Synonyms
Fact-oriented modeling; NIAM
Definition
Object-Role Modeling (ORM), also known as fact-oriented modeling, is a conceptual approach to modeling and querying the information semantics of business domains in terms of the underlying facts of interest, where all facts and rules may be verbalized in language readily understood by non-technical users of those business domains. Unlike Entity-Relationship (ER) modeling and Unified Modeling Language (UML) class diagrams, ORM treats all facts as relationships (unary, binary, ternary etc.). How facts are grouped into structures (e.g., attribute-based entity types, classes, relation schemes, XML schemas) is considered a design level, implementation issue that is irrelevant to the capturing of essential business semantics.
Avoiding attributes in the base model enhances semantic stability, populatability, and natural verbalization, facilitating communication with all stakeholders. For information modeling, fact-oriented graphical notations...
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Recommended Reading
Bakema G, Zwart J, van der Lek H. Fully communication oriented information Modelling. The Netherlands: Ten Hagen Stam; 2000.
Bloesch A, Halpin T. Conceptual queries using ConQuer-II. In: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling; 1997. p. 113–26.
Curland M, Halpin T. Model driven development with NORMA. In: Proceedings of the 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences; 2007.
Embley D, Kurtz B, Woodfield S. Object-oriented systems analysis: a model-driven approach. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall; 1992.
Falkenberg E. Concepts for modeling information. In: Proceedings of the IFIP Working Conference on Modelling in Data Base Management Systems; 1976. p. 95–109.
Halpin T. Comparing metamodels for ER, ORM and UML data models. In: Siau K, editor. Advanced topics in database research. Idea Publishing Group: Hershey; 2004. p. 23–44.
Halpin T. Fact-oriented modeling: past, present and future. In: Krogstie J, Opdahl A, Brinkkemper S, editors. Conceptual modelling in information systems engineering. Springer: Berlin Heidelberg; 2007. p. 19–38.
Halpin T, Curland M. Automated verbalization for ORM 2. In: On the move to meaningful internet systems 2006: OTM 2006 workshops. LNCS, vol. 4278. Heidelberg: Springer; 2006. p. 1181–90.
Halpin T, Evans K, Hallock P, MacLean W. Database modeling with Microsoft® Visio for enterprise architects. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann; 2003.
Halpin T, Morgan T. Information modeling and relational databases. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann; 2008.
Meersman R. The RIDL conceptual language, research report. International Centre for Information Analysis Services, Control Data Belgium, Brussels; 1982.
Nijssen GM. Current issues in conceptual schema concepts. In: Proceedings of the IFIP Working Conference on Modelling in Data Base Management Systems; 1977. p. 31–66.
OMG. Semantics of usiness Vocabulary and Business Rules (SBVR). URL: http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?dtc/2006-08-05. 2007.
ter Hofstede AHM, Proper HA, van der Weide TP. Formal definition of a conceptual language for the description and manipulation of information models. Inf Syst. 1993;18(7):489–523.
Trog D, Vereecken J, Christiaens S, De Leenheer P, Meersman R. T-Lex: a role-based ontology engineering tool. In: On the move to meaningful internet systems 2006: OTM 2006 workshops. LNCS, vol. 4278. Heidelberg: Springer; 2006. p. 1191–200.
Wintraecken J. The NIAM information analysis method: theory and practice, vol. 1990. Deventer: Kluwer; 1990.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this entry
Cite this entry
Halpin, T. (2018). Object-Role Modeling. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_251
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_251
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-8266-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-8265-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceReference Module Computer Science and Engineering