A document model based on relevance modeling techniques for semi-structured information warehouses

During the last decade, data warehouse and OLAP techniques have helped companies to gather, organize and analyze the structured data they produce. Simultaneously, digital libraries have applied Information Retrieval mechanisms to query their repositories of unstructured text-rich documents. In this paper we explain how XML allows for the convergence of these two approaches, making possible the development of warehouses for semi-structured information. So far, the proposals of extending data warehouse technology to manage semi-structured information have not been able to exploit the textual contents, mainly because they are not based on a proper document model. In our opinion, such a model must integrate IR and OLAP techniques. In this paper we present a set of requirements for semi-structured information warehouses, as well as a document model to support their construction. In this model, new Relevance Modeling mechanisms are used for ranking the facts described in the text of the documents according to their relevance to an IR-OLAP query. Preliminary evaluations show the usefulness of the document model.