Principles of Universal Conceptual Modeling

The paper proposes a new frontier for conceptual modeling - universal conceptual modeling (UCM) - defined as conceptual modeling that is general-purpose and accessible to anyone. For the purposes of the discussion, we envision a non-existent, hypothetical universal conceptual modeling language, which we call Datish (as in English or Spanish for data). We focus on the need for a universal conceptual data model to explain the expected benefits of UCM. Datish can facilitate the design of many different applications, including relational databases, NoSQL databases, data lakes, and artificial intelligence systems, and enable use by a broad range of users. To pave the way for rigorous development of such a language, we provide a theoretical basis for Datish in the form of a set of universal conceptual modeling principles: flexibility, accessibility, ubiquity, minimalism, primitivism, and modularity. We apply these principles to illustrate their usefulness and to identify future research opportunities.