SELECTED BOOKS BY SPEAKERS
AT THE META-DATA/DAMA CONFERENCE
April 27 - May 1, 2003 • Orlando, Florida

Getting a handle on an organization's related internal and external information is a daunting task. Building Corporate Portals with XML is a guide to moving to integrated Web portals to serve internal processes, external partners, and customers.  After laying out the basic portal concepts, the authors move into the process of designing scalable information systems and modeling their data appropriately. The heart of the book focuses on enterprise metadata, how to define it, and how to implement it via XML. There are some concise examples of XML metadata implementation, but they are nestled within a rather complex discussion of the process of information analysis.  Topics covered: Strategic business planning, data modeling, metadata analysis and engineering, XML business reengineering, and quality initiatives.

Ambler, Scott W.
Agile Modeling: Effective Practices for Extreme Programming and the Unified Process
John Wiley & Sons (2002)

Larissa T. Moss and Shaku Atre
Business Intelligence Roadmap The Complete Project Life Cycle for Decision-Support Applications
Addison Wesley Information Technology Series (2003)

A visual guide to developing an effective business intelligence (BI) decision-support application. This book outlines a methodology that takes into account the complexity of developing applications in an integrated BI environment. The authors walk readers through every step of the process—from strategic planning to the selection of new technologies and the evaluation of application releases. The book also serves as a single-source guide to the best practices of BI projects. The first part of the book steers readers through the six stages of a BI project: justification, planning, business analysis, design, construction, and deployment. Each chapter describes one of sixteen development steps and the major activities, deliverables, roles, and responsibilities. All technical material is clearly expressed in tables, graphs, and diagrams. Part II provides five matrices that serve as references for the development process charted in Part I. Management tools, such as graphs illustrating the timing and coordination of activities, are included throughout the book. The authors conclude by crystallizing their many years of experience in a list of dos, don’ts, tips, and rules of thumb. The accompanying CD-ROM includes a complete, customizable work breakdown structure. Both the book and the methodology it describes are designed to adapt to the specific needs of individual stake-holders and organizations. The book directs business representatives, business sponsors, project managers, and technicians to the chapters that address their distinct responsibilities. The framework of the book allows organizations to begin at any step and enables projects to be scheduled and managed in a variety of ways.

Bean, James 
XML for Data Architects
Morgan-Kaufman (2003)

XML for Data Architects focuses on the combination of architectural and design approaches to using XML, providing numerous syntactical and working examples. It describes the challenges of using XML in a manner that promotes simplification of integration, and a high degree of schema reuse. It also describes the syntactical capabilities of XML and XML Schemas, and the similarities (and in some cases limitations) of XML DTDs. This book is of particular importance in the age of application integration and web services.

Bean, James 
XML Globalization and Best Practices: Using XML Schemas and XML-Data
ActiveEducation (2001)

This course takes a Best Practices approach to implementing XML across organizations and locations. Powerful alternatives to DTDs and other limiting approaches are discussed, as are the tools used to implement them. Lesson Topics:
Lesson 1: Understanding XML and Metadata
Lesson 2: Introduction to XML Schemas
Lesson 3: XML Schemas (Schemas Proposal Part 1: Structure)
Lesson 4: XML Data Types (Schemas Proposal Part 2: Data Types)
Lesson 5: XML Best Practices
Lesson 6: Global Information Exchange and XML
Lesson 7: Data from the Database
Lesson 8: Developing XML Documents

Features the ten most fundamental and frequently exhibited bad habits that contribute to poor data quality and presents the best strategies and best practices for effective solutions. The goal: reduced data disparity and duplication, increased productivity, and more. Softcover. DLC: Database Management--Quality Control.

The premise of Improving Data Warehouse and Business Information Quality is that the quality of information stored in a database is just as measurable as the quality of the cars that come off an assembly line. Furthermore, database managers can take steps to ensure that their databases collect the best possible information.

Hay, David C.
Requirements Analysis: From Business Views to Architecture
Prentice Hall; 1st edition (2002)

Thousands of software projects are doomed from the start because they're based on a faulty understanding of the business problem that must be solved. The solution is effective requirements analysis. In Requirements Analysis: From Business Views to Architecture, David C. Hay , President of Essential Strategies, Inc., gives you a comprehensive overview of the world's best requirements analysis practices, organized coherently to help you choose and execute the best approach for every project. Based on Mr. Hay's version of John Zachman's Framework for Information Systems Architecture, the book takes the position that requirements analysis is the process of consolidating a collection of "business views" of the business into a single, coherent, "architect's view". In the process, you gain a full understanding of the true components of the enterprise's architecture.

Introductory chapters describe the framework and the process of defining requirements. Each successive chapter then describes models for one column in the Architecture Framework: Data (what), activities (how), people and organizations (who), locations (where), events and schedules (when), and motivation (why). These models represent the business owners' views and the architect's view of the respective column. Requirements Analysis: From Business Views to Architecture provides the complete process of defining an architecture-so that you can build a rock-solid foundation for your next software project.

Hay, David C., Richard Barker
Data Model Patterns : Conventions of Thought
Dorset House (1995)

This book presents a comprehensive set of standard data model patterns for standard business situations. By using these model templates as a starting point, you can create a data model of your own organization in a fraction of the time it would take to do so from scratch. The book includes models of:
· people and organizations
· activities
· products
· contracts
· accounting
· manufacturing
· the laboratory
· document management

Strategies for leveraging information technologies to improve customer relationships
With E-business comes the opportunity for companies to really get to know their customers--who they are and their buying patterns. Business managers need an integrated strategy that supports customers from the moment they enter the front door--or Web site--right through to fulfillment, support, and promotion of new products and services. Along the way, IT managers need an integrated set of technologies--from Web sites to databases and data mining tools--to make all of this work. This book shows both IT and business managers how to match business strategies to the technologies needed to make them work. Claudia Imhoff helped pioneer this set of technologies, called the Corporate Information Factory (CIF). She and her coauthors take readers step-by-step through the process of using the CIF for creating a customer-focused enterprise in which the end results are increased market share and improved customer satisfaction and retention. They show how the CIF can be used to ensure accuracy, identify customer needs, tailor promotions, and more.

Having invented the corporate information factory (CIF) to help IT and database managers cut through the jungle of information technologies out there, bestselling author Bill Inmon again teams up with experts Claudia Imhoff and Ryan Sousa to show you how to integrate all key components of the modern information system architecture in a way that meets your evolving business needs.  You'll get clear explanations on how to integrate the enterprise data warehouse with a host of new technologies and solutions that have emerged since this groundbreaking work was first published in 1998. You'll also discover how to leverage these technologies to ensure broad access to information for end users, while reducing costs and improving scalability across the enterprise. Ultimately, you'll learn to design, build, and implement a company-wide information ecosystem that:
· Integrates with legacy systems and the Web
· Leverages third-party ERP, CRM, and eBusiness applications
· Exploits the latest in data exploration and mining technologies
· Takes advantage of low-cost alternative storage
· Scales across the enterprise through the use of data marts and operational data stores
· Accommodates the use of multiple data warehouses
· Can start small and grow incrementally

Information Modeling and Relational Databases provides an introduction to ORM (Object Role Modeling)-and much more. In fact, it's the only book to go beyond introductory coverage and provide all of the in-depth instruction you need to transform knowledge from domain experts into a sound database design. Inside, ORM authority Terry Halpin blends conceptual information with practical instruction that will let you begin using ORM effectively as soon as possible. Supported by examples, exercises, and useful background information, his step-by-step approach teaches you to develop a natural-language-based ORM model and then, where needed, abstract ER and UML models from it. This book will quickly make you proficient in the modeling technique that is proving vital to the development of accurate and efficient databases that best meet real business objectives.

Loshin, David
Enterprise Knowledge Management - The Data Quality Approach
Morgan Kaufmann Publishers (2001)

"Bad data" has traditionally been masked in terms of curious anecdotes and curious stories that propagate through an organization. Yet, poor data quality has a serious effect on a company's bottom line, especially when bad data propagates out to the customer via incorrect billing, wrong delivery addresses, public relations nightmares, etc. In my experience consulting on data management projects, I noticed many patterns associated with data quality problems. In this book, I try to address both the management issues as well as the technical issues associated with the different kinds of problems, and I try to provide a framework for capturing the knowledge embedded in data quality rules and managing those rules as enterprise knowledge. I provide a breakdown of the dimensions of data quality, and delineate a framework for expressing data quality rules, measuring those rules, and assessing levels of data quality in a "Data Quality Scorecard." This scorecard can then be used as a benchmark and basis for a continuous information quality improvement program. In addition, we look at how understanding the business rules associated with the use of information throughout an enterprise can enhance the overall value of the enterprise knowledge asset. Integrating business rules in use across the organization is an important step in enhancing the enterprise knowledge resource, and we have found this to be a successful paradigm in knowledge management applications deployed with our customers.

The first guide offering practical business applications for metadata repositories. In an effort to help database personnel manage the deluge of data generated by today's enterprise organizations, Microsoft, Oracle, and other software vendors have spent millions developing metadata repositories. But repositories are large and complex, and developers need all the guidance they can get on developing, deploying, and managing them. Written by a well-known columnist for DM Review, this book gives it to them. This vendor-neutral guide provides coverage of metadata sources, standards, and architecture. The accompanying CD-ROM includes a sample implementation project plan, a checklist of metadata requirements, and several models to support specific business functions.

Mullins, Craig
Database Administration: The Complete Guide to Practices and Procedures
Addison Wesley Professional (2002)

Plotkin, David
How to do everything with FrontPage 2002
Osborne McGraw-Hill (2001)

Ross, Ronald
Principles of the Business Rule Approach
Addision-Wesley (2003)

The Business Rule Approach represents a major paradigm shift in business-system design and development. Employing a business-driven approach, the use of business rules has been proven to enhance the effective-ness, flexibility, and efficiency of business systems. The technology is appropriate for any kind of organization, and is especially well suited for development in the rapidly expanding Web services industry. This book explores the rationale behind business rules, as well as the many opportunities pre-sented by this innovative new approach. Itexplains key business-rule concepts and offers experience-based best practices for expressing business rules. In addition, the book looks at the role of business rules within the context of a wider trend towards model-based development and offers an accessible introduction to the underlying theory of business rules and notation. 

Ross, Ronald
The Business Rule Book: Classifying, Defining and Modeling Rules, Version 4.0
Business Rules Solutions Inc. (1997)

von Halle, Barbara
Business Rules Applied: Building Better Systems Using the Business Rules Approach
John Wiley & Sons (2001)

Barbara von Halle fills a unique niche in the literature by providing a pragmatic introduction to techniques and guidelines necessary for assembling systems using a business rules approach. This innovative book discusses:
· Business rule basics, concepts, and methodologies
· Getting started on and planning a business rule project
· Initial requirements, rules, and data
· Analyzing process, rules, and data to guarantee that they are all of high quality
· Implementing business rules systems using commercial rules products
· Introducing a rigorous rule-orientation into your systems development approach.

Written by leading practitioners, this guide to data analysis, design and innovation is a tutorial and reference for systems analysts, business analysts, specialist data modelers, database designers, and students requiring a practical understanding of a project. It includes many practical examples to illustrate choices available to modelers and criteria for selecting the best model. The book explores the difference between modeling business data requirements and designing and maintaining the resulting database, including the impact of universal server and data distribution. A revision of the first successful edition published by Coriolis in 1994, this book contains numerous updates and additional chapters to illustrate real world data modeling for commercial information systems.