Home // International Journal On Advances in Software, volume 2, numbers 2 and 3, 2009 // View article

Visualizing Conceptual Schemas with their Sources and Progress

Authors:
Christian Kop

Keywords: conceptual modeling; verbalization; glossary; progress information; important concept

Abstract:
Conceptual modeling for database design is more than just a “drawing” of the database architecture which is readable for specialists. Instead it must be a means for communication between the database designers and the other stakeholders. Even the specialists are not only interested in the graphical representation. There is also a need that the database designers and end users get an overview if the focus of the database schema under development still reflects the expectations of the end users. Stakeholders are also interested in the current working state (progress) of the model. Therefore, it needs simple and easy to use techniques for gathering and presenting different kind of information. In this paper, a combination of such techniques is presented. Firstly, it will be proposed how a glossary based representation together with a graphical representation and a verbalization of concepts can be used for communication with the end user. In the remaining parts of this paper these techniques will be applied to give database designers an overview of the focus of the schema, the current progress state as well as an overview to the sources which are related to the model elements.

Pages: 245 to 258

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2009. Used with permission.

Publication date: December 1, 2009

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2628