Meet Cyrus - The Query by Voice Mobile Assistant for the Tutoring and Formative Assessment of SQL Learners

TL;DR

This paper introduces Cyrus, a voice-based mobile assistant that enables natural language querying of relational databases, supporting diverse query types and adaptable to various applications, aiming to enhance SQL learning and database interaction.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel voice query interface for relational databases that minimizes keyword dependence and supports diverse query classes, improving accessibility and usability for SQL learners.

Findings

Cyrus supports a wide range of query classes suitable for entry-level SQL education.

The system is application independent and adaptable to different databases.

Cyrus offers cooperative error reporting and is accessible on iOS devices.

Abstract

Being declarative, SQL stands a better chance at being the programming language for conceptual computing next to natural language programming. We examine the possibility of using SQL as a back-end for natural language database programming. Distinctly from keyword based SQL querying, keyword dependence and SQL's table structure constraints are significantly less pronounced in our approach. We present a mobile device voice query interface, called Cyrus, to arbitrary relational databases. Cyrus supports a large type of query classes, sufficient for an entry level database class. Cyrus is also application independent, allows test database adaptation, and not limited to specific sets of keywords or natural language sentence structures. It's cooperative error reporting is more intuitive, and iOS based mobile platform is also more accessible compared to most contemporary mobile and voice enabled systems.