Chapter 1: Information Modeling in Context

1.1 Business Information and Communication Systems
1.2 Views on Business Communication
1.2.1 Information Model
1.2.2 Business Vocabulary
1.2.3 Graphical User Interface (GUI)
1.2.4 Business Process Model
1.2.5 Business Rules
1.2.6 Use Cases
1.2.7 Summary of Views
1.3 Fact Oriented Modeling (FOM)
1.3.1 Hallmarks of FOM Techniques
1.3.1.1 Verbalizations of Concrete Examples of Facts
1.3.1.2 A Good Procedure for How to Model
1.3.1.3 Focus on Elementary Facts
1.3.2 What Makes FCO-IM Special?
1.3.2.1 Crucial Distinction between FCO-IM and Other FOM Techniques
1.4 Why This Book?

Chapter 2: Serviceton Music Theater

2.1 Description of the Domain
2.2 The Information System Development Perspective
2.2.1 Serviceton Music Theater Business Process Model
2.2.2 Serviceton Music Theater Use Case Diagram and Brief Description
2.2.3 Serviceton Music Theater Graphical User Interface
2.2.4 Serviceton Music Theater Information Model
2.2.5 Serviceton Music Theater Business Rules

Chapter 3: How to Model the Facts

3.1 The FCO-IM Information Modeling Procedure
3.2 Collecting: Finding or Drawing up Examples of Facts
3.3 Verbalizing: Putting the Concrete Examples Into Words
3.3.1 Why Verbalize?
3.3.2 Good Verbalizations for Serviceton
3.3.3 Guidelines for Verbalizing
3.3.3.1 Express Concrete Facts That Can Be Highlighted
3.3.3.2 Express Exactly One Fact: No Clusters of Facts, No Incomplete Facts
3.3.3.3 Use Sentences That Do Not Depend on Other Sentences
3.3.3.4 Use Sentences That Make the Meaning of the Facts as Clear as Possible
3.4 Sorting
3.4.1 Verbalizations for Serviceton
3.4.2 Sorting: Typing and Naming
3.5 Reading Back Fact Expressions From an FCO-IM Diagram
3.5.1 Fact, Fact Type, Role, Fact Expression, Fact Expression Type
3.5.2 Tuple, Population
3.5.3 Object, Object Type, Object Expression, Object Expression Type
3.5.4 Label, Label Type
3.5.5 Reading Back the Complete Fact Expressions
3.6 Analyzing
3.6.1 Analyzing Fact Type ‘Show’
3.6.2 Rule of Thumb and Procedure for Analyzing
3.6.3 Analyzing Fact Type ‘Performance Features Show’
3.6.4 Analyzing Fact Type ‘Performance PRICE’
3.6.5 Summary of Analyzing the other Performance Schedule Fact Types
3.6.6 Dos and Don’ts When Analyzing
3.6.6.1 Dos When Analyzing
3.6.6.2 Don’ts When Analyzing
3.6.7 An Object Expression Must be a Connected Sentence Part

Chapter 4: How to Keep the Facts Sound Using Constraints

4.1 Introduction to Business Rules and Constraints
4.1.1 Stating Business Rules and Constraints
4.2 Uniqueness Constraints (UCs)
4.2.1 Illustrations of how Uniqueness Constraints are Determined
4.2.2 Procedure to Find all UCs in an Information Model
4.2.3 Procedure Applied to Fact Types With Three Roles
4.2.3.1 First Example
4.2.3.1 Second Example
4.2.4 Summary of Determining UCs for the Remaining FTs of the Performance Schedule
4.3 Totality Constraints (TCs)
4.3.1 Illustrations of How Totality Constraints are Determined
4.3.2 Procedure to Find all TCs in an Information Model
4.3.2.1 Attribute Fact Type and Own Attribute Fact Type
4.3.2.2 Typical Cases
4.3.3 Summary of Determining TCs for the Remaining FTs of the Performance Schedule
4.4 Value Constraints (VCs)
4.4.1 Value Constraint or Domain List?
4.4.2 Procedure to Find all VCs in an Information Model
4.4.3 Summary of Determining VCs for the Remaining FTs of the Performance Schedule
4.5 Other Constraints
4.5.1 Totality Constraint on two out of Many Roles
4.5.2 Subset Constraint Between two Roles
4.5.3 Equality Constraint Between two or More Roles
4.5.4 Cardinality Constraint With Value Requirement
4.5.5 Uniqueness Constraint Between two Fact Types
4.5.6 Circular Constraint
4.5.7 Dynamic Constraint
4.5.8 Deontic Totality Constraint on a Role

Chapter 5: How to Check your Model and get it Approved

5.1 Verbalizations are Crucial to Verify and Validate the Model
5.2 Form Rules for an FCO-IM Diagram
5.2.1 Naming Conventions
5.2.2 Requirements for Fact Expression Types and Object Expression Types
5.3 Is the model really elementary?
5.3.1 N Rule
5.3.2 N-1 Rule
5.3.3 When to Perform the N Rule and N-1 Rule Tests
5.4 Was any Object Type Overlooked?
5.4.1 Example of Overlooked Object Type in Serviceton Theater
5.4.2 General Pattern Revealing an Overlooked Object Type
5.4.3 When to Perform the Overlooked Object Type Test and add a new Object Type

Chapter 6: Advanced Topics

6.1 Alternative Ways to Model the Same Fact Expressions
6.1.1 Different Way of Sorting: Different Table Structures
6.1.1.1 Different Fact Types if Only a Few Fixed Values Exist
6.1.1.2 Consequences for the Information Model and Table Structure
6.1.1.3 Pros and Cons of These Two Alternatives
6.1.1.4 Advice to Choose Between These Two Ways of Modeling
6.1.2 General Advice on Modeling: as Data Instead of Metadata
6.1.3 Different Way of Analyzing: Extra Object Type
6.1.3.1 Recognizing an Extra Object Type
6.1.3.2 Two ‘Extra’ Object Types That are the Same Must be United
6.2 Some Things are Special: Introduction to Subtypes
6.2.1 Declarative and Derivable Subtypes
6.2.1.1 Declarative Subtype
6.2.1.2 Derivable Subtype
6.2.2 Difference Between Subtypes and ‘Ordinary’ Object Types
6.2.2.1
6.2.2.2
6.3 A Window on Further Modeling Power

Chapter 7: Model Transformations

7.1 Transformation of an FCO-IM IGD Into a Relational Database Schema
7.1.1 What is a Relational Database, Really?
7.1.2 Derivation of a Relational Schema: Indicating Tables in the IGD
7.1.2.1 Placing Fact Types Together in one Table
7.1.2.2 Visualizing Tables in an IGD
7.1.3 Derivation of a Relational Schema: Group, Lexicalize, Reduce and Convert
7.1.3.1 Group
7.1.3.2 Lexicalize
7.1.3.3 Reduce
7.1.3.4 Convert: The Resulting Relational Database Schema
7.2 Transformation of an FCO-IM IGD Into an Entity Relationship Diagram
7.2.1 Step 1
7.2.2 Step 2
7.3 Transformation of an FCO-IM IGD Into Other Modeling Techniques

Chapter 8: Perspectives on Information Modeling

8.1 Business Support
8.2 Business Processes, Business Rules
8.3 Semantic Web (Machine Readability, AI, Rules, Ontology)
8.4 Interoperability (Ontologies, Standards, Diversity)
8.5 Quality of Data, Quality of Information, Data Governance
8.6 Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing
8.7 Big Data, NoSQL, Analytics
8.8 Links with Other Modeling Schools
8.9 System Generation, Model-Based Development, Evolutionary Systems
8.10 Alternative Uses of FOM