IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orisre/v12y2001i4p384-405.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Should Optional Properties Be Used in Conceptual Modelling? A Theory and Three Empirical Tests

Author

Listed:
  • François Bodart

    (Institut d'Informatique, Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, rue Grandgagnage, 21, B-5000 Namur, Belgium)

  • Arvind Patel

    (Department of Accounting and Financial Management, The University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji)

  • Marc Sim

    (Department of Commerce, The University of Queensland, Australia 4072)

  • Ron Weber

    (Department of Commerce, The University of Queensland, Australia 4072)

Abstract

An important feature of some conceptual modelling grammars is the features they provide to allow database designers to show real-world things may or may not possess a particular attribute or relationship. In the entity-relationship model, for example, the fact that a thing may not possess an attribute can be represented by using a special symbol to indicate that the attribute is optional. Similarly, the fact that a thing may or may not be involved in a relationship can be represented by showing the minimum cardinality of the relationship as zero. Whether these practices should be followed, however, is a contentious issue. An alternative approach is to eliminate optional attributes and relationships from conceptual schema diagrams by using subtypes that have only mandatory attributes and relationships.In this paper, we first present a theory that led us to predict that optional attributes and relationships should be used in conceptual schema diagrams only when users of the diagrams require a surface-level understanding of the domain being represented by the diagrams. When users require a deep-level understanding, however, optional attributes and relationships should not be used because they undermine users' abilities to grasp important domain semantics. We describe three experiments which we then undertook to test our predictions. The results of the experiments support our predictions.

Suggested Citation

  • François Bodart & Arvind Patel & Marc Sim & Ron Weber, 2001. "Should Optional Properties Be Used in Conceptual Modelling? A Theory and Three Empirical Tests," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 12(4), pages 384-405, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orisre:v:12:y:2001:i:4:p:384-405
    DOI: 10.1287/isre.12.4.384.9702
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.12.4.384.9702
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/isre.12.4.384.9702?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ron Weber, 1996. "Are Attributes Entities? A Study of Database Designers' Memory Structures," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 7(2), pages 137-162, June.
    2. Michael J. Prietula & Salvatore T. March, 1991. "Form and Substance in Physical Database Design: An Empirical Study," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 2(4), pages 287-314, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Oktay Turetken & Ahmet Dikici & Irene Vanderfeesten & Tessa Rompen & Onur Demirors, 2020. "The Influence of Using Collapsed Sub-processes and Groups on the Understandability of Business Process Models," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 62(2), pages 121-141, April.
    2. Andreas L. Opdahl & Brian Henderson-Sellers, 2004. "A Template for Defining Enterprise Modelling Constructs," Journal of Database Management (JDM), IGI Global, vol. 15(2), pages 39-73, April.
    3. G. Poels & A. Maes & F. Gailly & R. Paemeleire, 2004. "The Pragmatic Quality of Resources-Events-Agents Diagrams: An Experimental Evaluation," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 04/219, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    4. Paul L. Bowen & Robert A. O'Farrell & Fiona H. Rohde, 2009. "An Empirical Investigation of End-User Query Development: The Effects of Improved Model Expressiveness vs. Complexity," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 20(4), pages 565-584, December.
    5. Ben Roelens & Geert Poels, 2015. "The Development and Experimental Evaluation of a Focused Business Model Representation," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 57(1), pages 61-71, February.
    6. Sebastian Schlauderer & Sven Overhage, 2018. "BoSDL: An Approach to Describe the Business Logic of Software Services in Domain-Specific Terms," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 60(5), pages 393-413, October.
    7. G. Poels & A. Maes & F. Gailly & R. Paemeleire, 2004. "User Comprehension of Accounting Information Structures: An Empirical Test of the REA Model," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 04/254, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    8. Boot, Walter R. & Dunn, Cheryl L. & Fulmer, Bachman P. & Gerard, Gregory J. & Grabski, Severin V., 2022. "An eye tracking experiment investigating synonymy in conceptual model validation," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    9. Guan, Jian & Levitan, Alan S. & Kuhn, John R., 2013. "How AIS can progress along with ontology research in IS," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 21-38.
    10. Andrew Burton-Jones & Peter N. Meso, 2006. "Conceptualizing Systems for Understanding: An Empirical Test of Decomposition Principles in Object-Oriented Analysis," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 38-60, March.
    11. A. Maes & G. Poels, 2006. "Development of a user evaluations based quality model for conceptual modeling," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 06/406, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    12. Vijay Khatri & Iris Vessey & V. Ramesh & Paul Clay & Sung-Jin Park, 2006. "Understanding Conceptual Schemas: Exploring the Role of Application and IS Domain Knowledge," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 81-99, March.
    13. Yair Wand & Ron Weber, 2002. "Research Commentary: Information Systems and Conceptual Modeling—A Research Agenda," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 13(4), pages 363-376, December.
    14. Roger Clarke & Andrew Burton-Jones & Ron Weber, 2016. "On the Ontological Quality and Logical Quality of Conceptual-Modeling Grammars: The Need for a Dual Perspective," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(2), pages 365-382, June.
    15. Jan Mendling & Jan Recker & Hajo A. Reijers & Henrik Leopold, 2019. "An Empirical Review of the Connection Between Model Viewer Characteristics and the Comprehension of Conceptual Process Models," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 21(5), pages 1111-1135, October.
    16. Roman Lukyanenko & Wolfgang Maass & Veda C. Storey, 2022. "Trust in artificial intelligence: From a Foundational Trust Framework to emerging research opportunities," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 32(4), pages 1993-2020, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yair Wand & Ron Weber, 2002. "Research Commentary: Information Systems and Conceptual Modeling—A Research Agenda," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 13(4), pages 363-376, December.
    2. Dunn, Cheryl L. & Gerard, Gregory J. & Grabski, Severin V., 2017. "The combined effects of user schemas and degree of cognitive fit on data retrieval performance," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 46-67.
    3. Vijay Khatri & Iris Vessey & V. Ramesh & Paul Clay & Sung-Jin Park, 2006. "Understanding Conceptual Schemas: Exploring the Role of Application and IS Domain Knowledge," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 81-99, March.
    4. Roman Lukyanenko & Jeffrey Parsons & Yolanda F. Wiersma, 2014. "The IQ of the Crowd: Understanding and Improving Information Quality in Structured User-Generated Content," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 25(4), pages 669-689, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orisre:v:12:y:2001:i:4:p:384-405. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.