Information modeling in the time of the revolution

Information modeling is concerned with the construction of computer-based symbol structures which capture the meaning of information and organize it in ways that make it understandable and useful to people. Given that information is becoming an ubiquitous, abundant and precious resource, its modeling is serving as a core technology for information systems engineering. We present a brief history of information modeling techniques in Computer Science and briefly survey such techniques developed within Knowledge Representation (Artificial Intelligence), Data Modeling (Databases), and Requirements Analysis (Software Engineering-and information Systems). We then offer a characterization of information modeling techniques which classifies them according to their ontologies, i.e., the type of application for which they are intended, the set of abstraction mechanisms (or, structuring principles) they support, as well as the tools they provide for building, analyzing, and managing application models. The final component of the paper uses the proposed characterization to assess particular information modeling techniques and draw conclusions about the advances that have been achieved in the field, (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.