FACET MODELING - AN APPROACH TO FLEXIBLE AND INTEGRATED CONCEPTUAL MODELING

The paper points to weaknesses of conceptual modelling languages that are oriented towards certain aspects of the problem domain of informat ion systems (IS) development, e.g., activities, information resources, objects, or actors. It is concluded that modelling languages are need ed that allow modellers to 1) freely choose to represent a wide and ex tensible range of aspects of problem domain phenomena contingent on th e problems at hand; 2) simultaneously co-represent several aspects of the same problem domain phenomenon whenever needed; 3) reflect semanti cal relations between these aspects in the problem domain models; and 4) extend the set of kinds of aspects that can be represented and visu alised throughout problem analysis as understanding of the problem dom ain and the problems at hand increases. An approach called facet model ling of real-world problem domains is therefore outlined to deal with the complexity of contemporary analysis problems. It is shown how face t models can be defined and visualised, before facet modelling is disc ussed in relation to other recent ideas and techniques in the IS devel opment field. Case studies are currently in progress to evaluate vario us implications of the facet modelling approach empirically. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.