An Overview of Computer Supported Query Formulation
This work tackles the challenge of making stored corporate information accessible to users in organizations, but it appears to be an incremental overview rather than a novel solution.
The paper addresses the problem of enabling intuitive query formulation in information systems to support information disclosure, proposing a computer-supported mechanism that aligns with users' perception rather than requiring complex manual queries.
Most present day organisations make use of some automated information system. This usually means that a large body of vital corporate information is stored in these information systems. As a result, an essential function of information systems should be the support of disclosure of this information. We purposely use the term {\em information disclosure} in this context. When using the term information disclosure we envision a computer supported mechanism that allows for an easy and intuitive formulation of queries in a language that is as close to the user's perception of the universe of discourse as possible. From this point of view, it is only obvious that we do not consider a simple query mechanism where users have to enter complex queries manually and look up what information is stored in a set of relational tables. Without a set of adequate information disclosure avenues an information system becomes worthless since there is no use in storing information that will never be retrieved.