Inproceedings,
An experimental examination of property precedence in conceptual modelling
APCCM '04: Proceedings of the first Asian-Pacific conference on Conceptual modelling, page 101--110. Darlinghurst, Australia, Australia, Australian Computer Society, Inc., (2004)
Abstract
Interest in evaluating conceptual modelling techniques
has recently experienced a revival, in part due to
widespread adoption of the Unified Modelling Language
(UML). In addition, the use of ontology as a framework
for evaluating conceptual modelling techniques has
gained acceptance. In this paper, we consider
implications of applying one aspect of the ontology of
Mario Bunge to conceptual modelling. Specifically,
conceptual modelling has traditionally failed to provide
mechanisms to indicate that some properties of types or
classes may be considered dependent on others. This
paper presents a theoretical rationale, using Bungeís
ontological notion of precedence, for explicitly modelling
such dependence in conceptual schema diagrams. We
present the design of an experimental framework to test
the impact of explicitly representing precedence on the
ease with which a diagram can convey domain semantics.
In addition, we consider how the issue of ìcommon
senseî semantics can interfere with experimental
procedures to evaluate the semantics conveyed in a
diagramís structure. We offer early experimental results
indicating: 1) the explicit modelling of precedence
improves the ability of experimental participants to verify
the existence of dependence among properties (but has no
effect on the ability to verify the semantics conveyed by
association cardinalities); and 2) the potential for
background knowledge to interfere with the semantics
conveyed by diagram structure. We conclude by
discussing the need for further research on both these
issues.
