1. Fading Schemas…
Alon Y. Halevy

2. CIDR 2003 Update Award for Most Outrageous Idea Implemented:
Concerning my database course format.
Implemented:
4 times at the University of Washington
Around the globe…
See SIGMOD Record, September, 2003.
Customer reviews:
Very high!
“Halevy Rocks”.

3. DB & IR Important area and amazing opportunity
Current focus: seamless querying
Integration after the fact.
But what about the modeling phase?
How can we design applications that manipulate both kinds of data?
For domains that are inherently complex or constantly evolving. e.g:
Modeling web sources
Personal information management
Biomedical informatics

4. Fading Schemas Web: modeling the class RealEstate.
Realize: subclasses are a messy proposition.
Instead: describe subclasses by keywords.
PIM: modeling property Participant.
Realize: there are many sheds of participation.
Instead: describe variants with keywords.
Key point: keywords are related to the schema constructs in important ways.