Temporal entity-relationship models-a survey

Abstract

The entity-relationship (ER) model, using varying notations and with some semantic variations, is enjoying a remarkable and increasing popularity in both the research community-the computer science curriculum-and in industry. In step with the increasing diffusion of relational platforms, ER modeling is growing in popularity. It has been widely recognized that temporal aspects of database schemas are prevalent and difficult to model using the ER model. As a result, how to enable the ER model to properly capture time-varying information has, for a decade and a half, been an active area in the database research community. This has led to the proposal of close to a dozen temporally enhanced ER models. This paper surveys all temporally enhanced ER models known to the authors. It provides a comprehensive overview of temporal ER modeling and it thus meets a need for consolidating and providing easy access to the research in temporal ER modeling. In the presentation of each model, the paper examines how the time-varying information is captured in the model and presents the new concepts and modeling constructs of the model. A total of 19 different design properties for temporally enhanced ER models are defined, and each model is characterized according to these properties.