How can we achieve a unified view of data across different database models? This foundational paper introduces the entity-relationship model, a novel approach to data modeling that incorporates essential semantic information about the real world. It proposes a diagrammatic technique to facilitate database design and provides examples of its application in creating and describing databases. The paper's core argument revolves around the idea that the entity-relationship model can serve as a basis for unifying various data perspectives, including the network model, the relational model, and the entity set model. It analyzes semantic ambiguities inherent in these models and presents potential methods for deriving their data views from the entity-relationship model. The entity-relationship model offers significant implications for data integrity, information retrieval, and data manipulation, making it an invaluable tool for database designers and researchers. The model's flexibility and expressiveness have led to its widespread adoption in database systems and software engineering, promoting more efficient and accurate data management.
This paper is relevant to the ACM Transactions on Database Systems journal as it introduces a fundamental data model that has significantly impacted database design and management. The entity-relationship model provides a unified view of data, which aligns with the journal's focus on advancing database systems and related technologies. Its enduring influence makes it a seminal contribution to the field.