Towards a Holistic Approach to Validating Conceptual Models

Becker J, Niehaves B, Pfeiffer D

Abstract

The chapter sketches a holistic approach to semantically validating conceptual models. The quality and thus the validation of conceptual models are of high economic importance. However, only little empirical work has focused on their evaluation so far. This raises the question whether a holistic approach to determining the quality of conceptual models is available yet. In order to describe the current state of research and to expose the so far neglected research fields we develop a two dimensional framework. With the help of this framework we can identify a notable shortcoming on conceptual model evaluation. We can show that there is actually no approach that covers all aspects of the framework. Hence, we describe a procedure model that integrates different evaluation techniques. This procedure model provides a starting point to further elaborate on a holistic evaluation approach.