What is Data Modeling?
- Not a new concept … the first wave was in the 1960's!
- Databases require schemas – based on data modeling
- Schemas are implementations of data models
- Similar to conceptual database models, but relationships are captured and storage format is not considered although data types are
- But let’s be more specific…
- A good data model must
- Reflect domain knowledge in natural way (not be limited to tables)
- Be easy to modify (for the scientific and biomedical domains where knowledge changes rapidly)
- Be application-independent, i.e. avoid implying an implementation format
- Further, since we would like to leverage existing data and share our data, a good data model must
- Leverage existing ontologies and vocabularies
- In the words of the experts at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C):
Why is it useful?
- Data models are easier for users to understand than schemas
- Data models are easier to iterate as subject matter experts and technologists seek a common understanding of system requirements
- Data modeling focuses on the data elements and relationships rather than how they are represented
- Data modeling allows a decoupling of the model from the schema implementation
Tools for Data Modeling