The Link Between Data Modeling ApproachesAnd Philosophical Assumptions: A Critique

Hirschheim et al. (1995) argue that information system designers\u27 choice of a particular data modeling approach is inextricably linked to ontological, epistemological, social-contextual, and representational assumptions that they make about the worlds they seek to represent via their models. I argue, instead, that the link between different data modeling approaches and these four sets of assumptions is either weak or non-existent. I agree that there is some type of association between use of a particular data modeling approach and the ontological assumptions that designers make. The nature of the links, however, between different data modeling approaches and different epistemological, social-contextual, and representational assumptions is more problematical

Toward more rigor in ontological analyses

Ontological analyses have been used in numerous publications to compare existing modelling grammars with an ontology. However, a sound theoretical research framework is still missing. Consequently, working with the results of such ontological analyses is theoretically questionable. The aim of the paper is threefold. Firstly, we want to contribute to such a theoretical research framework by formalising the ontological analyses approach. Secondly, we derive four formal requirements each ontological analyses must comply with. Lastly, we analyse whether current state of the art ontological analyses comply with our findings. While the formalisation demonstrates the strengths of the approach we conclude that current ontological analyses have theoretical deficiencies, which lead to serious limitations in their application

Understanding the Impact of Business Functional Areas on the Theory of Multiple Grammar Selection

Theory of Multiple Grammar Selection (TMGS) is used to select the optimum combination of grammars when more than one grammar is needed to create conceptual models. However, as unnecessary grammars may also be selected into the optimum combination, overlap of the grammatical constructs can increase. Thus, the resulting conceptual model decreases its clarity and usefulness. One way of solving this issue is reducing the number of constructs in the reference ontology. Since ontological constructs have different importance levels in different domains the level of importance can be used as the basis for reducing number of constructs. This paper presents the result of a study we carried out to find how the importance levels of Bunge-Wand-Weber (BWW) ontology can be measured within a selected domain. As the information system domain of this study, we selected a specific business functional area namely, Sales & Distribution. Thus.the findings can be applied to any domain with similar characteristics to Sales & Distribution functional area

Using ontology for the representational analysis of process modelling techniques

Selecting an appropriate business process modelling technique forms an important task within the methodological challenges of a business process management project. While a plethora of available techniques has been developed over the last decades, there is an obvious shortage of well-accepted reference frameworks that can be used to evaluate and compare the capabilities of the different techniques. Academic progress has been made at least in the area of representational analyses that use ontology as a benchmark for such evaluations. This paper reflects on the comprehensive experiences with the application of a model based on the Bunge ontology in this context. A brief overview of the underlying research model characterizes the different steps in such a research project. A comparative summary of previous representational analyses of process modelling techniques over time gives insights into the relative maturity of selected process modelling techniques. Based on these experiences suggestions are made as to where ontology-based representational analyses could be further developed and what limitations are inherent to such analyses

Is use of optional attributes and associations in conceptual modeling always problematic? Theory and empirical tests

Prior research has argued that use of optional properties in conceptual models results in loss of information about the semantics of the domains represented by the models. Empirical research undertaken to date supports this argument. Nevertheless, no systematic analysis has been done of whether use of optional properties is always problematic. Furthermore, prior empirical research might have deliberately or unwittingly employed models where use of optionality always causes problems. Accordingly, we examine analytically whether use of optional properties is always problematic. We employ our analytical results to inform the design of an experiment where we systematically examined the impact of optionality on users’ ability to understand domains represented by different types of conceptual models. We found evidence that use of optionality undermines users’ ability to understand the domain represented by a model but that this effect weakens when use of mandatory properties to replace optional properties leads to more-complex models

An Ontological Analysis of Use Case Modeling Grammar

Use case modeling is a popular technique for representing the functional requirements of an information system. The simple graphical notation of use case diagrams, accompanied by well-structured narrative descriptions, makes use case models fairly easy to read and understand. This simplicity, however, belies the challenges associated with creating use case models. There is little, if any, theory underlying use cases, and little more than loose guidelines for creating a complete, consistent, and integrated set of use cases. We argue that there is a need for more rigor and consistency in the grammatical constructs used in use case modeling. Toward this end, we present a theoretically- and practice-based assessment of use case modeling constructs, and make recommendations for future research to improve and strengthen this technique