Abstract
Many writers in the information systems area accept that an information system is there for providing information, for example, Avison and Shah (1997), and Flynn (1998). And yet what a computer handles is data, that is, the systems that are normally called ‘information systems’ are only data systems (Wilson 1990, Flynn 1998). So an interesting question is how data turn into information by means of an information system. And an information systems designer should consider what determines the capability of information provision of a machine, which can only handle data. This problem does not seem to have been well addressed in the literature. To tackle this problem systematically in this chapter we will propose a notion of ‘information bearing capacity of a conceptual data schema’ and give a method for analyzing such a capacity of a data schema in the Entity-Relationship model (ER). The main significance of this work is to ascertain that a sufficient data structure is in place for an information system to provide required information. The chapter is organized as follows. First of all, some related work is examined. Then the basic concepts of this work are presented, and the notion defined.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Andersen, P. B. 1997, A Theory of Computer Semiotics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Avison, D.E., and Shah, H. U. 1997, The Information Systems Development Life Cycle: A First Course in Information Systems. London, McGraw-Hill.
Batini, C, Ceri, S., and Navathe, S.B. Conceptual Database Design: An Entity-relationship Approach Redwood City in Calif, Benjamin/Cummings, 1992.
Barwise, J., and Perry, J. Situations and Attitudes. Cambridge Massa, Bradford Books, MIT Press, 1983.
Checkland, P. 1981, Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester.
Checkland, P., and S. Holwell, 1998, Information, Systems and Information Systems, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, New York
Codd, E.F., 1970, A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks. Com. of ACM, 13.6, pp.377–387.
Dretske, F. I. Knowledge and the Flow of Information, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981.
Eick, C. F and Lockemann, P. C, 1985, Acquisition of terminological knowledge using database design techniques, Proc ACM SIGMOD 1985 International Conf on Management of data, SIGMOD Record Vol 4, No4 p.84.
Flynn, D., 1998, Information Systems Requirements: Determination & Analysis 2nd ed. London, McGraw-Hill.
Harel, D., 1988, On Visual Formalisms, Com. of ACM, 31.5, pp.514–30.
Howe, D.R., 1989, Data Analysis for Data Base Design, 2nd ed, Edward Arnold, London.
Lewis, P., 1994, Information-systems Development, Pitman, London.
Liu, K., Yasser, A. and Stamper, R., 1994, Simplicity, uniformity and quality — the role of semantic analysis in systems development, in Managing Quality Systems, Ross et al. Eds., Computational Mechanics Publications, Southampton.
Mingers, J., 1995, Information and meaning: foundations for an intersubjective account, Info Systems J, 5, 285–306.
Moody, D., 1998, Metrics for evaluating the quality of entity relationship models, Proceedings of 17th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER’89), Singapore, 16–19 November.
Stamper, R., 1997, Organisational semiotics, in: J. Mingers and F. Stowell, ed., Information Systems: An Emerging Discipline? McGraw Hill, London, pp.267–83.
Stowell, F. and West, D., 1994, Client-led Design, McGraw-Hill, London
Wilson, B. Systems: Concepts, Methodologies and Applications 2nd ed. Chichester, Wiley, 1990.
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Feng, J. (2002). A Semiotics Approach to Analyzing the Information Bearing Capacity of a Data Schema. In: Liu, K., Clarke, R.J., Andersen, P.B., Stamper, R.K. (eds) Coordination and Communication Using Signs. Information and Organization Design Series, vol 2. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0803-8_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0803-8_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-5247-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-0803-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive