Editorial Preface Relationship Construct in Modeling Information Systems: Identifying Relationships Based on Relation Element Theory
چکیده
The most important components of an information model are its modeling constructs which largely determine the expressive power of the model. One of the fundamental constructs in information systems modeling is the relationship construct. The relationship construct is hailed as a major construct in modeling the real world by the entity-relationship (ER) community (e.g., Chen, 1976). Other types of relationships, or sometimes known as associations, were introduced to extend the expressiveness of the ER model. For example, generalization and aggregation were introduced to the extended or enhanced ER model, and later adopted by the object-oriented models. Despite its importance and prominence, the term “relationship” means different things to different people at different times. Sometimes the term conjures up the meaning of generalization-specialization; other times, it represents aggregation or association. The use of fuzzy terms and constructs is detrimental to the progress of science. It is thus important to clearly and ABSTRACT