Abstract
What do (non-)experienced modelers reason while conceptual modeling and how do they arrive at modeling decisions, which modeling and learning difficulties do they face and why, and how do they overcome these difficulties by tailored modeling tool support are questions of relevance and importance to practicing modelers and, likewise, to conceptual modeling research. For the past 7 years, we have been designing, developing, and evaluating a modeling tool integrating a research observatory aimed at studying individual modeling processes online, in the field, and under laboratory conditions—to contribute to a richer understanding of modeler reasoning and decision-making, to identify common modeling and learning difficulties, and, ultimately, to design tool support to mitigate difficulties and to improve assistance for (non-)experienced modelers. We present an overview of the modeling observatory and of a corresponding multimodal observation setup.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Batra D, Davis JG (1992) Conceptual data modelling in database design: Similarities and differences between expert and novice designers. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies 37(1):83–101
Bera P (2011) Situations That Affect Modelers’ Cognitive Difficulties: An Empirical Assessment. In: Sambamurthy V, Tanniru M (eds) Proceedings of the 17th Americas Conference on Information Systems, AMCIS 2011, Detroit, Michigan, USA, August 4–8, 2011
Bera P, Soffer P, Parsons J (2019) Using Eye Tracking to Expose Cognitive Processes in Understanding Conceptual Models. MIS Quarterly 43(4)
Berger PL, Luckmann T (1967) The Social Construction of Reality. Anchor Books, New York, NY, reprint of the 1966 original published by Doubleday, Garden City, NJ
Blech C, Gaschler R, Bilalić M (2019) Why do people fail to see simple solutions? Using think-aloud protocols to uncover the mechanism behind the Einstellung (mental set) effect. Thinking & Reasoning
Breuker D, Matzner M, Delfmann P, Becker J (2016) Comprehensible predictive models for business processes. MIS Quarterly 40(4):1009–1034
Burton-Jones A, Meso P (2008) The Effects of Decomposition Quality and Multiple Forms of Information on Novices’ Understanding of a Domain from a Conceptual Model. Journal of the Association for Information Systems 9(12):748–802
Chaiyasut P, Shanks GG (1994) Conceptual data modeling process: A study of novice and expert data modellers. In: Halpin TA, Meersman R (eds) Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Object-Role Modeling, ORM-1, Magnetic Island, Australia, 4–6 July 1994, pp 310–323
Chen PPS (1976) The entity-relationship model—toward a unified view of data. ACM Transactions on Database Systems 1(1):9–36, https://doi.org/10.1145/320434.320440
Claes J, Vanderfeesten I, Pinggera J, Reijers HA, Weber B, Poels G (2015) A visual analysis of the process of process modeling. Information Systems and e-Business Management 13(1):147–190
Creswell JW, Plano Clark VL (2018) Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research, 3rd edn. Sage, Los Angeles, CA
Ericsson KA, Simon HA (1993) Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data, 2nd edn. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Frank U, Strecker S (2021) Modellierung betrieblicher Informationssysteme : Einführung, theoretische Grundlagen und praktische Anwendungen. DeGruyter, Berlin, in preparation
Frank U, Strecker S, Fettke P, vom Brocke J, Becker J, Sinz EJ (2014) The Research Field “Modeling Business Information Systems” : Current Challenges and Elements of a Future Research Agenda. Business & Information Systems Engineering 6(1):39–43
Hoppenbrouwers SJBA, Proper HA, van der Weide TP (2005) A fundamental view on the process of conceptual modeling. In: Delcambre L, Kop C, Mayr HC, Mylopoulos J, Pastor O (eds) 24th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER). Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, vol 3716, pp 128–143
Hoppenbrouwers SJBA, Lindeman L, Proper HA (2006) Capturing modeling processes – towards the MoDial modeling laboratory. In: Meersman R, Tari Z, Herrero P (eds) On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems 2006: OTM 2006 Workshops. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, vol 4278, pp 1242–1252
Manning CD, Surdeanu M, Bauer J, Finkel JR, Bethard S, McClosky D (2014) The Stanford CoreNLP natural language processing toolkit. In: Proceedings of the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, ACL 2014, June 22–27, 2014, Baltimore, MD, USA, System Demonstrations, pp 55–60
Miles MB, Huberman AM, Saldaña J (2014) Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook, 3rd edn. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA
Newell A, Simon HA (1972) Human problem solving. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Pinggera J, Soffer P, Fahland D, Weidlich M, Zugal S, Weber B, Reijers HA, Mendling J (2015) Styles in business process modeling: an exploration and a model. Software & Systems Modeling 14(3):1055–1080
Rosenthal K, Strecker S (2019) Toward a Taxonomy of Modeling Difficulties: A Multi-Modal Study on Individual Modeling Processes. In: Krcmar H, Fedorowicz J, Boh WF, Leimeister JM, Wattal S (eds) Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2019, Munich, Germany, December 15–18, 2019
Rosenthal K, Ternes B, Strecker S (2019) Learning Conceptual Modeling: Structuring Overview, Research Themes and Paths for Future Research. In: vom Brocke J, Gregor S, Müller O (eds) 27th European Conference on Information Systems, ECIS 2019, Stockholm and Uppsala, Sweden, June 8–14, 2019
Rosenthal K, Strecker S, Pastor O (2020a) Modeling Difficulties in Data Modeling - Similarities and Differences Between Experienced and Non-experienced Modelers. In: Dobbie G, Frank U, Kappel G, Liddle SW, Mayr HC (eds) Proceedings of the 39th International Conference, ER 2020, Vienna, Austria, November 3–6, 2020, Springer, pp 501–511
Rosenthal K, Ternes B, Strecker S (2020b) Understanding individual processes of conceptual modeling: A multi-modal observation and data generation approach. In: Bork D, Karagiannis D, Mayr HC (eds) Proceedings of the Modellierung 2020, Vienna, Austria, February 19–21, 2020, Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V., Lecture Notes in Informatics, vol P-302, pp 77–92
Serral E, De Weerdt J, Sedrakyan G, Snoeck M (2016) Automating Immediate and Personalized Feedback: Taking Conceptual Modelling Education to a Next Level. In: 10th International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS), IEEE, Grenoble, France, pp 1–6
van Someren MW, Barnard YF, Sandberg JAC (1994) The Think Aloud Method: A Practical Guide to Modelling Cognitive Processes. Academic Press, London
Song M, van der Aalst WMP (2007) Supporting process mining by showing events at a glance. In: 17th Annual Workshop on Information Technologies and Systems (WITS), Montreal, Canada, pp 139–145
Srinivasan A, Te’eni D (1995) Modeling as Constrained Problem Solving: An Empirical Study of the Data Modeling Process. Management Science 41(3):419–434, https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.41.3.419
Ternes B (2017) Design and evaluation of a web-based modeling platform to support the learning of conceptual modeling and of studying the corresponding learning processes. In: Gulden J, Nurcan S, Reinhartz-Berger I, Guédria W, Bera P, Guerreiro S, Fellmann M, Weidlich M (eds) Joint Proceedings of the Radar tracks at the 18th BPMDS, and the 22nd EMMSAD, and the 8th International Workshop on Enterprise Modeling and Information Systems Architectures (EMISA) co-located with the 29th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering 2017 (CAiSE 2017), Essen, Germany, June 12–13, 2017, CEUR-WS.org, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, vol 1859, pp 138–142
Ternes B, Strecker S (2018) A web-based modeling tool for studying the learning of conceptual modeling. In: Schaefer I, Karagiannis D, Vogelsang A, Méndez D, Seidl C (eds) Modellierung 2018, Braunschweig, Germany, February 21–23, 2020, Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V., Lecture Notes in Informatics, vol P-280, pp 325–328
Ternes B, Strecker S, Rosenthal K, Barth H (2019) A browser-based modeling tool for studying the learning of conceptual modeling based on a multi-modal data collection approach. In: Ludwig T, Pipek V (eds) 14th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI 2019), Siegen, Germany, February 24–27, 2019, pp 1984–1988
Ternes B, Rosenthal K, Barth H, Strecker S (2020a) TOOL - modeling observatory & tool: An update. In: Michael J, Bork D, Fill H, Fettke P, Karagiannis D, Köpke J, Koschmider A, Mayr HC, Rehse J, Reimer U, Striewe M, Tropmann-Frick M, Ullrich M (eds) Companion Proceedings of Modellierung 2020 Short, Workshop and Tools & Demo Papers co-located with Modellierung 2020, Vienna, Austria, February 19–21, 2020, CEUR-WS.org, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, vol 2542, pp 198–202
Ternes B, Rosenthal K, Strecker S (2020b) Automated Assistance of Data Modelers: A Heuristics-Based Natural Language Processing Approach. Internal Working Paper. Enterprise Modelling Research Group, University of Hagen, Germany
Ternes B, Rosenthal K, Strecker S, Bartels J (2020c) TOOL—A Modeling Observatory & Tool for Studying Individual Modeling Processes. In: Michael J, Torres V (eds) ER Forum, Demo and Posters 2020 co-located with 39th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER 2020), Vienna, Austria, November 3–6, 2020, CEUR-WS.org, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, vol 2716, pp 178–182
Venable JR (1996) Teaching novice conceptual data modellers to become experts. In: International Conference Software Engineering: Education and Practice, IEEE, Dunedin, New Zealand, pp 50–56
VERBI Software (2018) MAXQDA Standard 12. https://www.maxqda.com, accessed: 2020-11-12
Wilmont I, Hoppenbrouwers S, Barendsen E (2017) An Observation Method for Behavioral Analysis of Collaborative Modeling Skills. In: Metzger A, Persson A (eds) Advanced Information Systems Engineering Workshops. CAiSE 2017. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 286, Springer, Cham, pp 59–71
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Strecker, S., Rosenthal, K., Ternes, B. (2021). Studying Conceptual Modeling Processes: A Modeling Tool, Research Observatory, and Multimodal Observation Setup. In: Gimpel, H., et al. Market Engineering . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66661-3_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66661-3_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-66660-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-66661-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)