Interoperability in Business Information Systems · IBIS – Interoperability in Business...

IBIS – Interoperability in Business Information Systems

ISSN: 1862-6378

Issue 3 (1), 2009

IBIS

International Journal of

Interoperability in Business

Information Systems

http://www.ibis-journal.net ISSN:1862-6378 IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009

2 © IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009

Publisher: University of Oldenburg

Department of Business Information Systems D-26111 Oldenburg Germany Tel.: +49 441 798 4480 Fax: +49 441 798 4472 [email protected] http://www.ibis-journal.net ISSN: 1862-6378 License:

All our articles are published under the Digital Peer Publishing License. This ensures free distribution and it also guarantees the authors' rights that no content is modified or reused without citing the names of authors and holders of rights and the bibliographical information used. Additionally, the rights to use in physical form, particularly the rights to distribute the work in printed form or on storage media, are retained by the authors or other rights holders and are not covered by this license. The full license text may be found at http://www.ibis-journal.net Scope: The capability to efficiently interact, collaborate and exchange information with business partners and within a company is one of the most important challenges of each enterprise, especially forced by the global markets and the resulting competition. Today, many software systems are completely isolated and not integrated into a homogeneous structure. This makes it hard to exchange information and to keep business information in sync. Interoperability can be

defined as the ability of enterprise software and applications to interact. In Europe between 30-40% of total IT budgets is spent on issues tied to Interoperability. This journal aims in exchanging and presenting research activities in the area of creating interoperability in business information systems. Ambition of this journal is to get an overview of current research activities as well as to offer a broad discussion in selected areas of the interoperability of heterogeneous information systems. It is proposed to connect research experts from this domain and to exchange ideas and approaches. It is our goal to connect latest research results with real-world scenarios in order to increase interoperability in business information systems.


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 3

Review Board: Submitted articles of this journal are reviewed by the members of the IBIS review

board. At the date of this issue, the review board contains the following persons:

Sven Abels, TIE Holding N.V., Netherlands

Antonia Albani, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands

Bernhard Bauer, Germany

Jean Bézivin, France

Arne-J. Berre, SINTEF IKT, Norway

Flavio Bonfatti, University of Modena, Italy

Frank-Dieter Dorloff, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

Andreas Faatz, SAP Research, Germany

Peter Fettke, IWI and DFKI, Germany, Germany

Sabrina Geissler, University of Oldenburg, Business Engineering, Germany

Michael Goedicke, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

Jan Goosenaerts, University of Eindhoven, Netherlands

Norbert Gronau, University of Potsdam, Germany

Axel Hahn, University of Oldenburg, Germany

Wilhelm Hasselbring, University of Oldenburg, Germany

Martin Hepp, DERI, Innsbruck, Austria

Paul Johannesson, KTH Stockholm, Sweden, Sweden

John Krogstie, IDI, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway

Kai Mertins, Fraunhofer IPK Berlin, Germany

Michele Missikoff, IASI - National research Council CNR, Italy

Andreas Lothe Opdahl, University of Bergen, Norway

Raul Poler, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain

Johannes Reich, SAP AG, Germany

Stefan Schulte, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany

Mathias Uslar, OFFIS - Institut für Informatik, Germany

Wilhelm-Jan van den Heuvel, Tilburg University, Netherlands

Martin Zelm, CIMOSA Association e.V., Germany

The editors thank all reviewers for their help. This IBIS issue wouldn‟t be possible without the support of our reviewers that help us to ensure a high quality.


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Content Editorial……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 7 Quality Evaluation of a Business Process Semantic Annotations Approach……………..9 Yun Lin, John Krogstie Special Report on Research Projects in the European Interoperability Area: Interop-VLab……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..30 Gash Bhullar

SOA4All: Enabling a Web of Billions of Services……………………………………………………….35 Sven Abels BREIN: Business Objective Driven Reliable and Intelligent Grids for Real Business……………………………………………………………………………………………………….39 Henar Muñoz Frutos, Ioannis Kotsiopoulos STASIS: Software for Ambient Semantic Interoperable Services…………………………….43 Paul Cranner SEMIC.EU: A collaborative approach to semantic interoperability in eGovernment………………………………………………………….47 Renke Fahl-Spiewack

NEXOF RA: A Reference Architecture for the NESSI Open Service Framework………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..53 Vadim Chepegin, Stuart Campbell Call for Article Submissions……………………………………………………………………………………..57


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Editorial

The first IBIS issue of the new year brings one research paper and a section of short papers

presenting on-going research projects and networks in the European interoperability area.

Together, we hope these contributions will provide an interesting and useful overview of the

continuing European interoperability research and its directions.

In their research paper “Quality Evaluation of a Business Process Semantic

Annotations Approach”, Yun Lin of Agresso and John Krogstie of the Norwegian University

of Science and Technology proposes an ontology-based semantic annotation framework,

aimed at achieving semantic interoperability between heterogeneous process models. The

annotation approach is supported by a prototype tool called Pro-SEAT. The SEQUAL

framework is used for evaluating the proposal analytically.

Gash Bhullar of Technology Application Network Ltd (TANet) presents the Interop-VLab

from an SME perspective. The VLab is a self-funded continuation of the Interop-NoE FP6

network of excellence that ended in 2007. Bhullar argues that interoperability is a long term

issue that is here to stay, and which must not be pushed out of the limelight in favour of more

“modern” issues or technologies. He points out that the Interop-VLab has the potential to

overcome one of the biggest problems for SME's with regards to interoperability, namely the

need for a single repository and a single contact point for interoperability-related issues.

In their paper “SOA4All: Enabling a Web of Billions of Services”, Sven Abels and Stuart

Campbell of TIE Holding NV present the SOA4All project, which aims at facilitating a global

network where billions of parties expose and consume services. The main objective is to

provide a coherent and domain-independent service delivery platform that integrates advances

like service-oriented architecture, context management, web 2.0 and the semantic web (web

3.0). SOA4All is also endorsed by the Networked European Software & Services Initiative

(NESSI). It intends to contribute to the NESSI Open Framework (NEXOF), one of the main

challenges of the European Platform on Software and Services

In their paper “BREIN: Business Objective Driven Reliable and Intelligent Grids for Real

Business”, Henar Muñoz Frutos of Telefónica Research & Development and Ioannis

Kotsiopoulos of University of Manchester present an FP6 project that aims at creating a grid-

infrastructure for collaboration among companies in a dynamic and changing environment.

Their infrastructure combines ideas such as Software as a Service (SaaS), semantic web (web

3.0), multi-agent technology and dynamic adaptation. The BREIN project may thereby

provide SME's access to reliable and intelligent grids that would otherwise have been

prohibitively costly for them to establish alone.

Paul Cranner of the University of Sunderland presents “STASIS: Software for Ambient

Semantic Interoperable Services”. STASIS is another FP6 project, which aims to simplify

mapping of business schema through a semantic approach that combines the Web Ontology

Language (OWL) with Eclipse's Graphical Modeling Framework (GMF).

The paper “SEMIC.EU: A collaborative approach to semantic interoperability in

eGovernment” is authored by Renke Fahl-Spiewack of the Semantic Interoperability Centre

Europe, ]init[ AG. The aim of this activity is to facilitate reuse of syntactic and semantic


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assets needed for semantic interoperability based on openness and community-driven quality

enhancement. SEMIC.EU is one of the implementation measures taken by IDABC, the

European Commission's programme for “Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment

Services to public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens”, which addresses

interoperability in European e-government by coordinating common rules for collaboration

and related infrastructure projects.

Enjoy!

Andreas L Opdahl, University of Bergen

Friday February 6th

2009


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 9

Quality Evaluation of a Business Process Semantic Annotations Approach

Yun Lin Agresso

Oslo, Norway [email protected]

John Krogstie

IDI, NTNU Trondheim, Norway

[email protected]

Abstract: Semantic annotation is an approach to achieve semantic interoperability of

heterogeneous resources. An ontology-based semantic annotation framework has been proposed, that can enrich and reconcile semantic representations of process models. The approach has been implemented in a prototype annotation tool, Pro-SEAT, to facilitate the annotation process. Evaluation methods for ontology-based semantic annotation is a new research topic a. We view the annotation framework as a modeling approach, and have choosen to adapt SEQUAL for the evaluation of the approach. SEQUAL has previously been used for the evaluation of modelling languages and approaches, including the evaluation of ontologies, process models, and requirements models and modeling languages. Using the semiotic quality categories in SEQUAL, an evaluation has been made at both the meta-model level (GPO and the PSAM specifications) and model level (the PSAM model instances and the Pro-SEAT tool).

Introduction

Business process models built as solutions for different enterprises are heterogeneous, using different process modeling languages, process context and intentions. It is difficult to share and reuse the knowledge within those business process models across organizations, if there is no common understanding of the meaning of the process modeling languages, the terms used in the model and the intentions behind the models. Such a problem is usually called semantic interoperability problem.

An ontology is a catalog of the types of things that are assumed to exist in a domain of interest D using a language L for the purpose of talking about D [SN00]. When it is in the form of an explicit representation of the conceptualization, it can be used as a reference semantics to provide common understanding of heterogeneous representations. The process of building the references from the heterogeneous representations to the ontology is ontology-based semantic annotation.

Ontology-based semantic annotation is usually considered as a technique to achieve semantic interoperability by introducing common understanding and standardization. Research and application of ontology have been promoted by Semantic Web technology. Most semantic annotation approaches are developed and evaluated on both unstructured and structured artifacts to improve semantic


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interoperability (e.g. textual resources [KH01] [HSS03], and Web services [SMSV04] [SAWSDL07]). A semantic annotation framework for a type of semi-structure

artifact – enterprise/business process models, was initiated and reported inprevious work of the authors [LSHKS06][LS07]. The proposed approach includes a process annotation ontology (GPO), an annotation model (PSAM) and a tool (Pro-SEAT). The goal of the framework is to achieve nteroperability in process knowledge management, i.e. for the involved stakeholders to easily understand the business processes, sharing process knowledge, analyzing business opportunity, reuse and reconsolidating business process, across organizations. In the framework, ontologies are modeled in OWL DL [OWL09] – a description logic based Web ontology language for Semantic Web. Intentionally, the model semantics annotated with OWL DL ontologies are machine-interpretable with OWL DL engine.

In this paper, we present a comprehensive evaluation of the approach. We view the annotation framework as a modeling approach, and apply a generic quality framework for models and modeling languages – SEQUAL to provide a systematic analysis on the quality of GPO (General Process Ontology), PSAM (Process Semantic Annotation Model) and the annotation tool Pro-SEAT (Process SEmantic Annotation Tool). The quality analysis is based on the usage experiences from an exemplar study, in which the GPO is taken as a modeling language, the PSAM model of the exemplar as a model instance of GPO, and Pro-SEAT as modeling

editor tool. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. First, the semantic annotation

framework for process models is described in more detail. Then, the exemplar study is described. Third, SEQUAL is presented. Applying SEQUAL, the quality analysis of the ontology-based semantic annotation framework is then elaborated based on the experience of use. Finally, conclusions are drawn and future work is outlined based on the evaluation results.

Framework for Semantic Annotations of Business Process

Models

The framework aims to support the semantic reconciliation of business process models. The approach taken is (1) to express the process properties of each business process model in a common annotation system, (2) to express model context in ontologies that may be compared to each other, and (3) to map the intentions of the systems‟ owners to goal structures that may be compared to each other. Therefore, four main annotation sets constitute the framework: namely,

profile annotation, metamodel annotation, model annotation and goal annotation. In the profile annotation, a set of metadata specify the significant characteristics of the process models. In the meta-model annotation and the model annotation, we use ontologies to relate constructs across different modeling languages, as well as to align domain specific terminology used in models. Furthermore, the goal annotation [LS07] is to specify the capacities of process models using a goal ontology.

A GPO (General Process Ontology) [LSHKS06] [L08] has earlier been described. GPO is used for annotating the process modeling languages in the meta


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 11

model annotation. For meta-model annotations, a process ontology is an explicit and formal specification of concepts which are used to model processes in general.

The main concepts in GPO are Activity(AV), Artifact(AF), Actor-role(AR), Input(I), Output(O), Precondition(Θpre), Postcondition(Θpos), Exception(E) and WorkflowPattern(WP). GPO consisting of those concepts and their relationships is represented using a UML class diagram in Figure 1.

Actor-roleArtifact

Exception

Activity

Input

Output

Precondition

Postcondition

WorkflowPattern

Choice Sequence Merge

MultipleMerge

SimpleMerge

Synchronization

ExclusiveChoice

MultipleChoice

ParallelSplit

-ordering

1..*

-has_output

1..1

-has_input 1..1

1-has_subActivity

0..*

-handled_by *

-has_exception 1..*

-has_actor-role0..*-has_artifact0..*

-related_to

0..*

-has_precondition

0..*

-related_to

0..*

-related_to 0..*

-related_to 0..*

-has_postcondition

0..*

Figure 1: General Process Ontology [L08]

GPO builds the basis for the annotation model – PSAM (Process Semantic

Annotation Model), which is formalized with a set of mapping strategies and rules between model objects and ontologies [LSHKS06]. PSAM provides a common semantic annotation schema for annotating semi-structured process models.

OWL DL is chosen for modeling ontology in this framework. Building upon RDF and RDFS, OWL DL provides machine-interpretable semantics. As a meta-model ontology, GPO categorizes modeling element types in the domain of process modeling (D) using OWL DL (L). A process model annotated by GPO is transformed in a PSAM model, which is in terms of the GPO ontology. PSAM models therefore comply with the syntax rules for OWL DL ontology instances, which makes the annotated process semantic representations machine-interpretable.

The PSAM contains the concepts of GPO and domain specific ontology including domain ontolgy (PD) and goal ontology (PG):

PSAM = (AV, AR, AF, WP, I, O, Θpre, Θpos, E, PD, PG)


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Each element (AV, AR, AF, WP, I, O, Θpre and Θpos) in the GPO will be annotated with profile information. Specifically, an annotated activity (AVi) in the

PSAM is modelled as: AVi = (id, model_fragment, name, alternative_name, has_Actor-role,

has_Artifact, has_Input, has_Output, is_in_WorkflowPattern_of, has_Precondition, has_Postcondition, has_Exception, has_subActivity, same_as, different_from, kind_of, superConcept_of, phase_of, compositionConcept_of, instance_of, achieves|positively_satisfies|negatively_satisfies)

Each element in the annotation model has an id and name to uniquely identify the element. Model_fragment is the identifier of model fragment in the original process model for keeping the link between the annotated model fragment and its annotation information. Alternative_name provides a synonym of the name at the terminology level. Elements has_Actor-role, has_ Artifact, has_Input, has_Output, is_in_WorkflowPattern_of, has_Precondition, has_Postcondition, has_Exception, has_subActivity denote the relationships between the activity and other related elements according to the GPO definition. The ids of the related elements are used in those relationships. We use same_as, different_from, kind_of, superConcept_of, phase_of, compositionConcept_of to annotate the activities with the domain ontology concepts, i.e. using semantic relationship to

map an activity to a concept in the domain ontology. instance_of is to specify that the modelled activity is an instance of the domain ontology class. The goal ontology is referenced through the annotation keywords achieves, positively_satisfies and negatively_satisfies.

Figure2: Meta-model Annotation in Pro-SEAT

②Meta-model

ontology

(GPO) ①Meta-model

Mapping/Annotation


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Based on the framework, Pro-SEAT is developed as an annotation tool independent of modelling tools. The annotation tool read models created by

modelling tools. In this work, we take Metis1 as our modelling environment. Metis supports different modelling languages, such as UML, EEML [K08] and BPMN [BPMN04] through its powerful meta-model Developer. Meta-models and models created by Metis are stored in XML. The annotation tool therefore contains functions to parse and read the XML-representation of Metis-models.

Pro-SEAT can read process models and OWL ontologies. The main task of the tool is to apply the annotation framework to build relationships between models and ontologies. As an output of the system, the annotation result is stored in an OWL instance file, separately from the original process model. Figure 2 and 3 display the meta-model and model annotation UIs of Pro-SEAT.

The annotation tool reads the original Metis meta-model and model files, and displays the Metis meta-model and model tree. The loading of a meta-model ontology, e.g. GPO is illustrated in 2 in Figure 2. The meta-model annotation is achieved through building the mappings between meta-model elements and meta-model ontology concepts (1 in Figure 2). The mappings are saved in a meta-model annotation file in the annotation repository.

Based on the meta-model annotation, the model construct can be represented using the meta-model ontology concepts (1 in Figure 3). The content

in each meta-model annotated model construct can be annotated with parts of the domain ontology. In the case presented below, the domain ontology is from SCOR represented in OWL (3 in Figure 3). 2 in Figure 3 shows the model annotation schema.

Figure3: Model Annotation in Pro-SEAT

1 Metis is a commercial enterprise modeling tool, which is now named as Troux Architect TM.

③Domai

n ontology

(SCOR)

① Meta-model

annotated model

②Model

annotation

③Domain

ontology

(SCOR)


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Exemplar case study

In order to evaluate the framework, an exemplar study has been the basis for examing the user experience on this approach and tool. In the study, we have process models that describe a same business domain(logistics process), but are modeled in different modeling languages and by different enterprises. We need domain and goal ontologies about the business domain for the annotation. Since there are no formal logistics ontology available, we formalized the SCOR (Supply Chain Operations Reference-model) [SCOR07] specifications into logistics domain and goal ontologies using OWL DL. I.e. the SCOR ontology provides a catalog of the types of processes in the logistics domain (D) using OWL DL (L).

In the case PMA is from enterprise A and it is a purchase order process made in BPMN, whilst two other models PMB1 (an item receiving process) and PMB2 (an item delivery process) from the logistics department in enterprise B are built in EEML. Due to differnt business focus and modeling languages, the models depict different details and perspectives of the logistic process. For example, the delivery process models for enterprise B (Figure 4) are relatively simplier compared with the delivery processing in enterprise A (Figure 5 and Figure 6). However, both of them are expected to achieve the same goals.

Figure 4: The item delivery process of enterprise B in EEML

Figure 5: Checking availability of the delivery of enterprise A in BPMN


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Figure 6: Picking, packing and creating delivery of enterprise A in BPMN

The three process models were modelled in Metis and imported into Pro-SEAT. The SCOR ontology and GPO-model are first edited in an OWL ontology editor – Protégé2, and then also loaded into Pro-SEAT. By using the mapping functions provided by Pro-SEAT, the process modelling language elements and model fragments are annotated with the concepts in the ontologies.

In the case study, the meta-model annotation of EEML and BPMN elements with GPO concepts are listed in Table 1.

Table1. Meta-annotation of the EEML and BPMN with the GPO concepts

GPO concepts EEML elements BPMN elements

Activity Task Logical Process

Artifact Organization, Person Swimlane including Horizontal Swimlane and Vertical Swimlane

Actor-role Resource, Role, Information Object, Software Tool, Manual Tool, Material Tool, Location

Data Object, property 'Data' in Event

Input Input Port Input

Output OutputPort Output

WorkflowPattern Combination of Flow, Milestone and Decision Point

Combination of Event (including Start Event, Intermediate Event, End Event), Sequence Flow, Gateway

Precondition Milestone, Decision Point Event (including Start Event, Intermediate Event), Gateway

Postcondition Milestone, Decision Point Event (including End Event, Intermediate Event), Gateway

Exception Decision Point Event (when event type is error) together with Sequence Flow

The model and goal annotation results of the three models are exemplified

in Table 2, 3 and 4.

2 http://protege.stanford.edu/


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Table 2. Part of semantic annotation results of PMA

PSAM Activity Instance

Model Annotation with SCOR Domain Ontology

Goal Annotation Relations

SCOR Goal Ontology

Check delivery items

phase_of D1.3 Reserve Inventory and Determine Delivery Date

positively_satisfies Improve Deliver Performance; Raise Order Quantity Fillrate

Check availability of delivery

phase_of ED.3 Manage Deliver Information

positively_satisfies Ensure Full Delivery; Improve Deliver to Customer On Time Delivery Performance; Improve Deliver to Customer Delivery to Date Performance

Create delivery kind_of ED.3 Manage Deliver Information

Achieves Delivery is Scheduled; Delivery Terms are Generated

positively_satisfies Ensure Full Shipment; Ensure Full Delivery

Table 3. Part of semantic annotation results of PMB1




SCOR Goal Ontology

Get the order to suppliers

phase_of S1.1 Schedule Product Deliveries

Achieves Sourced Product are On Order; Order is Placed

positively_satisfies Reduce Order Processing Time; Reduce Order Receipt Time

Check items from local suppliers

kind_of S1.3 Verify Product

Achieves Sourced Product are Verified

positively_satisfies Reduce Order Receipt Time

Issue the deficit protocol

phase_of ES.9 Manage Supplier Agreements

Achieves Procurement Notification to Supplier

negatively_satisfies Reduce Order Processing Time; Improve Supplier On Time Delivery Performance; Reduce Order Processing Costs; Reduce Order Receipt Time


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Table 4. Part of semantic annotation results of PMB2




SCOR Goal Ontology

Consolidate orders

same_as D1.4 Consolidate Orders

Achieves Order is Processed; Order is Consolidated

positively_satisfies Reduce Order Processing Costs; Reduce Order Processing Time

Check stock phase_of D1.3 Reserve Inventory and Determine Delivery Date

Achieves Order is Validated

positively_satisfies Raise Order Quantity Fillrate

Generate delivery protocol

kind_of ED.3 Manage Deliver Information

Achieves Delivery Terms are Generated

positively_satisfies Improve Deliver to Customer Delivery to Date Performance; Improve Deliver to Customer On Time Delivery Performance

Evaluation

Our evaluation of the method and prototype implementation consisted of two parts: 1) analytical quality analysis of semantic annotation framework and tool, and 2) empirical applicability validation based on annotation results. The analytical quality analysis uses a quality framework --- SEQUAL [K08] to provide a systematic

analysis on the quality of GPO (General Process Ontology), PSAM (Process Semantic Annotation Model) and the annotation tool Pro-SEAT. We will in this paper present the analytical evaluation. The details of the empirical evaluation can be found in [L08].

SEQUAL

SEQUAL has been used for the evaluation of models, modelling tools and modelling languages in a number of areas, such as ontologies [LSHD04], business process and workflow models [CKSL97,NK06,RRK07], enterprise models [KA04,KDJ05], object-

oriented models [K03], goal-models [K08], requirements models [K01] and interactive models [KSJ06]. The main concepts (sets) of the SEQUAL-framework and their relationships are shown in Figure 7. Quality has been defined referring to the correspondence between statements belonging to the following sets:

• G, the goals of the modelling task. • L, the language extension, i.e., the set of all statements that are possible to

make according to the graphemes, vocabulary, and syntax of the modelling languages used.


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• D, the domain, i.e., the set of all statements that can be stated about the situation at hand.

• M, the model itself. • Ks, the relevant explicit knowledge of those being involved in modelling. • I, the social actor interpretation, i.e., the set of all statements that the

audience thinks that the model consists of. • T, the technical actor interpretation, i.e., the statements in the model as

'interpreted' by modelling tools. The main model quality types are indicated by solid lines between the sets, and are described briefly below:

Figure 7: SEQUAL: Framework for discussing the quality of models

• Physical quality: The basic quality goal is that the model M is available for

the audience. • Empirical quality deals with predictable error frequencies when a model is

read or written by different users, coding (e.g. shapes of boxes) and HCI-ergonomics for documentation and modelling-tools. For instance, graph layout to avoid crossing lines in a visual model is a mean to address the empirical quality of a model.

• Syntactic quality is the correspondence between the model M and the language extension L.

• Semantic quality is the correspondence between the model M and the domain D. This includes validity and completeness.

• Perceived semantic quality is the correspondence between the audience interpretation I of a model M and his or hers current knowledge K of the domain D.


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 19

• Pragmatic quality is the correspondence between the model M and the audience's interpretation and application of it (I). We differentiate be-

tween social pragmatic quality (to what extent people understand and are able to use the models) and technical pragmatic quality (to what extent tools can be made that interpret the models).

• The goal defined for social quality is agreement among audience members‟ interpretations I.

• The organizational quality of the model relates to that all statements in the model contribute to fulfilling the goals of modelling (organizational goal validity), and that all the goals of modelling are addressed through the model (organizational goal completeness).

Language quality relates the modelling language used to the other sets. Six areas for language quality are identified • Domain appropriateness. This relates the language and the domain. Ideally,

the language should be able to express anything in the domain, not having what is termed construct deficit. On the other hand, you should not be able to express things that are not in the domain, i.e. what is termed construct excess. Domain appropriateness is primarily a mean to achieve semantic

quality. • Participant appropriateness relates the social actors‟ explicit knowledge to

the language. Participant appropriateness is primarily a mean to achieve pragmatic quality both for comprehension, learning and action.

• Modeler appropriateness: This area relates the language to the participant knowledge. The goal is that there are no statements in the explicit knowledge of the modeler that cannot be expressed in the language. Modeler appropriateness is primarily a mean to achieve semantic quality.

• Comprehensibility appropriateness relates the language to the social actor interpretation. The goal is that the participants in the modelling effort using the language understand all the possible statements of the language. Comprehensibility appropriateness is primarily a mean to achieve empirical and pragmatic quality.

• Tool appropriateness relates the language to the technical audience in-terpretations. For tool interpretation, it is especially important that the language lend itself to automatic reasoning. This requires formality (i.e. both formal syntax and semantics being operational and/or logical), but

formality is not necessarily enough, since the reasoning must also be efficient to be of practical use. Different aspects of tool appropriateness are means to achieve syntactic, semantic and pragmatic quality (through formal syntax, mathematical semantics, and operational semantics respectively).

• Organizational appropriateness relates the language to standards and other organizational needs within the organizational context of modelling. These are means to support organizational quality.


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SEQUAL based evaluation of the semantic annotation framework

In order to apply SEQUAL, we first specify what corresponds to the sets in the quality framework.

Model (M)

The annotation process and the annotation result are evaluation targets. In our approach, the annotation result is an instance of the annotation model. Therefore, the PSAM model is the model that is evaluated using the quality framework.

Goals (G

The annotation is to represent the knowledge stored in the existing process models through a set of agreed semantically-defined concepts and formats. Therefore, the goals of annotation depend on the original modelling goals in each case and also depend on the goals of knowledge management. A number of goals are identified from the cases as follows.

• G1 - The annotation should improve the readability of the existing process models.

• G2 - The annotation should help sharing process knowledge among different organizations within a domain.

• G3 - The annotation should help to analyze and validate the existing process models.

• G4 - The annotation should be helpful in the semantic reconciliation of models and to facilitate reuse and integration of models.

Domain (D)

In general, the modelling domain is related to processes in the SCO (Supply-Chain-Operation) domain.

Language (L)

GPO is the meta-model of PSAM and determines the definitions of PSAM. Thus, GPO defines the syntax of the annotation model. Since GPO is created in OWL DL, a PSAM model is the instance of the OWL DL model and it has the syntactical features and constraints of OWL DL.


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 21

Modeler (K)

Here, the model annotators are the modellers. They create the annotation by applying their modelling and domain knowledge. In the exemplar studies, we assume that the annotators are familiar with the modelling languages and models.

Participant (I)

Annotation users are the consumers of the annotation results. In the case, they make use of the annotation information in the process knowledge management activities, such as querying information, analyzing models, and eliciting/inferring interested knowledge.

Tool (T)

The annotation tool -- Pro-SEAT -- provides the functions for profile annotation, meta-model annotation, model annotation and goal annotation.

Quality analysis

The overall quality evaluation includes the quality of GPO, the PSAM definitions, the annotated PSAM model instances and the annotation tool for the cases. GPO is defined as the meta-model of the annotation model, and the PSAM definitions are

applied as the notation of the modelling. Thus, the language quality is analyzed on GPO and the PSAM definitions. The model quality is discussed based on the models in the exemplar studies.

Language Quality

Domain appropriateness. GPO has been defined by looking at central process modelling languages in enterprise modelling, and GPO includes the most vital and frequently used concepts in describing a business process. Compared with those languages, the GPO concepts are more general. Accordingly, specific semantics in

the domain can only be abstracted or encapsulated into a set in GPO. Such a quality evaluation can be made through the analysis of the meta-model annotation in the exemplars. The relations linking the GPO concepts and the ontology concepts are specified in a PSAM model as well. All in all, GPO and PSAM have proper domain appropriateness. Participant appropriateness. GPO is relatively simple compared with most enterprise process modelling languages. Since we assume that the annotators are process modelling specialists, learning GPO should not be a problem. In the profile, model and the goal


22 © IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009

annotation, we also assume the annotators are domain experts and understand the original models quite well. The only addittional requirement is to have some

knowledge about ontology and semantic relationships when using the ontology-based annotation. Modeler appropriateness. Since the GPO concepts are more general than a particular enterprise process modelling language, some specific semantics in the original models could not be conveyed in the PSAM model. However, GPO is not initially created as a comprehensive process modelling language. The intention of the proposal is to elicit the most important process knowledge and to represent it in annotation models for knowledge management. In the meta-model annotation phase, a possible mapping from GPO to a particular modelling language has only three types --- one-to-one, one-to-many, and one-to-combination, which means that the modelling language elements can be mapped to only one GPO concept. In the current prototype implementation many-to-one mappings are not supported. After the transformation based on the meta-model annotation, all the PSAM models have the same structure. Therefore the modeler can not make any other creative structure.

Comprehensibility appropriateness. 29 concepts are found in the current version of GPO and the PSAM specification. The concepts and the relationships between them are relatively straightforward for annotation users to interpret just by reading the names. With respect to the relations linking the GPO concepts and the ontology concepts, only three semantic relationship categories (synonym, hypernym, and meronym) from PSAM are used for in the exemplar studies. Also the name of those semantic relationships are specified according to the GPO concepts. For example, the meronym is represented by "phase of" for Activity, "part of" for Artifact and "member of" for Actor-role. Tool appropriateness. PSAM is defined using a formal syntax and modeled in OWL. OWL is XML-syntactic compilable and it can be parsed by available parsers. The semantics of GPO and PSAM are also formally defined according to the OWL DL semantic definitions. OWL DL was designed to support the existing Description Logic business segment and has desirable computational properties for reasoning systems. The Protégé-OWL API is integrated in the annotation tool so that the GPO and PSAM models can

be interpreted by the tool. Organizational appropriateness.

The approach is based on standards such as OWL, and is reasonably

easy to integrate with existing approaches and tools Model Quality

A specific annotation model is an instance of the PSAM model that is transformed from the original process models and annotated with ontological concepts. The quality of GPO and PSAM will impact the quality of the PSAM models. The


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 23

evaluation of the PSAM models concludes how the model quality relates to the usability of the annotation results.

Physical Quality We first look at how the knowledge of the domain has been externalized by the annotation models. As we have discussed in the quality analysis of domain appropriateness above, the PSAM models can present most information about the process and functional perspective. The EEML models have presented the logistics processing comprehensively. Based on the meta-model annotation results, the original models are transformed into the PSAM models. Ideally, the transformation should keep exactly the same information as the original models. It is obvious the more one-to-one mappings in the meta-model annotation, more knowledge represented in the modelling elements can be preserved after the transformation. In the exemplar study, three one-to-one mappings are in the annotation of EEML. In EEML, different resources are specified and they all could be mapped to the GPO concepts Artifact and Actor-role respectively. Since the specific resources are not much applied in the original EEML models, not much domain knowledge is lost because of the meta-model annotation in this case. However, annotating the relationships defined in the modelling languages is not supported by the approach. The relationships between the GPO concepts are defined in GPO so that knowledge

in the PSAM models are interpreted according to the GPO definitions. Compared with the original models, the PSAM models have additional knowledge --- the ontological knowledge, which is introduced during the model annotation and the goal annotation. In the exemplar study, the domain ontology is related to the SCOR standard, while the goal ontology provides the knowledge about the objectives of the process and also the links to the SCOR process metrics.

The PSAM models are then checked to determine if they are easily available and maintainable. The meta-model annotation result for each modelling language is stored in an XML file. Such results can be reused in generating the PSAM models by different models in the same modelling language. The generated PSAM models are OWL models, so that the PSAM models can be read and edited by any OWL editing tools. Model annotation and goal annotation is then made to the PSAM models. However, if there is any change of the meta-model annotation, the PSAM models based on the meta-model annotation result have to be re-generated. That means all the model and the goal annotation work made on the PSAM models will be lost.

Empirical Quality There is no graphic notation for the annotation model. All the generated PSAM models are textual OWL files so that the readability of the model is poor without tool support. The PSAM models are categories according to the GPO concepts. Since no graphic notation is used for the GPO concepts, the concepts such as "Activity", "Artifact", "Actor-role" are not shown graphically differently to the user. Syntactic Quality As an OWL model with classes and instances, the PSAM models should comply with the OWL syntax. Since the PSAM models are generated from the meta-model annotation result, the premise is that the syntax of GPO and the mappings have been validated. GPO is created by Protégé and the correctness of the syntax is


24 © IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009

checked by Protégé. The meta-model mapping rules have also been set to comply with OWL syntax.

Semantic Quality The semantic quality of the annotation models depends on the semantic quality of both the original models and the annotation. We have assumed that the original process models are semantically correct and complete. The semantics of the generated PSAM models are consequently determined by the transformation from the original models to the PSAM definitions.

More semantics are introduced during the model and the goal annotation. The quality of such semantics is categorized into the perceived semantic quality in this approach because it corresponds to annotators' and annotation users' interpretations and their knowledge of the domain. Most annotation operations are manual, but Pro-SEAT supports the semi-automatic goal annotation which might help to achieve semantic validity and completeness. In Pro-SEAT, the ontology-based query interface provides the service to perceive the semantics of the annotation. The perceived semantic quality of the annotation model is further validated through the applications and analyzed in the empirical analysis [L08]. Pragmatic Quality

There is a limited number of categories since only eight GPO concepts are used in the exemplar studies. However, when the original model is large, the list of the instances for each GPO concept is long. From the experience of using Pro-SEAT, it turns out that it is more difficult to find a desired instance in the PSAM model in larger models. The instance is named with the model textual title and its model id from the original process models. When two instances have the same model title but different model id, mistakes can be made by picking the wrong instance because of a confusion with the title. Since the annotated process models are OWL model instances, it is not difficult for an annotation user to understand the annotation schema and structure. Moreover, the ontology is designed in a human understandable way and the annotation user is supposed to know about the domain. There is no problem for the annotation user to read the models, but it is hard for the user to see the whole picture of the models without the support of a visualization tool. However, the OWL models can be interpreted by any tools supporting OWL DL. Since the SCOR ontology provides explicit representation of conceptualization of the supply chain domain, the references in the annotation help the annotation users to learn the domain and

adapt processes, which was evident in the applicability validation. Besides, the pragmatic quality of models in Pro-SEAT also depends on the techniques to support the development of pragmatic quality in Pro-SEAT, which is discussed below. Social Quality One of the goals for the proposed approach is to help process knowledge sharing among different organizations within a domain. The ontologies are assumed to be the domain standards which are agreed by the different audiences. GPO is the meta-model ontology. The PSAM models are generated from this standard and the model content is annotated with domain standard terms.


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 25

Organizational Quality For the organizational quality of the PSAM models and the tool, we can check if the

modelling goals can be fulfilled and addressed by the approach. G1 - The annotation should improve the readability and comprehensibility of the existing process models. The semantic annotation enriches the model semantics by referencing the ontology concepts using semantic relationships. Thus, with the referenced ontology, the semantics of the model elements can be interpreted more correctly and completely by both human and machine. With respect to the pragmatic quality of Pro-SEAT we find that the annotation functions do not really address this goal. However the ontology-based query in Pro-SEAT provides the functions to navigate the process models. Since the annotation results are in OWL, a tool can read and reason on the semantics in the annotation model. G2 - The annotation should help process knowledge sharing among different organizations within a domain. From the discussion on social quality, we find that this goal has the potential to be

addressed by the annotation models, but further investigations are needed to evaluate this further. The applicability evaluation of the approach supports that the annotation models can fulfill this goal. G3 - The annotation should help to analyze and validate the existing process models. The empirical evaluation executed on the exemplar study examplified that the annotation results can be used for semantic validation for process models. In annotation of workflow pattern for the EEML model, the logic connection "join" or "choice" is modelled by an EEML Milestone or Decission Point, and the annotated workflow branches from this connection share a same GPO Condition ("eeml:milestone" is mapped to "gpo:condition" in the meta-model annotation). Two evaluation results are therefore brought out: a) The EEML model should be improved by changing the way of modelling to specify the semantics of different conditions (this possibility is present in the EEML language). b) In the annotation model, conditions for different branches should be separate.

G4 - The annotation should be helpful in model reuse and model integration. This goal is related to G2. The applicability of the annotation results has been described in the application scenario under the exemplar study [L08].

Tool Quality

The annotation tool is also the means to achieve quality annotation results. Thus the tool evaluation is to see to what extent Pro-SEAT includes functionality to

support the achievment of model quality.


26 © IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009

Physical Quality - Pro-SEAT provides the functions of importing the original process

models, loading the ontology, editing and saving the meta-model annotation, the model and the goal annotation results. The current version of the tool is mainly designed for interpreting the models in XML created by the Metis tool. The tool can load the ontology in OWL format and the integrated ontology API is the Protégé 3.2.1 OWL API. There is no exisiting database repository for the annotated process knowledge, but the XML or OWL files and folders are used to manage the knowledge. Therefore, the benefit is that the knowledge is easy to distribute and could be published on the Web, while the disadvantage is the lack of a systematic way to manage the files and their inherent links. Empirical Quality - The details of model annotation and goal annotation are displayed in the property fields for each instance in Pro-SEAT. The layout of those properties are not well organized in groups and the sequence of the properties is displayed differently each time when running the tool. Thus, it is hard to navigate the properties when manipulating the annotation. Nevertheless, the operation of the annotation is simple --- just select the reference concept from the ontology tree by clicking or entering the reference value.

Syntactic Quality - The prototype of the annotation tool does not provide the functions for performing a syntax check from the user interface, but invalid OWL models can not be parsed by the OWL API in Pro-SEAT. Semantic Quality and Perceived Semantic Quality - The current annotation tool does not support any semantic consistency or completeness checking during the annotation. Pragmatic Quality - Pro-SEAT does not provide a visualization of process models, annotation models and ontologies. The imported original process model from Metis is listed in the tree-view. The tree-view of the model keeps the same structure as in the Metis tool. It is not difficult for the Metis user to interpret the model in Pro-SEAT. The Protégé‟s tree-view of ontology is also integrated in Pro-SEAT so that the subsumption relationship between ontology concepts can be viewed in Pro-SEAT. The other relationships represented in OWL properties and constraints can not be displayed in Pro-SEAT, which would hide the complexity and help the annotator to identify the concepts easily. The annotation models are listed and navigated

according to the GPO concepts. In Pro-SEAT, it is difficult to establish an overall view of the annotation model or check the inter-relationships between annotations. A model search interface is integrated in Pro-SEAT. Based on the annotation results, it facilitates the navigation of the process models and the annotation information by focusing on the GPO categories.

Conclusion and Further Work

Semantic annotation is an approach to achieve semantic interoperability of heterogeneous resources. However, such an approach has usually been applied to


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 27

enhance the semantics of unstructured and structured artifacts (e.g. textual resources, and Web services).The semantic annotation framework for business

process models introduce an ontology-based semantic annotation approach to enrich and reconcile semantics of process models --- a kind of semi-structured artifact, for managing process knowledge. The proposed approach has been implemented in a prototype annotation tool --- Pro-SEAT to facilitate the annotation process. The annotation approach and the prototype tool are evaluated using a comprehensive quality framework, SEQUAL.

Evaluation method for ontology-based semantic annotation is a new research topic. According to the author's knowledge, there is no systematic evaluation methodology for semantic annotation approaches and tools. Maynard in [M05] identified some requirements for ontology-based annotation tools such as expected functionality, interoperability, usability, accessibility, scalability and reusability. Usually, criteria and metrics for performance evaluation, such as precision, recall and F-measure [R79], are defined for the evaluation of semi-automatic or automatic semantic annotations by using information extraction techniques. However, the evaluation is mainly for the semantic annotation of textual contents. The model features are certainly not covered in this approach, but they are very important in our case of the semantic annotation of business process models. Moreover, those metrics are not sufficient for ontology-based information

extraction, because the distinction between right and wrong is less obvious [M05]. We do not apply any information extraction techniques in our system and the current prototype of the annotation tool mainly supports manual annotation.

We have chosen SEQUAL that has been widely and successfully applied in the information modelling area, to evaluate the proposed approach. According to the semiotic quality categories, a quality analysis has been made at both the meta-model level (GPO and the PSAM specifications) and model level (the PSAM model instances and Pro-SEAT). According to the quality analysis results, we found out some limitations of the work and possible extensions:

• Further automatic enhancement is needed to facilitate the annotation procedure.

• The approach should be evaluated in various domains and applications • Social quality issues should be evaluated, in particular relative to semantic

reconcilliation of models • Evolution of ontologies and model changes have not been taken into account

in the annotation. • Semantics of relationships in the original models have not been taken into

account in this approach • Relationship between the semantic annotations of process models at the

conceptual level and at the execution level could be developed.

References

[BPMN04] BPMI.org: Business process modelling notation version 1.0 May 3, 2004. http://www.bpmn.org/Documents/BPMN\%20V1-0\%20May\%203\%202004.pdf Last visited 2007.9.1

http://www.bpmn.org/Documents/BPMN/%20V1-0/%20May/%203/%202004.pdf


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[CKSL97] Carlsen, S., J. Krogstie, A. Sølvberg, and O.I. Lindland. Evaluating Flexible Workflow Systems. in Proceedings of Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-30). 1997. Maui, Hawaii.

[HSS03] Handschuh, S.; Staab, S.; Studer, R.: Leveraging metadata creation for the semantic web with CREAM. In Proc. of the Annual German Conference on Advances in Artificial Intelligence (KI 2003), page 19-33, LNCS 2821, Springer, 2003

[K01] Krogstie, J. A Semiotic Approach to Quality in Requirements Specifications. in Proceedings of IFIP 8.1. Working Conference on Organizational Semiotics. 2001. Montreal, Canada.

[K03] Krogstie, J., Evaluating UML Using a Generic Quality Framework, in UML and the Unified Process, L. Favre, Editor. 2003, IRM Press. p. 1-22.

[K08] Krogstie, J.: Integrated goal, data and process modelling: from TEMPORA to model-generated work-places. Information systems engineering: from data analysis to process networks, IGI publishing, 2008.

[KA04] Krogstie, J. and S. Arnesen, Assessing Enterprise Modelling Languages using a Generic Quality Framework, in Information Modelling Methods and Methodologies, J. Krogstie, K. Siau, and T. Halpin, Editors. 2004, Idea Group Publishing.

[KDJ05] Krogstie, J., V. Dalberg, and S. Jensen, Using a Model Quality Framework for Requirements Specification of an Enterprise Modelling Languages, in Advanced Topics in Database Research - Vol. 4, K. Siau, Editor. 2005, Idea Group Publishing.

[KSJ06] Krogstie, J., G. Sindre, and H. Jørgensen, Process Models as Knowledge for Action: A Revised Quality Framework. European Journal of Information Systems 2006. 15(1): p. 91-102.

[KH01] Kogut, P.; Holmes, W.: AeroDAML: Applying information extraction to generate DAML annotations from web pages. In Proc. Of the 1st International Conference on Knowledge and Capture (K-CAP 2001), 2001

[L08] Lin, Y.: Semantic annotation for process models: facilitating process knowledge management via semantic interoperability. PhD thesis, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2008

[LS07] Lin, Y.; Sølvberg, A.: Goal annotation of process model for semantic enrichment of process knowledge. In Proc. Of the 19th international Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE 2007), page 355-369, LNCS 4495, Springer-Verlag, 2007

[LSHD04] Lin, Y.; Sampson, J.; Hakkarainen, S.; Ding, H.: An evaluation of UML and OWL using a semiotic quality framework. Advanced Topics in Database Research Volume 4, pages 178--200, Idea Group Publishing. Hershey, PA, USA, 2004.

[LSHKS06] Lin, Y.; Stransunskas, D.; Hakkarainen, S.; Krogstie, J.; Sølvberg, A.: Semantic annotation framework to manage semantic heterogeneity of process models. In Proc. of the 18th international Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE 2006), page 433-446, LNCS 4001, Springer-Verlag, 2006

[M05] Maynard, D.: Benchmarking ontology-based annotation tools for the semantic web. In Workshop of Text Mining, e-Research and Grid-enabled Language Technology at UK e-Science Programme All Hands Meeting (AHM 2005) Nottingham, UK, 2005.

[NK06] Nysetvold, A.G. and J. Krogstie, Assessing Business Process Modelling Languages Using a Generic Quality Framework, in Advanced Topics in Database Research Series K. Siau, Editor. 2006, Idea Group. p. 79-93.

[OWL09] W3C. OWL web ontology language overview. http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-owl-features-20040210, Last Visited: 2009.1.26

[RRK07] Recker, J., M. Rosemann, and J. Krogstie, Ontology- versus pattern-based evaluation of process modelling language: A comparison. Communications of the Association for Information Systems 2007. 20: p. 774-799.

[R79] Rijsbergen, C.J.: Information Retrieval (2nd edition). Butterworths, 1979. [SAWSDL07] W3C. Semantic annotations for WSDL and XML schema.

http://www.w3.org/TR/sawsdl, Last Visited: 2007.9.20 [SCOR07] SCOR model. http://www.supply-

chain.org/page.ww?section=SCOR+Model\&name=SCOR+Model, Last Visited: 2007.5.10

http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-owl-features-20040210

http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-owl-features-20040210

http://www.w3.org/TR/sawsdl

http://www.supply-chain.org/page.ww?section=SCOR+Model\&name=SCOR+Model

http://www.supply-chain.org/page.ww?section=SCOR+Model\&name=SCOR+Model


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 29

[SMSV04] Sivashanmugam, K.; Miller, J.; Sheth, A.; Verma, K.: Framework for semantic web process composition. Special Issue of the International Journal of Electronic Commerce (IJEC), 9 (2), 2004

[SN00] Scheer, A; Nuttgens, M.: ARIS architecture and reference models for business process management. Business process management, models, techniques, and empirical studies, page 376-389, ISBN 3-540-67454-3, Springer-Verlag, 2000


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The SME Perspective on INTEROP-VLab The European Virtual Laboratory for Enterprise

Interoperability

Gash Bhullar Director and Chairman – Technology Application Network Ltd (TANet)

Managing Director – Control 2K Limited Waterton Technology Centre Bridgend – South Wales UK [email protected]

Abstract: “Interoperability is still the most viable option to reduce costs while maximizing profits, providing higher quality of product and better joined up processes. So while we are all aware of the importance of interoperability, why are we not implementing it?” Part of the issue is having a clear vision and understanding the benefits of overcoming interoperability and the benefits that can be gained. Translating the benefits into monetary terms for businesses is the way forward. Looking ahead, we will see a radical change in the way we do business with the emphasis on inter-operating systems but how will we bring the SMEs along? Many may think that Interoperability has had its share of the limelight and its time to move on to more „modern‟ things but many of us who deal with interoperability issues know that it‟s a long term issue that‟s here to stay. Organisations such as INTEROP-VLab are looking at this perspective and ready to face the issues.

Introduction

Businesses today face the same challenges that they have faced over the decades

and no doubt will continue to face in the future. All that tends to happen is that good practices are developed, implemented and then forgotten. The smart businesses are those that can rediscover such practices and re-implement them in the new context that they find themselves over the decades. Whilst continuous research keeps the wheels of the academic machine turning, it would be nice to think that the hard work put into projects could be leveraged to the mutual benefits of business and academia. So many of the results of projects never get a chance to be fully exploited on their conclusion and it would be sensible to think that the outcomes could still be made available and stored somewhere that would be easy to access in the future. INTEROP-VLab may overcome one of the greatest frustrations that SME‟s have, namely a single contact point for access to repositories that would otherwise reside in many locations potentially around the world. SME‟s often need to solve problems that they may face on a day to day basis that may require research or an

mailto:[email protected]


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 31

experienced hand. Local Universities can help but may only solve part of the problem presented. They may overlook other partners that may be able to provide

the shortfalls or miss out on the experience gained by other partners whilst doing similar projects. This again is a strong target area for INTEROP-VLab.

INTEROP-VLab

Created in March 2007, INTEROP-VLab is a non-profit international association (AISBL), under the Belgian Law, stemming from the Network of Excellence INTEROP-NoE (Interoperability Research for Networked Enterprise Applications and Software, FP6 508011, a 42 month-duration project). INTEROP-VLab members are pooled in autonomous Poles. A Pole consists of a set of partners located in a geographical area, each having expertise or interest in Enterprise Interoperability. The area can be a region of a country or a country, or a set of countries or regions of countries. Each Pole is a legal structure, formed by partners (universities, research centres, companies...) which adhere to the Pole. Type of partner organizations:

Academic (A) Research Centre (R) Company (C) Association of SMEs (S) INTEROP-VLab currently is made up of 8 regional poles, bringing together leading academics, research centres, industrial stakeholders, SMEs, from 10 European countries and from China, representing 71 partners (organisations) and 300 researchers. It is an access route to top specialists in the domain of Enterprise Interoperability (EI)

Brief History

A major initiative under FP6 was the funding of the INTEROP NoE and of the ATHENA Integrated Project (Advanced Technologies for Interoperability of Heterogeneous Enterprise Networks and their Applications) strongly connected with the NoE. At the end of the project, the objective fixed by the EC had been reached and INTEROP-VLab was created in order to exploit the research results and to continue the de-fragmentation of the European Research Area. INTEROP-VLab is the result of 7 years of EI development in Europe


32 © IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009

The offering

INTEROP-VLab proposes solutions that can cut across organizations and semantic requirements. It offers IT Dissemination of Knowledge; Education & Training; Collaborative analysis of the market situation; State of the Art; Standardisation advice and Mutualisation of research funds through Collaborative Research The development of Enterprise Interoperability is recognised as a high priority by the European Commission which has launched various initiatives in FP6 and now in FP7 to develop EI in Europe.

INTEROP-VLab develops a range of activities: - Research - Education and training services - State of the art - Standardisation advice - Dissemination of knowledge - Common use of research funds... Its strength comes from synergies, exchanges and collaborations between all actors in EI. This approach aims to cope both with the heterogeneity of local environments and with the need for synergy at the global level. It also strongly facilitates the membership procedure. To join the INTEROP-VLab international community, the members only needs to join a local Pole under national legal rules. The Poles are the members of INTEROP-VLab and each Pole defines its own rules in

order to incorporate partners to it structure (See Figure 1).

Figure 1: The operating principle

INTEROP-VLab tasks Strategy & policy Pole coordination & information Resource mutualisation International support and projects Services (Kmap, e-Learning)

Promotion

Poles tasks Pole strategy & policy Resource mutualisation Search for regional supports

Regional EI Promotion

Partners (academic, industrial organizations, research centres) can: Access I-VLab services Participate to the

networked Research


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 33

Shown above is a simplified operating principle showing the relationship between the Poles in each country and the Partners ability to access other Partners via their

corresponding Poles.

The Future

There is a plan of action to address and tackle the issues of interoperability with INTEROP-VLab being in a strong position to rise to the challenge. It is important to build on past success and avoid the constant process of learning and re-learning the fundamentals. The volume and mass of information that is becoming available needs to be processed for the benefit of SME‟s so that they can concentrate on their core competences. INTEROP-VLab has the potential to shape future research

by drilling through the mass of data that it may eventually gather and become a global source of knowledge allowing truly global collaboration in future projects. Like any other idea or concept, the hardest part is to convince others of the merits of the methodology and deliver the results. INTEROP-VLab certainly gets a vote of the SME‟s already engaged within it. Now its time to spread the word. For full details of what INTEROP-VLab can offer please visit www.interop-vlab.eu

http://www.interop-vlab.eu/


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© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 35

SOA4All: Enabling a Web of Billions of Services

Sven Abels TIE Holding NV

Department of Research & Product Development, Amsterdam, NL

[email protected]

Abstract: This paper presents the SOA4All project. SOA4All will help to realize a world where billions of parties are exposing and consuming services via advanced Web technology: the main objective of the project is to provide a comprehensive framework and infrastructure that integrates complementary and evolutionary technical advances (i.e., SOA, context management, Web principles, Web 2.0 and Semantic Web) into a coherent and domain-independent service delivery platform.

Introduction and Problem Description

SOA4All is a research project with an overall budget of over 13,5 Million Euro, co-funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme and its

partners3. SOA4All is running until 2011 and involves 17 different partners from all over Europe.

In the view of SOA4All, computer science is currently in the process of entering a new generation. The emerging generation starts by abstracting from software and sees all resources as services in a SOA. In a world of services, it is the service that counts for a customer and not the software or hardware components which implement the service. Service-oriented architectures are rapidly becoming the dominant computing paradigm.

However, current SOA solutions are still restricted in their application context to being in-house solutions of companies. A service Web will have billions of services. While service orientation is widely acknowledged for its potential to revolutionize the world of computing by abstracting from the underlying hardware and software layers, its success depends on resolving a number of fundamental challenges that SOA does not address today.

SOA4All will help to realize a world where billions of parties are exposing and consuming services via advanced Web technology. The project will provide a comprehensive framework and infrastructure that integrates five complementary

and revolutionary technical advances into a coherent and domain independent service delivery platform:

3 ATOS ORIGIN Sociedad Anonima Espanola (Spain), British Telecommunications plc (UK), The Open University (UK),

SAP AG (Germany), Leopold-Franzens-Universitaet Innsbruck (Austria), CEFRIEL - Societa Consortile a Responsabilita

Limitata (Italy), EBM WebSourcing SAS (France), Hanival Internet Services GmbH (Austria), Institut National de

Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (France), Intelligent Software Components S.A. (Spain), Sirma Group Corp.

(Bulgaria), TIE Nederland B.V. (Dutch), TXT e-Solutions Spa (Italiy), Universitaet Karlsruhe (Germany), The University

of Manchester (UK), SEEKDA OG (Austria)



36 © IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009

SOA (Service Oriented Architectures) as the emerging dominant paradigm for application development which abstracts from software to the notion of

service. Context management, i.e., adapting services to meet local environmental

constraints, organizational policies and personal preferences. Web principles to scale SOA to a world wide Web communications

infrastructure. Web 2.0 as a means to structure human-machine cooperation in an efficient

and cost-effective manner. Semantic Web to automate service discovery, mediation and composition.

Aims and Objectives

SOA4All is endorsed by the Networked European Software & Services Initiative (NESSI) constituency and will contribute significantly to the NESSI Open Framework (NEXOF), which is one of the main challenges of the European Platform on Software

and Services. In a broader context we expect SOA4All to significantly impact the competitiveness of the European Software and IT Services industry and more widely to address the Lisbon goals.

SOA4All will essentially enable to laverage the full power of Service Oriented Architectures anmd their underlying services. Altough WebServices and their standards have been around for quite a while, the actual usage in real world application is still low compared to other technologies such as e.g. RSS. One of the main reasons that the SOA4All consortium foresees for this is the deep technical level that is needed for using services and for connecting services into processes. SOA4All aims in ordercoming the current limitations by adding advantages from Web 2.0 paradigms, Semantic Web capabilities and context awareness. The

essential gal is to allow everyone to use services in an easy and non-technical way. This will allow users to use service oriented architectures to create interoperable systems by connecting their services via processes.


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 37

Technical Overview

SOA4All will reach its goal by providing a holistic interface – the SOA4All Studio – that allows users to use the SOA4All in a graphical way. The SOA4All studio connects the results from different work packages and provides a simple Ajax-based web interface allowing users to e.g. search services based on their semantic data or to connect services and creates complex processes out of them. SOA4All consists of several work packages that are focusing on specific tasks, which are split into 14 different work packages being arranged in 5 Activities.

Figure 2: Activities and Work Packages

Current Status and Conclusion

SOA4All aims to solve an interoperability problem by making it easy to connect services of different systems to each other using the SOA4All results. The project aims in simplifying the usage of services and their interaction by adding various facets from the semantic domain and by considering Web 2.0 paradigms as well as context information. SOA4All is right now in its first year and will be running until 2011. More information may be found on the SOA4All website at http://www.soa4all.eu or via email at [email protected].

http://www.soa4all.eu/



38 © IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 39

BREIN: BUSINESS OBJECTIVE DRIVEN RELIABLE AND INTELLIGENT GRIDS FOR REAL BUSINESS

Henar Muñoz Frutos Telefónica Research & Development

C/ Emilio Vargas, 6 28043 Madrid, Spain

[email protected]

Ioannis Kotsiopoulos School of Computer Science

University of Manchester, Kilburn Building Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL

United Kingdom [email protected]

Abstract: The Grid adoption inside business environments has not experienced the

same uptake as anticipated with respect to the experience in science and academic institutions. Nowadays, they are some examples of Grid implementations for some industrial sectors such as aerospace, automotive or pharmaceuticals, but they involve only single companies which own their infrastructure and high technical and economical resources. Thus, SMEs, which cannot afford high investments, are out of these businesses, while new requirements for developing complex business services by enterprises collaborations are not considered. Thus, BREIN arises in order to address these problems by the introduction of Software as a Service model and by supporting collaborations among enterprises in a dynamic and flexible way. The BREIN project aims to develop a framework, which will extend the Grid possibilities by driving their usage inside new target areas in the business domain. To this end, BREIN deals with the provision of the basic infrastructure these new business models need: enterprise system interoperability, flexible relationships, dynamicity in business processes, security mechanisms and enhanced SLA and contract Management.

Introduction

The research Project BREIN, partially funded by the EC under the FP6, has as its main objective the creation of an infrastructure that will support collaboration among companies in a dynamic and changing environment. The project has a strong focus on business requirements established by the definition of two scenarios (Virtual Engineering and Airport Resource Management) driven by two main end-user stakeholders in the project: ANSYS Europe Ltd and Stuttgart Airport. BREIN aims to develop a framework that will extend the possibilities of using the Grid for use inside new target areas from the business domain. Thus, BREIN is dealing with all necessary functionality in a business Grid to enable enterprises to simplify their relationships complexity by using its infrastructure. To this end, BREIN will give the best support possible to enhance business and to optimize business execution whilst minimising interaction and knowledge about the underlying technical nature of the system from the individual participants.


40 © IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009

Key technologies in BREIN development

To build this framework, BREIN will combine concepts provided by different research areas and apply them for the development of a Grid-based system. These areas include: semantic web, multi-agent and workflow technologies in order to enable interoperability, flexibility and adaptability. Concretely, semantic web concepts provides to Grid business i) simplicity to users since they can describe services, SLA terms… in the language and domain they know, ii) allows for interoperability among providers (semantic descriptions of resources, services, SLA terms, security) and iii) increase the automation of human tasks decreasing time and effort in the creation and maintenance of services. On the other hand, multiagent technology allows for i) dynamic adaptation, so that, recognising and reacting to potential problems increasing reliability: ii) adaptative negotiation for defining enterprises collaboration contracts driven by enterprises objectives, iii) decision taken without human intervention.

Key concepts in BREIN development

A key concept in the approach is that of the “bipartite (that is two-party) agreement” [HHKS08], which is the contract established between two parties, deriving from a negotiation and describing the service, its quality and the terms

under which it is delivered. This model closely follows real B2B practice and does not impose any restriction on the aspect of the value chain or the pricing model of each participant. It does not require the previous establishment of a virtual organization beforehand and defining the participants in the process. Therefore, there is no central component that manages the Virtual Organization lifecycle, and each participant establishes bipartite relationships with other participants, to govern their business interactions and the services traded between them. Another fundamental concept in Grid is virtualization. This provides companies with means of provisioning for a service in any way they see fit, as long as it is compliant with the terms of the agreements they have with their customers. A provider could change their internal infrastructure and their clients will not perceive any change. This provides the freedom of managing the internal resources without any restriction and facilitates the adaptation to changing business circumstances. Finally, orchestration achieves the realization of customer workflow towards

business requirements, in terms of the integration of different provider‟s services and collaboration with different enterprises.


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 41

General Benefits Provided by BREIN

BREIN is currently working on achieving enough dynamicity and flexibility to address the complex relationships among stakeholders in the new value chain provided by these new business models described above. Dynamicity is addressed by separating customer goals with processes execution, which means that business processes are not defined statically, but are determined at runtime. Flexibility is obtained since BREIN allows the system to be able to react to failures in execution or SLA violations. Concretely, BREIN plans to deliver the following technological innovations. Enhanced SLA Management: The BREIN approach is to enhance existing work in SLA by exploiting semantic descriptions of the services offered and their dependencies to achieve interoperability among providers, as well as to use concepts from the multi-agents domain enabling a faster enactment of necessary actions and decisions without necessary human intervention. Planning Support: As BREIN allows providers and customers to define their enteprises‟ goals to be achieved getting intelligent components to map the goals to a composition of available services. With that, BREIN automatically enables reaction to service failures, driven by policies or in general changes in the execution in the environments. This capacity of automatic reaction and self-

management is essential to increase reliability for consumers, and this will in turn benefit providers. Security: The BREIN vision is to support dynamic collaboration creation by allowing a user to collaborate with other on a B2B level, and with the BREIN framework triggering the necessary actions based on this. Security in BREIN is considered from the design stages stages, and is predicated on the SLA and the business relationships. The security framework provides the means for the establishment of trust between collaborators while fine grained access control ensures tighter contol over users actions Dynamic Workflow: BREIN addresses dynamic workflow by making a distinction between abstract and concrete workflow. The abstract workflow is defined by a high level language close to the human language, where the user is able to define their requirements in terms of processes goals. On the other hand, concrete workflow is executable involving actual services, SLAs, security etc, and is translated from abstract workflow by the process of evaluation. This means that the same abstract workflow may be executed at different providers every time it is executed, as the binding to the providers can be done at runtime.

References

[HHKS08] Hérenger, H.; Heek, R.; Kübert, R.; Surridge, M.; Operating Virtual Organizations using Bipartite Service Level Agreements, Grid Middleware and Services, Springer, pp. 359-373, 2008


42 © IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 43

STASIS: Software for Ambient Semantic Interoperable Services

Paul Cranner University of Sunderland, Department of Computing, Engineering & Technology,

St. Peter‟s Campus, Sunderland, SR6 0DD, UK [email protected]

Abstract: This paper presents the STASIS approach to simplifying the mapping process between different business schemas, by using semantics instead of syntax to create the mappings. The current schema mapping problem is introduced, and its limitations highlighted. The STASIS approach is then discussed, and the project status outlined.

Introduction and Problem Description

Consider that a company wishes to trade information such as a purchase order electronically with another company. Although seemingly a simple transaction, it is often difficult to exchange such information due to the large number of diverse information systems currently in existence, each with their own proprietary data formats. The problem is that today, information is typically mapped manually using syntax. Whilst this approach has been successful, there are several clear disadvantages:

An in-depth knowledge of both the source and destination schemas is required

New schemas need to be studied in-depth before mappings can be created – this is an unavoidable step that can be extremely expensive

Mappings must be performed by an expert technician with schema knowledge

Mappings are often difficult to understand and prone to human error

Mappings typically cannot be reused

Aims and Objectives

STASIS [1] is a 36 month FP6 project concluding in August 2009. STASIS aims to address many of the aforementioned problems by developing a software application that allows anyone to create mappings based upon semantics instead of syntax.

STASIS concentrates on identifying semantic assets and mapping those instead. For instance, two concepts <Street> and <Town> could be grouped into one logical semantic entity called “Address”, which is mapped to a well defined concept of an address. The mapping process is based on ontologies used to define and link these semantic assets. The link to the original syntax is still made, but this is completely transparent to the user.



44 © IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009

Technical Overview

The STASIS Desktop Application is built upon the Eclipse platform which enables rapid application development and the use of extensible plug-ins. The software allows users to easily identify their semantic assets and semi-automatically map them to those of business partners. This approach allows users to create mappings in a more natural way, by considering the meaning of concepts, rather than their syntactical structure. STASIS utilises the Eclipse Modelling Framework (EMF) and Graphical Modelling Framework (GMF). EMF is a “framework … for building … applications based on a structured data model” [2]. In the case of STASIS, this is the STASIS Logical Data Model (LDM), which is expressed in OWL. The LDM defines what a semantic asset is, and how a schema is represented in STASIS. GMF provides a “generative component and runtime infrastructure for developing editors based on EMF” [3]. The core component of the Desktop Application is the STASIS Common Workbench, which provides common functionality such as file management, user interface customisation, favourites and shortcuts. Five plug-ins interact with the Common Workbench and provide the core STASIS functionality:

The STASIS Analyser allows users to import schemas of different formats into STASIS, which semi-automatically analyses them and identifies semantic assets

The STASIS Viewer allows users to examine and search for semantic assets

The STASIS Comparator allows users to create mappings between semantic

assets from different companies

The STASIS Purifier automatically analyses saved semantic assets, looking for infrequently used or incorrect entries

The STASIS Storage component is based upon a P2P architecture


STASIS aims to solve an interoperability problem that prevents many companies from participating in the e-Economy. Development of the STASIS Desktop Application is currently at an advanced stage, with a beta-version expected to be available in early 2009. Following completion of the software and user trials, STASIS will promote its benefits and use at a range of targeted events in 2009.

References

[1] STASIS Project (2006) Software for Ambient Semantic Interoperable Services, http://www.stasis-project.net, Date accessed 12/12/2008

[2] Skrypuch, N. (2008) Eclipse Modelling Framework, http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/, Date accessed 12/12/2008

http://www.stasis-project.net/

http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 45

[3] Gronback, R., Boldt, N. (2008) Eclipse Graphical Modelling Framework, http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/gmf/, Date accessed 12/12/2008

http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/gmf/


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© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 47

SEMIC.EU: A collaborative approach to semantic interoperability

in eGovernment

Dr. Renke Fahl-Spiewack Semantic Interoperability Centre Europe

]init[ AG Berlin, Germany

[email protected]

Abstract: All national governments in Europe have framed eStrategies but in the past

there was no institutionalised provision for the collaboration among different initiatives and approaches. The European Commission's programme 'Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens' (IDABC) addresses these challenges by coordinating common rules for collaboration and related infrastructure projects. SEMIC.EU is one of the implementation measures taken by IDABC – a catalyst for the preservation of meaning in eGovernment data exchange. Its basic ideas are openness, community-driven quality enhancement and the reuse of existing solutions.

Introduction

The Semantic Interoperability Centre Europe operates as a network of eGovernment projects and communities. It is a horizontal measure of the European Commission implemented with the primary purpose of enhancing the semantic interoperability in public administrations and projects across Europe. The service calls on projects and individuals alike to share their building blocks for semantic interoperability (referred to as “interoperability assets”) or to develop them with support from the community built around SEMIC.EU. More precisely, SEMIC.EU intends to facilitate the reuse of syntactic and semantic assets needed for semantic interoperability. A standardised clearing process, supported by platform functionalities, governs the evolution of the data models, XML schemas, ontologies and taxonomies which are shared in an open repository. The website www.semic.eu was launched in June 2008 during a conference in Brussels. While the platform is the permanent face of SEMIC.EU, personal exchange and face-to-face meetings are essential for its operation [1].


http://ec.europa.eu/idabc

http://www.semic.eu/semic/view/smeta/Glossary.xhtml#I

http://www.semic.eu/semic/view/documents/vision-of-the-clearing-process.pdf

http://www.semic.eu/semic/view/snav/Repository.xhtml

http://www.semic.eu/


48 © IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009

Figure 3: Semantic interoperability assets in the SEMIC.EU repository

Reuse and knowledge transfer

SEMIC.EU's guiding principles are collaboration and sharing, not only of the assets themselves, but also of the experiences, documentation, methodologies, and lessons learnt from the initiative. Incorporating all levels of administration and all domains is both a function of the subsidiarity principle and a matter of efficiency: By making existing solutions to semantic conflicts or gaps available to others and in different contexts, the European commission uses its unique position at the supranational level to amalgamate assets that would otherwise remain hidden within their respective domains, countries and languages. The initial idea behind SEMIC.EU is nothing less than to make use of the knowledge already generated in hundreds of projects to the benefit of others. SEMIC.EU exhibits a way towards semantic interoperability solutions that can also be implemented elsewhere: Making use of the know-how and the specific needs of

those working in the respective domains are essential ingredients for solutions that are attractive for others to reuse. Regarding the technical approach and implementation, the spreading of best practices will lead to a reduction of administrative burden in streamlining information exchange – the deliberate collection and provision of concurrent approaches and technical solutions is supposed to lead to social benchmarking. Some public administrations have already implemented similar initiatives on a national level, and others are in the development or planning process. Indeed, all SEMIC.EU software components themselves are available for total reuse via the platform www.osor.eu. SEMIC.EU and all national initiatives aim to implement the European Commission's semantic interoperability strategy. It is one of SEMIC.EU's strengths that small solutions as well can be used for greater contexts – lowering the threshold for eGovernment cooperation.

www.osor.eu


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 49

European public administration taken seriously

In issues of semantic conflict and semantic harmonisation, respectively, a European approach to interoperability issues is obvious. This is due to the specific problems which an additional level of administration generates besides the local, regional and national ones. Legal, cultural, lingual and administrative differences between European states add to the importance of a harmonisation of data models and of efforts for better pan-European data exchange. Moreover, increasingly interdependent layers of public adminstration mean that more non-state actors become involved in all policy fields. Interest groups and civil society operate at an additional level as well.

Through the establishment of a single point of reference and collaboration, the European Union manages to reduce much of the complexity in interoperability issues generated by this new quality of governance. SEMIC.EU operates in this policy context taking into account the local, national and European eGovernment strategies accompanied by scientific and research institutions as well as business enterprises.

Fostering human interaction

Definitions and conventions in data exchange depend largely on social negotiations of meaning. In an environment as diverse as European public administration, a "steered bottom-up strategy" to facilitating meaningful data exchange is the most promising approach. Hence the experiences made by practitioners in every day worklife are very important for the initiative. For instance the Roadmap process is community approach driven and public to all stakeholders in eGovernment.

http://www.semic.eu/semic/view/snav/About_SEMIC/Roadmap-2010.xhtml


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Figure 4: SEMIC.EU Roadmap

The European commission anticipates that its design of an information hub with central access to diverse interoperability assets will also be viable in other contexts, the Semantic Interoperability Centre is shaped along the lines of the European Union's benchmarking idea of an "Open Method of Coordination": Best practices developed at lower levels of government pave the way for common solutions. The harmonisation of existing ontologies and data structures in fields like environmental protection, the judiciary, personal data or health records applies this very idea of best practices. Better and pragmatic results are expected.

Expert communities overseeing quality enhancement

Due to the contingency, fluidity and context-dependency of knowledge representations, the appropriateness of semantic mediations such as ontology mappings will always depend on human assessment and negotiation. Technical validation can only support such efforts. It can not replace them. In the Semantic Interoperability Centre Europe, both the technical infrastructure and the harmonisation process are managed centrally. The distilling of best practices and agreements on ontology mappings or XML schemas, however, must be

performed, reviewed and approved by domain experts. For this purpose, expert communities are built under the umbrella of the general initiative. They work jointly on the specific issues of semantic interoperability in their respective sectors. Expert communities are comprised of representatives of public administrations and projects of all scopes and sizes as well as scholars and professionals from the private sector.


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 51

Cooperation and network building

With SEMIC.EU, the Commission creates a competence network of projects dealing with semantic interoperability issues. At the same time, the centre acts as a partner for European standardisation bodies which represent living communities of eGovernment. The service has a clear European design but engages in national and international activities as well. Beyond the exchange of general and specific interoperability solutions, the service encourages cooperation in domain-specific communities, face-to-face exchange and public discussions on relevant issues around interoperability. For instance: On 2nd February 2009 SEMIC.EU is discussing the

topic ‘Modelling eGovernment Entities - Methodologies and Experiences under Review’ in Brussels. One of the service's primary functions is to provide a communication platform where interested parties can form expert communities on semantic interoperability issues in particular domains. An annual conference in Brussels gathers the community and everybody interested in related issues. SEMIC.EU's coaches and staff visit projects and organisations across Europe offering support and developing implentation strategies for interoperability assets. Incremental federation with national and regional repositories is a future objective as well as the enhancement of the underlying OMAR technology. The refinement of its methodologies and community building are among the ongoing tasks of the SEMIC.EU service. Due to the high complexity of the field, users may require coaching services in order to successfully create and/or reuse interoperability assets. Such services can be requested via the platform and are provided as part of the SEMIC.EU project.

Current State

Since June 2008 about 60 assets were provided from over 12 countries. The number of associated projects is still growing. By now, more than 40 projects collaborate with SEMIC.EU, their headquaters are to be found within and outside the European Union. The platform is the figurehead of SEMIC.EU making pan-European eGovernment more and more visible for citiziens, business and public administrations. SEMIC.EU officials participate actively in workshops and conferences shepherding the service towards the single point of reference for semantic interoperability in Europe. Coaching and collaboration have been

implemented with several European projects. Domains range from waste management to employment. Further extentions of the platform and its functionalities are planned for 2009 while community building efforts will also continue to be stepped up.

Reference

http://www.semic.eu/semic/view/snav/Infopool/Workshop.xhtml

http://www.semic.eu/semic/view/snav/Infopool/Workshop.xhtml

http://www.semic.eu/semic/view/snav/Partner/Projects.xhtml


52 © IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009

[1] Semantic Interoperability Centre, Europe: Interconnecting Europe. European Commission, Directorate-General for Informatics (ed.), 2008


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 53

NEXOF RA: A Reference Architecture for the NESSI Open Service Framework

Vadim Chepegin, Stuart Campbell TIE Holding NV

Department of Research & Product Development, Amsterdam, NL

{vadim.chepegin | stuart.campbell}@tieGlobal.com

Abstract: NESSI is the European Technology Platform dedicated to Software and

Services. Its name stands for the Networked European Software and Services Initiative. NEXOF-RA aims to build the Reference Architecture for the NESSI Open Service Framework (NEXOF) leveraging research in the area of service-based systems, and to consolidate and trigger innovation in service-oriented economies. This article summarizes the NEXOF RA project and its goals in the area of contributing to business interoperability by providing a scalable and flexible reference architecture that is integrated into the NESSI landscape.

Objectives

NESSI NESSI is the European Technology Platform dedicated to Software and Services. Its name stands for the Networked European Software and Services Initiative. In order to promote and make real the transformation into a service economy, NESSI is

defined in the context of a holistic approach to an ecosystem in which all the parties involved coexist and which can develop into a new economic model. NEXOF The overall ambition of NESSI is to deliver NEXOF, a coherent and consistent open service framework leveraging research in the area of service-based systems to consolidate and trigger innovation in service-oriented economies. The NESSI Open Framework consists of three core elements: (i) The NESSI Open Reference Model, an open specification, which includes the conceptual model of core elements, (ii) the NESSI Open Reference Architecture addressing definition and selection of innovative architectural styles and patterns based on the reference model and (iii) the NESSI Open Reference Implementation taking the responsibility to deliver to the community at large with the implementation of the NEXOF concepts and approaches. NEXOF-RA NEXOF-RA (NEXOF Reference Architecture) project is the first step in the process of building NEXOF the generic open platform for creating and delivering applications

enabling the creation of service based ecosystems where service providers and third parties easy collaborate. NEXOF-RA main results will be the Reference Architecture for NEXOF, a proof of concept to validate this architecture and a roadmap for the adoption of NEXOF as a whole. To build the specifications for the Open Framework Architecture, an open process has been defined to allow the

mailto:%7Bvadim.chepegin%20%7C%20stuart.campbell%[email protected]


54 © IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009

involvement of all relevant initiatives and organizations concerned on building a Reference Architecture for the “Future of Internet”.

The overall goal of NEXOF-RA is independence such that NEXOF can be implemented into a broad range of application domains supporting any business size by all user communities using different technologies. NEXOF-RA will deliver a coherent set of technologies globally applicable intended to provide Europe with digital service to improve flexibility, interoperability and quality. In addition, NEXOF-RA will try to establish strategies and policies to speed up the dynamics of the services eco-system as well as to foster safety, security and well being of citizens by means of new societal applications.

Structural Overview

NEXOF RA is encouraging people to participate in its open specification process. For this purpose, NEXOF-RA defined several different roles of contributors in the NEXOF-RA community:

In essence, the scope of NEXOF-RA is to deliver:

The NEXOF Reference Architecture.


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 55

Following an Open Architecture Specification Process which will allow contributions from many sources also outside NEXOF-RA, focusing on the

“NESSI Framework” as defined in the NESSI Holistic Model.

A Proof-of-Concept. This will be a set of software artifacts the project team will use to validate the key architectural choices made.

The NEXOF Roadmap. This will define the roadmap for the implementation and adoption of the

whole of NEXOF.

Open Construction Process

The NEXOF strategy is based on open contribution mechanisms which will ensure that NEXOF meets the requirements of the user community, incorporates the best open technologies, and triggers research with concrete, applicable results. Ultimately, this process is essential in gaining wide acceptance and building a very dynamic community. Contributors to this project will join forces in an active community, fostering partnerships with significant industrial and academic participants. The framework will be promoted and used in significant industrial deployments; this will give visibility and impact to your contributions. All contributors will gain expertise on NEXOF, which will be a key asset once the framework is deployed. Significant contributors will be recognized as co-authors.


56 © IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009


NEXOF-RA aims to solve an interoperability problem by providing an open and flexible reference architecture that tightly integrated into the NESSI initiative. Currently, NEXOF-RA is working on an advanced version of the reference architecture along with an implementation fo a proof of concept that is based on the reference architecture. In addition to this, a prototype implementation is currently under development and will be published on the NEXOF website in May 2009.


© IBIS – Issue 3 (1), 2009 57

Call for Articles New issues of the IBIS journal are released three times a year. Authors are encouraged to submit articles for inclusion in the next issue of the International Journal of Interoperability in Business Information systems. We are interested in both theoretical and practical research. We are also interested in case studies and results of recently finished research projects. Although our focus is on research results, we also accept a small amount of practical articles. Contributions should be original and unpublished and need to have a high quality. Topics of the journal include, but are not limited to:

Integration of business information systems Enterprise modeling for Interoperability Interoperability architectures and frameworks Interoperability of business standards

Intelligent mediators Coupling of information systems Interoperability of classification systems (Semi-)Automatic transformation of standards Interoperability of (meta) models Semantic integration concepts Interoperability between domain specific standards Semantic analysis of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data Interoperability of catalog based information systems Cooperation in heterogeneous information systems Ontology matching, merging and aligning Semantic combination of heterogeneous standards Ontology- and model management Interoperability of sector specific systems

Authors are encouraged to submit high quality articles online. Please carefully look at the submission guidelines to prepare your submission. All submissions should be made online using our online submission system. In case of any problems, please

contact us via email. For additional information and deadlines, please visit our website at

http://www.ibis-journal.net

http://www.ibis-journal.net/

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