Abstract
Database and information systems technology has substantially changed. Nowadays, content management systems, (information-intensive) web services, collaborating systems, internet databases, OLAP databases etc. have become buzzwords. At the same time, object-relational technology has gained the maturity for being widely applied. Conceptual modelling has not (yet) covered all these novel topics. It has been concentrated for more than two decades around specification of structures. Meanwhile, functionality, interactivity and distribution must be included into conceptual modelling of information systems. Also, some of the open problems that have been already discussed in 1987 [15, 16] still remain to be open. At the same time, novel models such as object-relational models or XML-based models have been developed. They did not overcome all the problems but have been sharpening and extending the variety of open problems. The open problem presented are given for classical areas of database research, i.e., structuring and functionality. The entire are of distribution and interaction is currently an area of very intensive research.
The presentation of open problems is combined with the introduction to the achievements of conceptual modelling. The paper develops an approach to conceptual modelling for object-relational, collaborating information systems that support virtual communities of work, integration of information systems, varieties of architecture such as the OLTP-OLAP architecture, varieties of play-out and play-in systems, and data analysis engines. The paper is based on an extended entity-relationship model that covers all structuring facilities of object-relational systems. It uses the theory of media types and storyboards for the specification of interactivity and provides a framework for collaboration.
The paper presents 20 open problems that need to be solved for conceptual modelling. The problems are sketched. Main references and the background are given. Additional references can be provided by the author on demand.
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Thalheim, B. (2007). Achievements and Problems of Conceptual Modelling. In: Chen, P.P., Wong, L.Y. (eds) Active Conceptual Modeling of Learning. ACM-L 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4512. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77503-4_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77503-4_7
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