• Importance of Definitions
  The Data Administration Newsletter, Issue 26.0, October 2003

  On a recent trip to London the authors visited the House of Lords. Imagine how surprised they were to hear Lords discussing a data-modeling question. A government minister was defending a definition from his data dictionary. Definitions are usually at the bottom of any project's priority list. This article describes first-hand how the authors saw the issue elevated for debate in the highest legislative body of the United Kingdom! It was very educational. The authors sincerely hope that all of our definitions could withstand such scrutiny.

• Graphical Patterns for Data Models
  The Data Administration Newsletter, Issue 22.0, October 2002

  One of the reasons that data modelers are tolerated is because they produce a nice wall-size diagram. It contains a lot of information and saves the time of going through pages and pages of documentation. The data modelers are very often judged by this most visible deliverable.

• Documenting Metadata Transformations
  The Data Administration Newsletter, Issue 8.0, March 1999.

  Flexible cross-referencing eliminates the need for a logical model to closely follow the physical design. It allows the modernization of the logical model with new ideas and concepts without losing information needed for the support of an installed base of applications.

• A Project Model Is a Constrained Subset of an Enterpise Model
  The Data Administration Newsletter, Issue 4.0, March 1998.

  The current data modeling tools support concept of the Project Data Model as a subset of the Enterprise Data Model. The material below argues that it is a simplistic understanding of the problem and the Project Model should be defined as a constrained subset. Some compromises usually made during project modeling are also discussed.