The main approach in the CQ project is to explicitly describe the facilities provided by information producers and the queries asked by information consumers. From the producer side, we need the description such as the kind of information available (data quality), how it is represented (database schema), how it can be accessed (query languages supported), and how much it will cost (billing). From the consumer side, we need to describe the query in terms of information quality required, willingness to pay, and syntactic query representation. CQ will then match the query from the consumer to the information sources, passing the query and returning the answer.
This matching process involves many technical challenges. In collaboration with the CQ project, the DIOM Project plans to develop an adaptive methodology and toolkits for integration and access of heterogeneous information sources in large-scale and rapidly growing networking environment (such as the Internet). The information sources can either be structured data repositories (like databases) or semi-structured or unstructured data (e.g., www pages, news articles). The Diorama system consists of several components that extract properties from unstructured data or collect data through other information brokers/mediators, and convert gathered information into a common object model - DIOM.