Information Modelling
- Tags
- soft-eng
Is the process of modelling the business domain; identifying the main business concepts and relationships.
Table 1:
Listing of various see page 4, [terms] used in information modelling.
| Term | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Actors | Stakeholders or agents using a system | Borrower, Clerk, etc. |
| Objects | An object in a system | Book, Journal, Magazine, etc. |
| Attributes | Properties tied to an object, stakeholder, etc. | Name (of author), Date (of loan), etc. |
| Events | An action on an object between actors | Borrow, Issue, Discharge, Reserve, etc. |
| Relationships | A relationship between actors and objects | Loan, Reservation, etc. |
Terminology
Information modelling often involves creating a [see page 3, dictionary] of terms to elucidate unfamiliar terms and maintain consistency between the terminology used by the developer and the stakeholders.
This dictionary should be a [see page 6, table] with 3 fields: Term, Category, Definition.
Table 2:
Example dictionary.
| Term | Category | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Loan | Relationship | In which a borrower has a book |
| Issue | Event | Initiates a loan to a borrower |
| Discharge | Event | Cancels a loan to a borrower |
| Title (of book) | Attribute | The name of the book's title |
| Author (of book) | Attribute | The name of the book's author |
| Issue date (of loan) | Attribute | Start of the loan period |
| Due date (of loan) | Attribute | End of the loan period |
Dictionaries should be non-redundant (don't use multiple terms with the same definition), complete (don't mention the end of an attribute if there's no term describing where it starts), unambiguous (a term shouldn't be shared (for example name of author and name of book are ambiguous. Use author and title instead)).