Alexandra Poulovassilis and Peter McBrien. A general formal framework for schema transformation. Data & Knowledge Engineering, 28(1):47-71, 1998. 16th International Conference on Conceptual Modelling. URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-023X(98)00013-5.
  10. Sudeepa Roy, Amir Gilad, Yihao Hu, Hanze Meng, Zhengjie Miao, Kristin Stephens-Martinez, and Jun Yang. How database theory helps teach relational queries in database education (invited talk). In Graham Cormode and Michael Shekelyan, editors, 27th International Conference on Database Theory, ICDT 2024, March 25-28, 2024, Paestum, Italy, volume 290 of LIPIcs, pages 2:1-2:9. Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, 2024. URL: https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.2.
  11. Marko Schmellenkamp, Fabian Vehlken, and Thomas Zeume. Teaching formal foundations of computer science with Iltis. Educational Column of the Bulletin of EATCS, 2024. URL: http://bulletin.eatcs.org/index.php/beatcs/article/download/797/842.
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