Authors: Andrew Burton-Jones, Roger Clarke, Ron Weber
Tags: 2012, complexity, conceptual modeling, ontology, optionality
There are a number of articles in the MIS literature arguing against the use of optional attributes in conceptual modeling, because optional attributes obscure relationships among the entities being modeled. Our present aim is to contribute to a more complete empirical examination of the difference between optional and mandatory attributes in conceptual modeling than has been given to date. We identify all possible examples of optionality, which will allow future researchers to choose examples for empirical study systematically rather than arbitrarily. We also run an experiment on a selected subset of these examples, testing participants’ overall comprehension of diagrams with and without optionality, and testing whether they detect that a certain target law holds. Our hypothesis is that participants will show better overall comprehension of the models with optional attributes, but we expect that they will be better able to detect the truth of the law of interest on the models without optionality.
Cite as:
Clarke R., Burton-Jones A. and Weber R. (2012), “Optionality in Conceptual Models: A Complete Approach,” in AIS SIGSAND, Vancouver, BC, Canada, June 1-2, 2012.
