Supporting Database Designers in Entity-Relationship Modeling: An Ontology- Based Approach

Database design has long been recognized as a difficult problem, requiring a great deal of skill on the part of the designer. Research has been carried out that provides methodologies and rules for creating good designs. There have even been attempts to automate the design process. However, before these can be truly successful, methodologies and tools are needed that can incorporate and use domain knowledge. In this research, a methodology for supporting database design is proposed that makes use of domain-specific knowledge about an application, which is stored in the form of ontologies. The ontologies provide information that is useful in both the creation of new designs and the verification of existing ones. They also capture the constraints of an application domain. A methodology for assisting database design that takes advantage of the ontologies has been implemented in a prototype system. Initial testing of the prototype illustrates that the incorporation and use of ontologies are effective in creating database design

An Approach to Intelligent Query and Component Retrieval for Web-Based Repositories

With the increasing amount of commerce performed over the Internet, there has been an expansion in the creation and use of web databases. From this, two trends have emerged. First, databases are developed “from scratch,” even though it is well known that the development and employment of reusable artifacts is the most efficient way to approach the development process. Second, after a database has been developed, retrieval problems often exist, because there might be related information the user does not know about, or the user cannot express his or her requirements in natural language. The objectives for this research are (1) to develop an approach to obtaining intelligent results from a query to a web database and (2) to develop a procedure for defining and reusing domain models to assist in the development of web applications

Computational Science: A Field of Inquiry for Design Science Research

The digitalization of science has resulted in the development of essential, specialized, devices and software. Computational science, as a branch of science, is specifically identified as an important, potential area for which it would be helpful to apply design science research. This paper examines computational science, identifies its past and ongoing challenges, and suggests that progressing computational science with design science research can serve as an important area of inquiry for continuing design science research

Empirical Test Guidelines for Content Validity: Wash, Rinse, and Repeat until Clean

Empirical research in information systems relies heavily on developing and validating survey instruments. However, researchers’ efforts to evaluate content validity of survey scales are often inconsistent, incomplete, or unreported. Thjs paper defines and describes the most significant facets of content validity and illustrates the mechanisms through which multi-item psychometric scales capture a latent construct’s content. We discuss competing methods and propose new methods to assemble a comprehensive set of metrics and methods to evaluate content validity. The resulting recommendations for researchers evaluating content validity emphasize an iterative pre-study process (wash, rinse, and repeat until clean) to objectively establish “fit for purpose” when developing and adapting survey scales. A sample pre-study demonstrates suitable methods for creating confidence that scales reliably capture the theoretical essence of latent constructs. We demonstrate the efficacy of these methods using a randomized field experiment

Issues and Guidelines in Modeling Decomposition of Minimum Participation in Entity-Relationship Diagrams

The entity-relationship model has long been employed for conceptual modeling of databases. Methodologies and heuristics have been developed, both for effective modeling and for translating entity-relationship models into relational models. One aspect of modeling that is often overlooked in design methodologies is the use of optional versus mandatory participation (i.e., minimum participation) on the development of relational databases. This tutorial complements existing instructional material on database design by analyzing the syntactic implications of minimum participation in binary, unary, and n-ary relationship sets and for the special case where the E-R diagram depicts a database where 3NF is not in BCNF. It then presents design modeling guidelines which demonstrate that (1) for binary 1:1 and 1:M relationship sets, the presence of optional participation sometimes means that the relationship set should be represented in the relational model by a separate relation, (2) unary relationship sets cannot have a (1,1) participation, (3) n-ary relationship sets that have a (1,1) participation can be simplified to be of lower connectivity, and (4) decomposition is not a substitute for normalization. Illustrative examples and modeling guidelines are provided

Discovering and Transforming Exhaust Data to Realize Managerial Value

“Exhaust data” is “extra data” or “left over” data from “core data” digital transactions collected either intentionally or unintentionally but for which there is no initial, specific purpose for its collection. In this paper, we differentiate core data from exhaust data, define and describe exhaust data, and propose how to turn it into core data to provide value for firms. We present a framework for discovering and transforming exhaust data and apply it to four case studies involving Internet search data, accounting entries and data security, social media disclosures, and EDGAR use logs. From the cases, we extract five managerial challenges and generate five recommendations to help managers identify exhaust data applications for realizing potential value

User Profiles for Facilitating Conversations with Locked-In Users

The loss of communication is one of the most profound disabilities a human being can experience, inhibiting social contact and complicating medical and personal care. Locked-in patients are paralyzed and unable to speak, but cognitively intact. Developments in biometric technology provide non-muscular channels of control and provide opportunities to restore some communication for people with little or no muscle movement. Although these biometric devices have been effective, the input rate is very slow for the requirements of interactive communication. Prediction techniques increase the speed of communication in assistive technology. However, the user’s context (time of day, location, presence of conversational partners, user’s interests, etc.) can be included to make the selection of desired phrases or utterances easier and faster. This research presents an approach to developing user profiles for locked-in users. The profiles can be used to enhance the speed and accuracy of conversation by reducing the selection space for conversational topics. An empirical study that simulates the application of user profiles demonstrates how they can be used to improve the speed and accuracy of conversation in severely disabled users relying on augmentative and assistive communication devices

An Ontology Artifact for Information Systems Sentiment Analysis

As companies and organizations increasingly rely on on-line, user-supplied data to obtain valuable insights into their operations, sentiment analysis of textual data has proven to be a most valuable resource. To understand how sentiment analysis can be used effectively, it is important to identify what types of sentiment analysis could be employed during the analysis of a given situation. This research proposes an Information Systems Sentiment Ontology, the purpose of which is to provide a basis for mining and understanding sentiment, specifically from text provided by customers as online content. The Information Systems Sentiment Ontology is developed by analyzing the literature on emotion, sentiment analysis, and ontology development and from prior research on online forum analysis. A traditional design science approach is followed to the ontology development. Details on the creation and application of the ontology artifact are provided