Minimality quality criterion evaluation for integrated schemas

Integrated access to distributed data is an important problem faced in scientific and commercial applications. A data integration system provides a unified view for users to submit queries over multiple autonomous data sources. The queries are processed over a global schema that offers an integrated view of the data sources. Much work has been done on query processing and choosing plans under cost criteria. However, not so much is known about incorporating information quality analysis into data integration systems, particularly in the integrated schema. In this work we present an approach of information quality analysis of schemas in data integration environments. We discuss the evaluation of schema quality focusing in the minimality aspect and define some schema transformations to be applied in order to improve schema design.