La abstracción de agregación en la modelación conceptual de bases de datos. Consideraciones sobre su uso en la docencia

Abstract

Conceptual data models have been developed to capture the meaning of data using abstraction mechanisms such as association, generalization/specialization, categorization, and aggregation. The use of the aggregation construct in the various Entity-Relationship model notations has been limited because many of the existing notations do not support it. The same is currently the case with CASE tools (Computer Aided Software Engineering) for database design. The objective of this article is to highlight the semantic potential of aggregation and show how its use contributes to the semantic richness of conceptual schemes. This result can be applied in the teaching of conceptual modeling issues in subjects related to databases.