Validation of a method for representing large entity relationship models : An action research study

One of the most serious limitations of the Entity Relationship (ER) Model in practice is its inability to cope with complexity. Once data models exceed a certain threshold size, they become difficult to understand (end user’s viewpoint) and also to document and maintain (analyst’s viewpoint). A number of approaches have been proposed in the literature to address this problem, but so far there has been no systematic empirical research into the effectiveness of these methods. This paper describes an action research study in which a method for representing large ER models was tested in a large application development project in one of Australia’s largest commercial organisations. The research was

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