On augmenting database design-support environments to capture the geo-spatio-temporal data semantics

A database design-support environment supports a data analyst in eliciting, articulating, specifying and validating data-related requirements. Extant design-support environments—based on conventional conceptual models—do not adequately support applications that need to organize data based on time (e.g., accounting, portfolio management, personnel management) and/or space (e.g., facility management, transportation, logistics). For geo-spatio-temporal applications, it is left to database designers to discover, design and implement—on an ad-hoc basis—the temporal and geospatial concepts that they need to represent the miniworld. To elicit the geo-spatio-temporal data semantics, we characterize guiding principles for augmenting the conventional conceptual database design approach, present our annotation-based approach, and illustrate how our proposed approach can be instantiated via a proof-of-concept prototype. Via a proof-of-concept database design-support environment, we exemplify our annotation-based approach, and show how segregating “what” from “when/where” via annotations satisfies ontologic- and cognition-based requirements, dovetails with existing database design methodologies, results in upward-compatible conceptual as well as XML schemas, and provides a straightforward mechanism to extend extant design-support environments.