Abstract
This article explains how a graphical user interface in a networked database environment can help users exploit resources in ways which will enhance productivity. Client/server applications aim to provide an ideal desktop where users would submit a database query through a PC, unaware and unconcerned with the location and format of the data or the hosts needed to do the job. What is being described here is transparent, multi-vendor, distributed database access. In Educational Computing environments this would provide a working model of powerful, networked information systems where the database management system is implemented alongside easy, intuitive interfaces.