Experiences in Computer Assisted XML-based Modelling

Understandingthestructureandfunctionalityof thedomainof interestand representingthemin an intuitive, conceptualform is crucial in any effort to manageinformation about the domain. We adopt the view that documents containinformationaboutthedomainof applicationin astructuralform. However, thestructurein documentsis oftenlooseandmodellingandmanagement toolsareseldomusedin connectionwith document. In anidealsituation,all theorganization’ s documentsarestoredin anelectronic form in thesamedatabase.In that casewe saythesedocumentsform theorganization’ s documentdatabase. ExtensibleMarkupLanguage(XML) is now awidely acceptedformatfor electronicdocuments.XML documentype definitionsareusedto requirea specificstructureof documents.In our opinion, creatingdocumenttypedefinitionscorrespondsto conceptual andlogical databasedesignin adatabasedesignprocess.Weconsiderthatthisdesigncan besupportedwith a suitablesetof tools thathelp thedesignerconcentrateon conceptual issuesinsteadof implementationissues. In thispaper , weintroduceasoftwarecalledMetaDataVisualisation(MDV) that(i) assiststheuserwith agraphicaluserinterfacein thecreationof hisspecific documentypes,(ii) createsadatabaseaccordingto thesedocumentypes, (iii) allows theuserto browsethedatabase, and(iv) usesnative XML presentationof thedatain orderto allow queriesor datato beexportedto otherXML basedsystems. Our hypothesisis that usingthe methodologypresentedin this paperwe gainXML databases thatareusefulandrelevant,andwith whichMDV works asauserinterface.