Metrics for Managing Quality in Information Modeling

In a global and increasingly competitive market, quality is a critical success factor for all economical and organisational aspects and especially in Information Systems (IS). We can affirm that in the next millennium information quality will be an essential factor for company success in the same way product and service quality have been over the last years. It is essential to tackle the subject of information quality in order to achieve a good IS for the company; this way data become true information and knowledge. Companies must manage information as an important product, capitalise knowledge as a main asset, surviving and prospering in the digital economy (Huang et al., 1998). Improving information quality will enhance client satisfaction and, at the same time, personnel satisfaction, while improving the company as a whole. Unfortunately until a few years ago, quality approaches focused on program quality and disregarded information quality (Sneed and Foshag, 1998). Even in traditional information modeling and database design, quality related aspects have not been incorporated explicitly (Wang and Madnick, 1993). It is time to consider information quality as a main goal to pursue, instead of as a subproduct of information modeling or a database creation processes. Quality in information modelling has traditionally been a poorly understood area. Most of the work done until a few years ago was limited to listing a set of properties or desirable characteristics for conceptual data models and proposing different transformations for improving schema quality (Batini et al., 1992; Reingruber and Gregory, 1994; Boman et al., 1997). Recently, some interesting frameworks have been proposed for addressing quality in information modeling in a more systematic way (Moody and Shanks, 1994; Krogstie et al., 1995; Shanks and Darke, 1997; Moody et al., 1998). However, quality criteria alone are not enough to ensure the quality in practice because people will generally make different interpretations of the same concept. According to the Total Quality Management (TQM) literature, measurable criteria for assessing quality is necessary to avoid “arguments of style” (Zultner, 1992). Measurement is fundamental in order to apply statistical process control which is one of the key techniques in the TQM approach (Deming, 1986). Measurement is used not only for understanding, controlling, and improving development, but also for determining the best ways to help practitioners and researchers (Schneidewind, 1997). The objective should be to replace intuitive notions of quality in information modeling, with formal, quantitative measures, thus, helping to reduce subjectivity and bias in the evaluation process. In this chapter we will give an overview of the work carried out regarding quality in information modeling, and we will also propose a set of new metrics for evaluating quality in information modeling. Finally, we discuss future and emerging trends in this area and provide some concluding remarks.

A Unifying Translation of Natural Language Patterns to Object and Process Modeling

The proposed translation of natural language (NL) patterns to object and process modeling is seen as an alternative to the symbolic notations, textual languages or classical semantic networks, the main representation tools today. Its necessity is motivated by the universality, unifying abilities, natural extensibility, logic and reusability of NL. The translation relies on a formalized, stylized and graphical representation of NL, bridging NL to an integrated view on the object and process modeling. Only the morphological and syntactic knowledge in NL is subject to translation, but the proposed solution anticipates the semantic and logical interpretation of a model. A brief presentation and exemplification of NL patterns in consideration precede the translation.

Audience-Driven Web Design

Today Web-related software development seems to be faced with a crisis not unlike the one that occurred a generation ago when in the 1970s. Computer hardware experienced an order of magnitude increase in computational power. This made possible the implementation of a new class of applications larger both in size and complexity, the methods for software development available at that time were not able to scale up to such large projects. The “software crisis” was a fact with its legendary stories of delays, unreliability, maintenance bottlenecks and costs. Now we seem to be starting to deal painfully with a corresponding “web site crisis”. Over the last few years, the Internet has boomed and the World Wide Web with it. Web browsers are the basic user platform of the Internet. Because of the immense potential audience, and because publishing on the web is in principle very easy, the number of web applications has exploded. Most of the web sites are created opportunistically without prior planning or analysis. Moreover, even large mission-critical intranet projects are being started without any regard for methodology. The resulting problems of maintenance and development backlog, so well-known in “classical” information systems, can easily be predicted and will happen on a much larger scale. Because web sites are almost by definition required to adapt and grow, and have to interact with other sites and systems unknown at the moment of creation, these problems will also be much more complex and severe. In addition to the predictable maintenance and development problems, a new problem unknown in classical information systems has emerged: competition for the user’s attention. Especially for commercial web sites it is important to hold the interest of the user and to keep them coming back to the site. If for some reason visitors are not satisfied with the site or cannot find (fast enough) the information they are looking for, there is a high chance that they will leave the site and not return. Much more than in “classical” software systems, the usability of web applications are primordial for their success.

Business Action and Information Modeling - The Task of the New Millennium

In this chapter, we discuss the importance of considering the action character of information when modeling information in business processes. The Language Action Perspective (LAP) is described and proposed as the perspective of choice for information modeling – now and for the future. It is emphasized that two of the most important research areas in the new millennium are to further develop LAP and to operationalize it into systems development methods. Furthermore, the generic business framework of Business Action Theory (BAT) and the requirements engineering method VIBA/SIMM (Versatile Information and Business Analysis according to the Situation adaptable work and Information Modelling Method), as representatives of LAP, are both described and positioned within LAP. This positioning is achieved by elaborating different LAP approaches and their relationships to BAT and VIBA/SIMM.

A Language/Action Based Approach to Information Modeling

There are several different views of the functional role of information systems. Two of the most important ones are the model view and the communicative action view. According to the model view, the primary purpose of an information system is to provide a model of a Universe of Discourse (UoD), thereby enabling people to obtain information about reality by studying the model. In this respect, an information system works as a passive repository of data that reflects the structure and behaviour of the UoD. In contrast, the communicative action view states that the major role of an information system is to support communication within an organisation by structuring and coordinating the actions performed by the organisation’s agents. The system is seen as a medium through which people can perform social actions, such as stating facts, making promises, and giving orders. In certain cases, the system can itself take on the role of an agent and perform actions on its own initiative. Most representation techniques used in systems development are based on the model view of information systems. For example, Entity-Relationship diagrams or object-oriented class diagrams are used to represent the static and structural aspects of a UoD. Other examples are entity life cycle diagrams and interaction diagrams, which describe the behaviour of objects. Another technique, which also addresses communicative aspects, is the data flow diagram technique by which the information and control flow between agents in an organisation can be represented. These types of techniques have received widespread acceptance and are now important parts of several systems development methodologies. However, the techniques have also been heavily criticised, see for example (Auramäki, 1988) and (Coad, 1990). One line of critique argues that the basic concepts of the techniques are inappropriate for describing the activities of an organisation. When using the techniques, an enterprise is viewed as a collection of physical places or objects, and the work performed is accordingly analysed as physical activities such as sending messages and storing data. This focus on the physical transfer of data results in a computer and technology biased representation of the communication taking place in an organisation. Thus, from a communicative point of view, the very starting point of many modeling techniques are themselves flawed and should be replaced by an approach that focuses on the communicative actions of an enterprise. A promising approach for modelling communication structures is the language/action approach, which is based on theories from linguistics and the philosophy of language. In the language/action approach, business processes are modeled using the notions of speech acts and discourses, which provides a basis for distinguishing between distinct communication phases, such as preparation, negotiation, and acceptance. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate how the language/action approach can be used as a foundation for the information modeling of the communicative aspects in an organisation. This will be carried out by showing how a language/action approach combined with deontic concepts can be used to construct and organise analysis patterns for information modeling. These analysis patterns can be used in information modeling by supporting reuse, validation, and analysis of conceptual schemas. The information model can also be used to suggest how to organise the components that realise the communicative aspects of an information system into a three-tier architecture. The paper is organised as follows. Section 2 briefly discusses related work. Section 3 introduces an information model based on the language/action perspective. Section 4 shows how this model can be used to organise a number of analysis patterns. Section 5 discusses a number of applications of the model for reuse, validation, and systems architecture. Section 6 concludes the paper and gives suggestions for further work. This chapter extends previous work presented in (Johannesson, 1999).

Event Modeling

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss conceptual event modeling within a context of information modeling. Traditionally, information modeling has been concerned with the modeling of a universe of discourse in terms of information structures. However, most interesting universes of discourse are dynamic and we present a modeling approach that can be used to model such dynamics. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is based on the following notion of an event. “An event is a noteworthy occurrence that has location in time and space. It occurs at a point in time; it does not have duration. Model something as an event if its occurrence has consequences.” (Rumbaugh, Jacobsen et al. 1999). This definition emphasizes that an event occurs at a point in time and that its occurrence has noteworthy consequences. We characterize events as both information objects and change agents (Bækgaard 1997). When viewed as information objects events are phenomena that can be observed and described. For example, borrow events in a library can be characterized by their occurrence times and the participating books and borrowers. When we characterize events as information objects we focus on concepts like information structures. When viewed as change agents events are phenomena that trigger change. For example, when borrow event occurs books are moved temporarily from bookcases to borrowers. When we characterize events as change agents we focus on concepts like transactions, entity processes, and workflow processes.

Information Models for Document Engineering

Software engineers develop an information model in the systems analysis and design process to represent the concepts, specification or implementation design of a software system (Fowler and Scott, 1997). This information model is designed using a modeling language such as the Unified Modeling Language (UML) defined by Rumbaugh, Jacobson, and Booch (1999). The software is implemented by translating the information model into code. Similarly, data engineers develop an information model in the database design process to represented the types of data to be stored in a database. This conceptual information model is typically defined using one of the semantic data modeling languages (Hull and King, 1987) such as Entity-Relationship diagrams (Chen, 1976), or NIAM conceptual schemas (Leung and Nijssen, 1988). The database is implemented by translating the information model into a database schema (defined using an implementation data model such as the relational data model or an object-oriented data model). Likewise, document engineers will develop an information model when designing the structure of a collection of documents. This information model will be implemented by translating it into a document schema. Traditional database information modeling has dealt with structured data such as that found in relational databases. However, much of the information produced using and stored in computers involves documents that do not contain data with a fixed structure - rather it is referred to as semi-structured data. The need for better modeling of documents is no more apparent than in the rapid and chaotic development over the last few years of the World Wide Web. In response to this need, various information models have been proposed to model the semi-structured data found in documents.

Information System Design Based on Reuse of Conceptual Components

Current trends in modern Information System development are more and more based on the exploitation of the experience gained in previous developments of similar systems. While in the early years of Information System development each system was analyzed and designed from scratch, it alreadybecame clear in the 1980s that developing a system which meets user expectations implies being widely aware of the characteristics of the specific application domain and being able to build upon previous experience. Such “reuse of experience’’ was initially performed informally. Meanwhile, in recent years, systematic approaches based on reuse of code and design experience have appeared in the literature of software engineering and in various commercial development environments (Biggerstaff, 1989; Krueger, 1992). For example, application frameworks (Johnson, 1997), seen as code and related specification and design artifacts, are typical structures that have been studied in various projects as large-grained components or application skeletons (see for instance (Fusaschi and Montini, 1997) and (D’Souza and Wills, 1998).

Mapping UML Techniques to Design Activities

Over the years, the information system design process (Gero and Kazakov, 1996; Goldschmidt, 1997; Guindon, 1990; Jeffries et al., 1981; Parnas and Clements, 1986) has been investigated using a variety of perspectives. Researchers have examined cognitive aspects of design (Goldschmidt, 1997; Guindon, 1990; Guindon, Krasner, and Curtis, 1986; Rowe, 1987; Sen, 1997), design strategies (Adelson and Soloway, 1988; Batra and Antony, 1994; Guimaraes, 1985; Jeffries et al., 1981), and reuse tasks (Sen, 1997). A variety of modeling techniques, such as the entity-relationship model (Chen, 1976), data flow diagrams (Gane and Sarson, 1979), and object-oriented models (Booch, 1994) have also been developed to document the artifacts generated during the design process. Increasingly, the object-oriented design paradigm and related modeling techniques have been the choice of system designers. It is reasonable to expect that these modeling techniques (proposed to document the design products) will assist or at least not hinder the designer behaviors (that is, the process of IS artifact design). The expectation has, however, not been subjected to investigation.

Coherent, Consistent and Comprehensive Modeling of Communication, Information, Action and Organization

We live in a time in which more and more organisations need to become innovative, competitive, and flexible enterprises, in order to survive. This does not only hold for commercial companies, but also for organisations with a public function. A prerequisite for being an innovative, competitive and flexible organisation, is that the business processes are efficient, easy to manage and easy to change, and that they are effectively supported by information systems. To enable this, all hope is placed in technology, particularly modern information and communication technology (ICT). However, this hope turns out to be vain if one does not dispose of the right expertise.