From Item To Information
SIR Databases in BGU
School of Medicine
David de Leeuw
Ben Gurion University of the Negev
david@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
June 2001
Historical Overview - I
• 1982: SPSS was the main analytical tool
used at Ben Gurion University
• We understood we had a problem with datamanagement of “non-flat” files
• A salesperson presented SIR in the
university. With its close relationship to
SPSS, SIR seemed to be just the tool we
were looking for.
Overview II
• 1982 to 1988 Intensive use of SIR for
students administration and a number of
research projects.
• In 1988 at the SIR conference in Chicago
Tony gave us a diskette with SIR/TEXT.
• Soon we recognized its use as a tool to
manage our examinations and questions
bank.
Overview III
• Since 1988 we developed a fully integrated
management system (all in Hebrew) for the
medical school.
• In 1997 a School in International Medicine was
established (in English) with Columbia University.
• Both schools now run all exams from the SIR
database
• Also national final exams of four medical schools
are produced from the database
Some details
We run about 300 exams a year
All is automated using specialized scanning
software, VB, Pascal, 80 Sir databases for
exam generation and 2 Sir database for
student data.
Runs in Hebrew and English
Production of exams
– Exams are generated in a number of versions
– Questions may be chosen randomly, according
to subject, previous use, other statistical criteria
or by hand
– Output is produced camera-ready, including
images
– Reports are produced for evaluation
– Key for analysis of the exam is generated
– Statistics are read back to the bank
Students information systemterminal entry and retrieval
(SISTER)
– Runs almost 20 years without major changes
– Interfaces automatically with examination
analysis software
– Produces all reports and forms by student, and
by class
– Interfaces with the University students
management system
Questions
Wordproc
essing
QBANK
Exam database
Keys
Statistics
Optical reading exams
EXAM
Examination
softw are
Scores and reports
Scores
SISTER
STudents
information
system
Dataentry / retrieval
BGU Faculty of Health Sciences Health Sciences
BGU University
database
Examination and student information softw are
David de Leeuw
Medical Computing Unit
June 2001
My experience
• Based on years as a programmer, designer,
manager, analyst, user, husband of
programmer concerning
• Mumps, Magic, Dbase, Paradox, Access,
SQLServer, Oracle and SIR
SIR and Total Cost of Ownership
• “Total Cost of Ownership (TOC) includes
all of the costs involved in operating
networks and computers, whether leased or
owned. It is traditionally used by businesses
to help control costs and make strategic
decisions.”
• http://www.cosn.org/tco/about.html
Points of discussion
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Servers and operating systems
PQL Vs. SQL
Stability, bugs and crashes
DBA, tuning and management
Support
Development tools
Manpower
Servers and operating systems
• We use and used SIR on all kinds of
operating systems (CDC/NOS, NOS/VE,
VAX, IBM UNIX, Linux, Win98, WINNT)
• We never needed to buy or replace a
computer for SIR but used what is
available. Our present main server is a six
years old IBM/AIX system. Performance
over the years improved incredibly.
PQL vs. SQL
• In my opinion PQL follows the human mind much
more closer than SQL.
• Especially if a number of “ifthen” statements are
involved in a multiple record-type retrieval, SQL
statements get extremely complicated. I never
came across a problem of data retrieval and
analysis PQL couldn’t handle effectively and
elegantly.
Stability, bugs and crashes
• Our main applications still run Sir 3.2 (a
1993 release!). We are soon moving all to
2002.
• We never encountered unexpected crashes.
• With a code base of about 15000 lines, there
are just a few dealing with workarounds for
bugs.
DBA, Tuning and management
• DBA, Tuning etc.
I understand a “DBA” (Database Administrator) is a
well paid job, tuning disk-sizes, blocks and
pointers to keep the database healthy.
I have been running SIR databases of hundreds of
thousands of records on IBM XT. Never came
across an issue of DBA management.
Support
• One company (guess..) we pay money for a
subscription on their problems database.
From that company we never got answers
on any problem.
• SIR as a small company provides a very
direct link with the developers. Participating
in beta-tests, we are very confident that all
we need runs perfectly in the next release.
Development tools
• My wife was at an Oracle course on Developer
2000, while I was at a lecture by a senior Oracle
rep, who declared Developer 2000 “dead” (and
this in the year 2000)
• The SIR philosophy of having the tools generate
PQL is important to prevent endless conversion
problems between application and application
Manpower
• Maybe the weakest link as far as Sir is
concerned: There are no SIR programmers
around. We need to train a programmer
from scratch.
• Any programmer can become proficient in
SIR in a number of weeks.
Subjective score for SIR
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Servers and operating systems
PQL Vs. SQL
Stability, bugs and crashes
DBA, tuning and management
Support
Development tools
Manpower
++
++
++
++
++
+/-
Total Cost of Ownership - TOC
• Considering total expense [hardware+
software+ maintenance+
licenses+manpower+development time+
support] divided by [database size*
complexity * application-lifetime] SIR is a
definite candidate to have the lowest TOC
of all.
Thank you
!