Disentangling the schema turn: Restoring the information base to conceptual modelling
This addresses a foundational issue in computer science conceptual modeling, potentially broadening practices beyond current schema-centric methods, though it is incremental in proposing a shift rather than a new paradigm.
The paper critiques the 'schema turn' in conceptual modeling, which overly focuses on schemas while neglecting the information base, and argues that modern technology enables a more inclusive approach that could lead to more automated and empirically motivated practices.
If one looks at contemporary mainstream development practices for conceptual modelling in computer science, these so clearly focus on a conceptual schema completely separated from its information base that the conceptual schema is often just called the conceptual model. These schema-centric practices are crystallized in almost every database textbook. We call this strong, almost universal, bias towards conceptual schemas the schema turn. The focus of this paper is on disentangling this turn within (computer science) conceptual modeling. It aims to shed some light on how it emerged and so show that it is not fundamental. To show that modern technology enables the adoption of an inclusive schema-and-base conceptual modelling approach, which in turn enables more automated, and empirically motivated practices. And to show, more generally, the space of possible conceptual modelling practices is wider than currently assumed. It also uses the example of bCLEARer to show that the implementations in this wider space will probably need to rely on new pipeline-based conceptual modelling techniques. So, it is possible that the schema turn's complete exclusion of the information base could be merely a temporary evolutionary detour.