There is no indication anywhere except by visiting the database itself to know whether a new record has been entered, or whether a comment has been added to a record. It does not show up at all in the recent activity block, nor on the recent activity page, nor is there any sort of tracking mechanism for comments. There is no way for people to subscribe to database entries by email or for comments to be emailed, like forum posts, and hence no way for a teacher to monitor what sort of activity is going on in a database unless they have a photographic memory.

Hence databases need an improved way of showing students there has been activity in them (and keeping them visiting those databases), and a way for teachers to follow what is going on in the databases step by step.