Schema Understandability: A Comprehensive Empirical Study of Requirements Metrics

Ensuring high-quality data warehouses is crucial for organizations, as they provide the reliable information needed for informed decision-making. While various methodologies emphasize the importance of requirements, conceptual, logical, and physical models in developing data warehouses, empirical qu...

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Main Authors: Tanu Singh, Vinod Patidar, Manu Singh, Álvaro Rocha
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-02-01
Series:Information
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/16/2/155
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author Tanu Singh
Vinod Patidar
Manu Singh
Álvaro Rocha
author_facet Tanu Singh
Vinod Patidar
Manu Singh
Álvaro Rocha
author_sort Tanu Singh
collection DOAJ
description Ensuring high-quality data warehouses is crucial for organizations, as they provide the reliable information needed for informed decision-making. While various methodologies emphasize the importance of requirements, conceptual, logical, and physical models in developing data warehouses, empirical quality assessment of these models remains underexplored, especially requirements models. To bridge this gap, this study focuses on assessment of requirements metrics for predicting the understandability of requirements schemas, a key indicator of model quality. In this empirical study, 28 requirements schemas were classified into understandable and non-understandable clusters using the k-means clustering technique. The study then employed six classification techniques—logistic regression, naive Bayes, linear discriminant analysis with decision tree, reinforcement learning, voting rule, and a hybrid approach—within both univariate and multivariate models to identify strong predictors of schema understandability. Results indicate that 13 out of 17 requirements metrics are robust predictors of schema understandability. Furthermore, a comparative performance analysis of the classification techniques reveals that the hybrid classifier outperforms other techniques across key evaluation parameters, including accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and AUC. These findings highlight the potential of requirements metrics as effective predictors of schema understandability, contributing to improved quality assessment and the development of better conceptual data models for data warehouses.
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spelling doaj-art-d132ccf29b6a4f9da68e210a54848bf12025-08-20T03:11:21ZengMDPI AGInformation2078-24892025-02-0116215510.3390/info16020155Schema Understandability: A Comprehensive Empirical Study of Requirements MetricsTanu Singh0Vinod Patidar1Manu Singh2Álvaro Rocha3School of Computer Science, UPES, Dehradun 248007, Uttarakhand, IndiaSchool of Computer Science, UPES, Dehradun 248007, Uttarakhand, IndiaSchool of Computing Science and Engineering, Galgotias University, Greater Noida 203201, Uttar Pradesh, IndiaISEG, University of Lisbon, 1649-004 Lisboa, PortugalEnsuring high-quality data warehouses is crucial for organizations, as they provide the reliable information needed for informed decision-making. While various methodologies emphasize the importance of requirements, conceptual, logical, and physical models in developing data warehouses, empirical quality assessment of these models remains underexplored, especially requirements models. To bridge this gap, this study focuses on assessment of requirements metrics for predicting the understandability of requirements schemas, a key indicator of model quality. In this empirical study, 28 requirements schemas were classified into understandable and non-understandable clusters using the k-means clustering technique. The study then employed six classification techniques—logistic regression, naive Bayes, linear discriminant analysis with decision tree, reinforcement learning, voting rule, and a hybrid approach—within both univariate and multivariate models to identify strong predictors of schema understandability. Results indicate that 13 out of 17 requirements metrics are robust predictors of schema understandability. Furthermore, a comparative performance analysis of the classification techniques reveals that the hybrid classifier outperforms other techniques across key evaluation parameters, including accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and AUC. These findings highlight the potential of requirements metrics as effective predictors of schema understandability, contributing to improved quality assessment and the development of better conceptual data models for data warehouses.https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/16/2/155data warehouserequirements engineeringinformation qualityrequirements metricsrequirements schemasunderstandability
spellingShingle Tanu Singh
Vinod Patidar
Manu Singh
Álvaro Rocha
Schema Understandability: A Comprehensive Empirical Study of Requirements Metrics
Information
data warehouse
requirements engineering
information quality
requirements metrics
requirements schemas
understandability
title Schema Understandability: A Comprehensive Empirical Study of Requirements Metrics
title_full Schema Understandability: A Comprehensive Empirical Study of Requirements Metrics
title_fullStr Schema Understandability: A Comprehensive Empirical Study of Requirements Metrics
title_full_unstemmed Schema Understandability: A Comprehensive Empirical Study of Requirements Metrics
title_short Schema Understandability: A Comprehensive Empirical Study of Requirements Metrics
title_sort schema understandability a comprehensive empirical study of requirements metrics
topic data warehouse
requirements engineering
information quality
requirements metrics
requirements schemas
understandability
url https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/16/2/155
work_keys_str_mv AT tanusingh schemaunderstandabilityacomprehensiveempiricalstudyofrequirementsmetrics
AT vinodpatidar schemaunderstandabilityacomprehensiveempiricalstudyofrequirementsmetrics
AT manusingh schemaunderstandabilityacomprehensiveempiricalstudyofrequirementsmetrics
AT alvarorocha schemaunderstandabilityacomprehensiveempiricalstudyofrequirementsmetrics