Month Year Issue

June 1999 Issue: 9

Journal of Conceptual Modeling
www.inconcept.com/jcm

Editor's Notes: Interactive JCM
By Scot A. Becker

Online Lecture

I am trying something a bit different with my article for this issue. As part of my article, I will also be giving an online lecture in coordination with the Virtual FoxPro Users Group (VFUG).

A VFUG lecture is a combination of a pre-published article followed by an internet-based (chat) Q & A session to summarize the article, provide additional information, and answer questions. In addition, during the Q & A session I will also discuss some other topics that are a bit outside of the scope of this article.

All VFUG members and JCM readers are invited (and encouraged!) to join us for the Q&A session on Thursday, June 10, 1999.

Server information, times, and software instructions can be found in the article.

This may lead to more interactive JCM features. I would like to, at the very least, set up regular chat sessions. I also like the idea of online Q&A sessions with authors. Would you like to present some information? Do you have any preferred times for a chat session or lecture? Any other feedback? Drop me a line!

FAQ’s

I’m glad to announce the latest resource available to JCM readers: the FAQ section. The FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section will eventually contain several subject areas. The first FAQ section is for general JCM (publication oriented) information. I hope to have sections devoted to VisioModeler, ORM, and Visio online soon.

This is just the first section, and not even the complete lists of FAQ’s, of course. If you have an addition to an existing FAQ section, or would like to start another section, please drop me a line.

More Printing Problems

I am still getting an occasional notice of printing problems with various JCM articles. My latest theory is that many of these problems are related to the margin settings of your browser and/or printer. See the FAQ Section for more details. In addition, remember that there are special print-only version of all articles and issues. They can be found by following the "Print an Article" link.

Link to the JCM

Do you have a website who's readers may benefit from the JCM? Why not give us a link? Feel free to use the following HTML:

<a href="http://www.inconcept.com/JCM/">The Journal of Conceptual Modeling</a>

<a href="http://www.inconcept.com/JCM/">The Journal of Conceptual Modeling</a> sponsored by <a href="http://www.inconcept.com">InConcept.</a>

Preface

This month’s issue marks our first attempt at interactive content! Scot Becker supplies an article and online lecture devoted to data schema normalization. In addition, Dr. Terry Halpin continues his series on the Unified Modeling Language. Dr. John K. Sharp treats us with a discussion on modeling cities (as well as this issue's analysis problem and last issue's solution, of course). And last (but not least), Pat Hallock talks a bit about mapping conceptual names to logical names in VisioModeler.

Scot A. Becker is a software consultant and the founder of Orthogonal Software Corporation. He is also a certified ORM consultant and trainer, a certified Visio trainer, and former Editor of the Journal of Conceptual Modeling.

Contact Information:

Scot A. Becker
Orthogonal Software Corporation
scot@orthogonalsoftware.com
www.orthogonalsoftware.com