Information systems' (IS) design concerns modeling systems that are dynamic in nature. A dynamic system essentially has two dimensions of concern -- static structure and dynamic behavior. The existence of dynamics -- or interactions among parts of the system distinguish a dynamic system from a heap or collection of parts. Specification and management of the static aspects of an information system like the data and metadata have been fairly well addressed by existing paradigms. However, an understanding of the dynamic nature of information systems is still low. Currently most paradigms model behavioral properties above an existing structural model, resulting in what may be called "entity centric" modeling. Such a kind of modeling would neglect properties that can be attributed to behavioral processes themselves, and relationships that might exist among such processes. This thesis argues that the dynamics of an information system are best managed by explicitly characterizing...

Information system (IS) design concerns different activities like conceptual modeling, database design, business process modeling and user modeling. However, despite the presence of an active research community that studies conceptual models for information systems, this term still lacks precise formal underpinnings. Unlike for databases, there is no agreement on what constitutes "principles of information systems." It would hence be desirable to provide formal underpinnings for information system design and to position it with respect to database design. At first glance, it is not clear that the principles underlining the study of information systems should be different than those for databases. Any significantly advanced IS incorporates some type of a database. As a consequence, information system design addresses a number of database issues like conceptual modeling of data elements, metadata management, etc. On the other hand, any useful database system is actually an info...