On the deep structure of information systems

Abstract

The deep structure of an information system comprises those properties that manifest the meaning of the real-world system the information system is intended to model. In this paper we describe three models we have developed of information systems' deep-structure propeflies. The first, the representational model, proposes a set of cdnstructs that enable the ontological expressiveness of grammars used to model information systems (such as the entity-relationship model) to be evaluated. The second, the state-tracking model, proposes four requirements that information systems must satisv if they are to faithfully track the real-world system they are intended to model. The third, the good-decomposition model, proposes three necessary conditions that information systems must meet if they are to be welt decomposed. The three models provide a theoretically based, structured way of evaluating grammars that are used to analyse, design and implement information systems and scripts that have been generated using these grammars to describe specific information systems.

A Study of the Evolution of the Representational Capabilities of Process Modeling Grammars

“…Its application to information systems foundations has been referred to by a number of researchers [10]. Some minor alterations have been carried out over the years by Wand and Weber [6,7] and Weber [11], but the current key constructs of the BWW model can be grouped into the following clusters: things including properties and types of things; states assumed by things; events and transformations occurring on things; and systems structured around things (see Appendix 1 for a complete list).…”

“…• As the construct process [22] was not specified in the BWW representation model as defined in [6,7,11] we did not consider it in our comparison. …”

“…Concerned that this situation would result in the development of information systems that were unable to capture completely important aspects of the real world, Wand and Weber [5][6][7] developed and refined a set of models for the evaluation of the representational capability of the modeling techniques and the scripts prepared using such techniques. These models are based on an ontology defined by Bunge [8] and are referred to as the Bunge-Wand-Weber (BWW) models.…”

“…As computerized information systems are representations of real world systems, Wand and Weber suggest that a theory of representation based on ontology can be used to help define and build information systems that contain the necessary representations of real world constructs including their properties and interactions. The BWW representation model is one of three theoretical models defined by Wand and Weber [7] that make up the Representation Theory. Its application to information systems foundations has been referred to by a number of researchers [10].…”

“…In addition, a minimal ontological overlap (MOO) analysis [7,11] has been conducted in order to determine the set of modeling standards with a minimum number of overlapping constructs but with maximal ontological completeness (MOC), i.e., maximum expressiveness, between the selected standards. The study identified two sets of standards that, when used together, allow for the most expressive power with the least overlap of constructs, viz., ebXML and BPEL4WS, and, ebXML and WSCI.…”