Veda C. Storey

The paper proposes a new frontier for conceptual modeling-universal conceptual modeling (UCM)-defined as conceptual modeling that is general-purpose and accessible to anyone. For the purposes of the discussion, we envision a non-existent, hypothetical universal conceptual modeling language, which we call Datish (as in English or Spanish for data)....

Background All aspects of our society, including the life sciences, need a mechanism for people working within them to represent the concepts they employ to carry out their research. For the information systems being designed and developed to support researchers and scientists in conducting their work, conceptual models of the relevant domains are...

The paper proposes a new frontier for conceptual modeling – universal conceptual modeling (UCM) – defined as conceptual modeling that is general-purpose and accessible to anyone. For the purposes of the discussion, we envision a non-existent, hypothetical universal conceptual modeling language, which we call Datish (as in English or Spanish for dat...

Design science research, a well-established research approach to solving complex real-world problems, has evolved over time. This research characterizes design science research in information systems. By performing a bibliometric analysis, we show that design science research has progressed in the information systems field through three main phases...

This paper proposes a Conceptual Alignment (CA) Method for conceptual modeling and machine learning. The model consists of a three-step cycle that selects an initial conceptual model, aligns it with machine learning models, and refines both models to reach predictive consistency. Alignment is based on composition methods that can be instantiated by...

Guidelines to improve the Findability, Accessibility, Inter-operability, and Reuse of datasets, known as FAIR principles, were introduced in 2016 to enable machines to perform automatic actions on a variety of digital objects, including datasets. Since then, the principles have been widely adopted by data creators and users worldwide with the 'FAIR...

These are supplementary materials for the paper, “Conceptual Modeling: Topics, Themes, and Technology Trends.” Conceptual modeling is an important part of information systems development and use that involves identifying and representing relevant aspects of reality. Although the past decades have experienced continuous digitalization of services an...

Conceptual modeling is an important part of information systems development and use that involves identifying and representing relevant aspects of reality. Although the past decades have experienced continuous digitalization of services and products that impact business and society, conceptual modeling efforts are still required to support new tech...

Design science research (DSR) should contribute to both the prescriptive and descriptive knowledge bases. Despite its maturity, a granular understanding of how DSR develops knowledge, while utilizing and contributing prescriptive and descriptive knowledge, remains incomplete. Creating such a gran-ular understanding requires a detailed typology of d...

Effective implementation of strategic data-driven health analysis initiatives is heavily dependent on the quality of the electronic medical records that serve as the foundation from which to improve clinical decisions and, in turn, the quality of care. Although there is a large body of research on the quality of healthcare data, a systematical unde...

Conceptual modeling is used to model application domains for which an information system is needed. One of the most complex domains to which conceptual modeling has been applied is that of the human genome. Due to its complexity, its understanding is often left to domain experts. Conceptual models represent genomics-related concepts, with various p...

We propose a universal conceptual data modeling language, Datish. A universal conceptual modeling language can address some of the challenges faced by modern data modeling. Conceptual data modeling seeks to represent the domain's substance and form, identifying the kinds of data to be collected, stored, or used, and have been effective in supportin...

Background Genomics and virology are unquestionably important, but complex, domains being investigated by a large number of scientists. The need to facilitate and support work within these domains requires sharing of databases, although it is often difficult to do so because of the different ways in which data is represented across the databases. T...

With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), the issue of trust in AI emerges as a paramount societal concern. Despite increased attention of researchers, the topic remains fragmented without a common conceptual and theoretical foundation. To facilitate systematic research on this topic, we develop a Foundational Trust Framework to provide a conc...

Design science research addresses important, complex real-world problems. Although well-accepted as part of research in information systems, initiating or progressing a design science research project still requires effort to describe how knowledge creation emerges and its underlying dynamics. Given the existing body of knowledge on design science...

Design science research addresses important, complex real-world problems. Although well-accepted as part of research in information systems, initiating or progressing a design science research project still requires effort to describe how knowledge creation emerges and its underlying dynamics. Given the existing body of knowledge on design science...

Conceptual modeling is often applied to real-world tasks to capture and integrate individual requirements from domain and technical experts for the development of an information system. Increasingly, information systems integrate machine learning models for providing predictive functionalities. Since complex machine learning models are considered a...

Emotion ontologies have been developed to capture affect, a concept that encompasses discrete emotions and feelings, especially for research on sentiment analysis, which analyzes a customer's attitude towards a company or a product. However, there have been limited efforts to adapt and employ these ontologies. This research surveys and synthesizes...

Although conceptual modeling has been integral to information systems development and use, much of its potential remains underutilized. This is evidenced by the lack of a broad adoption of modeling concepts beyond traditional database design and process modeling applications. In this paper, we propose a fundamentally new perspective on conceptual m...

As COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc in everyday lives, the need to limit the spread of the virus remains a challenge, even with advances in medical knowledge, patient care, and vaccine development. Furthermore, COVID-19 is one in a recent series of airborne diseases, and probably not the last, given the ongoing encroachment of humans into animal h...

Artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities are increasingly common components of all socio-technical information systems that integrate human and machine actions. The impacts of AI components on the design and use of application systems are evolving rapidly as improved deep learning techniques and fresh big data sources afford effective and efficien...

The digitalization of human society continues at a relentless rate. However, to develop modern information technologies, the increasing complexity of the real-world must be modeled, suggesting the general need to reconsider how to carry out conceptual modeling. This research proposes that the often-overlooked notion of "system" should be a separate...

Scientists and regular citizens alike search for ways to manage the widespread effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. While scientists are busy in their labs, other citizens often turn to online sources to report their experiences and concerns and to seek and share knowledge of the virus. The text generated by those users in online social media platform...

General ontology is a prominent theoretical foundation for information technology analysis, design, and development. Ontology is a branch of philosophy which studies what exists in reality. A widely used ontology in information systems , especially for conceptual modeling, is the BWW (Bunge-Wand-Weber), which is based on ideas of the philosopher an...

Design science research (DSR) should contribute to both the prescriptive and descriptive knowledge bases. Despite its maturity, a granular understanding of how DSR develops knowledge, while utilizing and contributing prescriptive and descriptive knowledge, remains incomplete. Creating such a granular understanding requires a detailed typology of de...

The ability to sequence the human genome is a scientific, historical breakthrough. Although the human genome mapping is available to all scientists, information about it can be difficult to share. The Conceptual Schema of the Human Genome represents the concepts required to holistically understand the human genome. We report on our continued effort...

The Internet of Things, which has been quietly building and evolving over the past decade, now impacts many aspects of society, including homes, battlefields, and medical communities. Research in information systems, traditionally, has been more concentrated on exploring the impacts of such technology, rather than how to actually create systems usi...

The ability to sequence the human genome is a scientific, historical breakthrough. Although the human genome mapping is available to all scientists, information about it can be difficult to share. The Conceptual Schema of the Human Genome represents the concepts required to holistically understand the human genome. We report on our continued effort...

Digitizing activities and processes of business and society has resulted in explosive growth and availability of data. Machine learning provides methods for detecting patterns in datasets to predict outcomes and support decisions. However, many forms of machine learning are considered black boxes because the internal logic is often opaque. Given th...

Many artificial intelligence (AI) applications involve the use of machine learning, which continues to evolve and address more and more complex tasks. At the same time, conceptual modeling is often applied to such real-world tasks so they can be abstracted at the right level of detail to capture and represent the requirements for the development of...

In our modern, digital world, the critical role of information technology makes data management an important research topic. This paper curates data management research at MIS Quarterly as it has progressed from its early context of understanding requirements of relatively simple information systems to the sophisticated and complex systems of today...

As COVID-19 continues to create havoc in everyday lives, the need to limit the spread of the virus remains a challenge, even with advances in medical knowledge and patient care, and the promise of a vaccine. Furthermore, COVID-19 is one in a recent series of airborne diseases, and probably not the last one, given the ongoing encroachment of humans...

Systems Analysis and Design (SAND) is undoubtedly a pillar in the field of Information Systems (IS). Some researchers have even claimed that SAND is the field that defines the Information Systems discipline and is the core of information systems. The past decades have seen the development of Structured SAND methodologies and Object-Oriented Methodo...

Sentiment analysis is used to mine text data from many sources, including blogs, support forums, and social media, in order to extract customers' opinions and attitudes. The results can be used to make important assessments about a customer's attitude towards a company and if, and how, a company should respond. However, much research on sentiment a...

Inspired by the need to understand the genomic aspects of COVID-19, the Viral Conceptual Model captures and represents the sequencing of viruses. Although the model has already been successfully used, it should have a strong ontological foundation to ensure that it can be consistently applied and expanded. We apply an ontological analysis of the Vi...

Many organizations rely on machine learning techniques to extract useful information from large collections of data. Much research in this area has focused on developing and applying machine learning techniques. We propose that using conceptual models can improve machine learning by providing needed domain knowledge to augment training data with do...

To contribute to the ongoing discussions related to understanding and organizing the field of conceptual modeling, this paper presents a reference framework for articulating conceptual modeling research. The framework accommodates the diverse nature of conceptual modeling research contributions. The framework can describe many styles of research, i...

The understanding of life has always been is a challenge of Life Science. Modeling life implies the need to describe the required details of the systemic structure associated with the working mechanisms of life. In this research, we propose that conceptual modeling can play a crucial role in the modeling of life. Specifically, we introduce the noti...

Since the first version of the Entity–Relationship (ER) model proposed by Peter Chen over forty years ago, both the ER model and conceptual modeling activities have been key success factors for modeling computer-based systems. During the last decade, conceptual modeling has been recognized as an important research topic in academia, as well as a ne...

Inspired by the need to understand the genomic aspects of COVID-19, the Viral Conceptual Model captures and represents the se-quencing of viruses. Although the model has already been successfully used, it should have a strong ontological foundation to ensure that it can be consistently applied and expanded. We apply an ontological analysis of the V...

The understanding of life has always been is a challenge of Life Science. Modeling life implies the need to describe the required details of the sys-temic structure associated with the working mechanisms of life. In this research, we propose that conceptual modeling can play a crucial role in the modeling of life. Specifically, we introduce the not...

The success of design science research (DSR) projects depends upon substantial preparation and foresight. The externalities of DSR projects, however, are too often overlooked or given short shrift as the research team wants to ‘hit the ground running’ to design and build creative solutions to interesting, real-world problems. Frequently, this rush...

With all aspects of sciences quickly becoming digital, this paper proposes digital science as a new area of inquiry for design science research. Scientists, in every field, design and develop digital systems as artifacts to support their research, resulting in all of science now becoming what Herbert Simon called the Sciences of the Artificial. The...

Developer creativity is vital for software companies to innovate and survive. Studies on social media have yielded mixed results about its impact on creativity due to the ubiquitous nature of social media. This research differentiates the effects of informational and socializing social media usage on both incremental and radical creativity and expl...

Both conceptual modeling and machine learning have long been recognized as important areas of research. With the increasing emphasis on digitizing and processing large amounts of data for business and other applications, it would be helpful to consider how these areas of research can complement each other. To understand how they can be paired, we p...

Although much research continues to be carried out on modeling of information systems, there has been a lack of work that relates the activities of modeling to human mental models. With the increased emphasis on machine learning systems, model development remains an important issue. In this research, we propose a framework for progressing from huma...

Both conceptual modeling and machine learning have long been recognized as important areas of research. With the increasing emphasis on digitizing and processing large amounts of data for business and other applications, it would be helpful to consider how these areas of research can complement each other. To understand how they can be paired, we p...

Although much research continues to be carried out on modeling of infor-mation systems, there has been a lack of work that relates the activities of modeling to human mental models. With the increased emphasis on machine learning systems, model development remains an important issue. In this re-search, we propose a framework for progressing from hu...

The Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce (JOCEC) is entering its 31st year since its inception. This paper examines the history and impact of JOCEC and highlights its significant contributions. We analyze the impact of the journal’s research articles using emerging metrics, such as CrossRef, Google Citations, and Altmetrics....

As researchers, scientists, and the general public strive to understand and manage COVID-19, many people search the internet for clues that might help them understand and react to the virus in an informed manner. Social media has become a primary source of news for many, but it can also be a hindrance in managing crisis situations due to the preval...

L’ontologie générale constitue un fondement théorique important pour l’analyse, la conception et le développement dans les technologies de l’informa-tion. L’ontologie est une branche de la philosophie qui étudie ce qui existe dans la réalité. Une ontologie largement utilisée dans les systèmes d’information, en par-ticulier pour la modélisation conc...

Losing the ability to communicate inhibits social contact, creates feelings of frustration and isolation and complicates personal comfort and medical care. Progressive diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and multiple sclerosis (MS) can cause severe motor disabilities that make communication through traditional means difficult, slow...

Advances in machine learning (ML) make it possible to extract useful information from large and diverse datasets. ML methods aim to identify patterns in a dataset based on the values of features and their combinations. Recent research has proposed combining conceptual modeling, specifically data models, with artificial intelligence. In this paper,...

General ontology is a prominent theoretical foundation for information technology analysis, design, and development. Ontol-ogy is a branch of philosophy which studies what exists in reality. A widely used ontology in information systems, especially for conceptual modeling, is the BWW (Bunge-Wand-Weber), which is based on ideas of the philosopher an...

Machine learning has become almost synonymous with Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, it has many challenges with one of the most important being explainable AI; that is, providing human-understandable accounts of why a machine learning model produces specific outputs. To address this challenge, we propose superimposition as a concept which use...

Research in design science has always acknowledged the need for evaluating its knowledge outcomes, with particular emphasis on assessing the efficacy and utility of the artifacts produced. However, the need to demonstrate the validity of the research process and outcomes has not received as much attention. This research examines scientific approach...

An important function of any information system is to represent an application domain. A general or foundational ontology provides a basis from which research on representational issues can be conducted. However, most efforts that develop general ontologies, have not taken a systems view. In this paper , we propose a General Systemist Ontology (GSO...

Crowdsourcing is an efficient way to engage the general public in making contributions to the production of goods and services. Studies have shown that observational crowdsourcing, as a continuous activity, has many potential benefits to society. However, a major challenge is how to model a crowdsourced activity. In this research, we provide guidel...

Machine learning has become almost synonymous with Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, it has many challenges with one of the most important being explainable AI; that is, providing human-understandable accounts of why a machine learning model produces specific outputs. To address this challenge, we propose superimposition as a concept which use...

Innovation is important in software development because it enables developers to design novel solutions to non-routine problems. Most of the literature on software development, however, has focused on team-level innovation, even though individuals carry out most of the actual work. In this research, we investigate how to convert developer creativit...

Innovation is important in software development because it enables developers to design novel solutions to non-routine problems. Most of the literature on software development, however, has focused on team-level innovation, even though individuals carry out most of the actual work. In this research, we investigate how to convert developer creativit...

Forecasting the number of cases and the number of deaths in a pandemic provides critical information to governments and health officials, as seen in the management of the coronavirus outbreak. But things change. Thus, there is a constant search for real‐time and leading indicator variables that can provide insights into disease propagation models....

Empirical research in information systems relies heavily on the development and validation of survey instruments. A review of the information systems literature reveals that efforts to evaluate content validity for survey scales are often inconsistent, incomplete, or not reported. This paper defines and describes the most significant facets of cont...

Research in design science has always acknowledged the need for evaluating its knowledge outcomes, with particular emphasis on assessing the efficacy and utility of the artifacts produced. However, the need to demonstrate the validity of the research process and outcomes has not received as much attention. This research examines scientific approach...

“Exhaust data” is “extra data” or “left over” data from “core data” digital transactions, collected, either intentionally or unintentionally, but for which there is no initial, specific purpose for its collection. This article differentiates core data from exhaust data, defines and describes exhaust data, and proposes how to turn it into core data...

As activities are increasingly being digitalized in business and society, organizations have sought ways to effectively and competitively, use data. Business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) systems which support managerial decision-making continue to be developed and used. Given the importance of these systems, it would be useful to have a compre...

The field of conceptual modeling continues to evolve and be applied to important modeling problems in many domains. With a goal of articulating the breadth and depth of the field, our initial work focused on the many implicit and explicit definitions of conceptual modeling, resulting in the Characterizing Conceptual Modeling (CCM) framework. In thi...

In an increasingly digital world, the modeling and management of data is more important than ever as we move from the traditional management of data through the era of big data and now to an era of digitalization. Many of the traditional data challenges remain, which can be presented and understood in terms of data semantics, structure, syntax, and...

The number of applications being developed that require access to knowledge about the real world has increased rapidly over the past two decades. Domain ontologies, which formalize the terms being used in a discipline, have become essential for research in areas such as Machine Learning, the Internet of Things, Robotics, and Natural Language Proces...

Social media is increasingly being used for communication by individuals and organizations. Social media stores vast amounts of publicly available data that provides a rich source of information and insights. Often, social media users can easily infer meaning from short text such as microblogs and Facebook posts because they understand the context...

The evolution of innovative products has continued to move business and society into an ever more complex, and digital, world. Researchers have sought to understand how to best support innovation and how decisions are made regarding funding for entrepreneurs seeking to bring their products to market. Funding by investors can shape the direction of...

With the transformation of our society into a “digital world,” machine learning has emerged as an essential approach to extracting useful information from large collections of data. However, challenges remain for using machine learning effectively. We propose that some of these can be overcome using conceptual modeling. We examine a popular cross-i...

The number of applications being developed that require access to knowledge about the real world has increased rapidly over the past two decades. Domain ontologies, which formalize the terms being used in a discipline, have become essential for research in areas such as Machine Learning, the Internet of Things, Robotics, and Natural Language Proces...

The importance of creativity is widely acknowledged in design science research, yet there is a lack of understanding of how this creativity is manifested throughout the design science lifecycle. This research examines the effects of the boundaries that are placed on creativity by the particular design science research method used throughout the des...

Organizations continue to seek ways in which to focus on data to help them compete. Business Intelligence & Analytics (BI&A) systems support organizations decision-making and, in turn, their survival chances. There exists a compelling need for a comprehensive Business Intelligence Maturity Model to aid organizations in evaluating their existing BI&...