Seasoning Data Modeling Education with GARLIC: A Participatory Co-Design Framework

2026-02-20

AI Summary

This study addresses the lack of systematic approaches in current database education for cultivating students’ ability to integrate diverse perspectives and ethical awareness into entity-relationship (ER) modeling. To bridge this gap, the authors propose the GARLIC pedagogy, which, for the first time, systematically incorporates participatory design into ER modeling instruction. Grounded in the ONION framework, GARLIC employs structured workshops featuring role-playing, collaborative integration, guided critique, and iterative refinement to lower practical barriers. The approach not only effectively enhances students’ competencies in participatory ER modeling but also significantly strengthens their critical understanding of the social and ethical dimensions inherent in data representation, thereby laying an educational foundation for designing inclusive data systems.

Technology Category

• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Other Foundations of Data Mining & Knowledge Management
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Argumentation
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Analogy

Application Category

• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Data quality aspects of human-annotated datasets

Abstract

Entity-Relationship (ER) modeling is commonly taught as a primarily technical activity, despite its central role in shaping how data systems represent people, processes, and institutions. Prior research in participatory design demonstrates that involving diverse stakeholders in modeling can surface tacit knowledge, challenge implicit assumptions, and produce more inclusive data representations. However, database education currently lacks structured pedagogical approaches for teaching participatory ER modeling in practice. We introduce the GARLIC methodology for teaching and learning participatory ER modeling. GARLIC adapts and extends the ONION participatory ER modeling framework of Makovska et al.(HILDA 2025) into a workshop-based learning format that combines role-playing, collaborative synthesis, guided critique, and iterative refinement. GARLIC is designed to develop both technical modeling skills and critical awareness of the social and ethical dimensions of data representation. GARLIC lowers the barrier to participatory ER modeling and equips students with practical skills for collaborative, inclusive data model design.

Problem

• participatory design
• entity-relationship modeling
• database education
• inclusive data representation
• pedagogical approach

Innovation

• participatory ER modeling
• GARLIC
• database education
• inclusive data representation
• role-playing workshop