EKD

This chapter presents experiences and reflections from using the EKD Enterprise Modeling method in a number of European organizations. The EKD modeling method is presented. The chapter then focuses on the EKD application in practice taking six cases as an example. The authors’ observations and lessons learned are reported concerning general aspects of Enterprise Modeling projects, the EKD modeling language, the participative modeling process, tool support, and issues of Enterprise Model quality. They also discuss a number of current and emerging trends for development of Enterprise Modeling approaches in general and for EKD in particular.

Business Process Simulation

This paper discusses the idea that even though information systems development (ISD) approaches have long advocated the use of integrated organisational views, the modelling techniques used have not been adapted accordingly and remain focused on the automated information system (IS) solution. Existing research provides evidence that business process simulation (BPS) can be used at different points in the ISD process to provide better integrated organisational views that aid the design of appropriate IS solutions. Despite this fact, research in this area is not extensive; suggesting that the potential of using BPS for the ISD process is not yet well understood. The paper uses the findings from three different case studies to illustrate the ways BPS has been used at different points in the ISD process. It compares the results against IS modelling techniques, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages that BPS has over the latter. The research necessary to develop appropriate BPS tools and give guidance on their use in the ISD process is discussed.

Design Principles for Reference Modelling

With the design of reference models, an increase in the efficiency of information systems engineering is intended. This is expected to be achieved by reusing information models. Current research focuses mainly on configuration as one principle for reusing artifacts. According to this principle, all variants of a model are incorporated in the reference model facilitating adaptations by choices. In practice, however, situations arise whereby various requirements to a model are unforeseen: Either results are inappropriate or costs of design are exploding. This paper introduces additional design principles that aim toward giving more flexibility to both the design and application of reference models.

An Agent Based Formal Approach for Modeling and Verifying Integrated Intelligent Information Systems

In this chapter a formal agent based approach for the modeling and verification of intelligent information systems using Coloured Petri Nets is presented. The use of a formal method allows analysis techniques such as automatic simulation and verification, increasing the confidence on the system behavior. The agent based modelling allows separating distribution, integration and intelligent features of the system, improving model reuse, flexibility and maintenance. As a case study an intelligent information control system for parking meters price is presented.

Designing Web Information Systems for a Framework-Based Construction

In the Web Engineering area, many methods and frameworks to support Web Information Systems (WISs) development have already been proposed. Particularly, the use of frameworks and container-based architectures is state-of-the-practice. In this chapter, we present a method for designing frameworkbased WISs called FrameWeb, which defines a standard architecture for framework-based WISs and a modeling language that extends UML to build diagrams that specifically depict framework-related components. Considering that the Semantic Web has been gaining momentum in the last few years, we also propose an extension to FrameWeb, called S-FrameWeb, that aims to support the development of Semantic WISs.

Integrated Requirement and Solution Modeling

This chapter discusses how an Enterprise Modeling approach, namely C3S3P1, has been applied in an automotive supplier company. The chapter concentrates on the phases of the C3S3P development process such as Concept Study, Scaffolding, Scoping, and Requirements Modeling. The authors have also presented the concept of task pattern which has been used for capturing, documenting and sharing best practices concerning business processes in an organization. Within this application context they have analyzed their experiences concerning stakeholder participation and task pattern development. The authors have also described how they have derived four different categories of requirements from scenario descriptions for the task patterns and from modeling of the task patterns.

Concepts and Strategies for Quality of Modeling

A process-oriented framework (QoMo) is presented that aims to further the study of analysis and support of processes for modeling. The framework is strongly goal-oriented, and expressed largely by means of formal rules. The concepts in the framework are partly derived from the SEQUAL framework for quality of modelling. A number of modelling goal categories is discussed in view of SEQUAL/QoMo, as well as a formal approach to the description of strategies to help achieve those goals. Finally, a prototype implementation of the framework is presented as an illustration and proof of concept.

Essential, Mandatory, and Shared Parts in Conceptual Data Models

This chapter focuses on formally representing life cycle semantics of part-whole relations in conceptual data models by utilizing the temporal modality. The authors approach this by resorting to the temporal conceptual data modeling language ERVT and extend it with the novel notion of status relations. This enables a precise axiomatization of the constraints for essential parts and wholes compared to mandatory parts and wholes, as well as introduction of temporally suspended part-whole relations. To facilitate usage in the conceptual stage, a set of closed questions and decision diagram are proposed. The longterm objectives are to ascertain which type of shareability and which lifetime aspects are possible for part-whole relations, investigate the formal semantics for sharability, and how to model these kind of differences in conceptual data models.

Extending the ORM Conceptual Schema Language and Design Procedure with Modeling Constructs for Capturing the Domain Ontology

In this chapter the authors extend the ORM conceptual modeling language with constructs for capturing the relevant parts of an application ontology in a list of concept definitions. The authors give the adapted ORM meta model and provide an extension of the accompanying Conceptual Schema Design Procedure (CSDP) to cater for the explicit modeling of the relevant parts of an application- or domain ontology in a list of concept definitions. The application of these modeling constructs will significantly increase the perceived quality and ease-of-use of (Web-based) applications.

Enriched Conceptualization of Subtyping

When modeling information systems, one often encounters subtyping aspects of the business domain that can prove challenging to implement in either relational databases or object-oriented code. In practice, some of these aspects are often handled incorrectly. This chapter examines a number of subtyping issues that require special attention (e.g. derivation options, subtype rigidity, subtype migration), and discusses how to model them conceptually. Because of its richer semantics, the main graphic notation used is that of second generation Object-Role Modeling (ORM 2). However, the main ideas could be adapted for UML and ER, so these are also included in the discussion. A basic implementation of the proposed approach has been prototyped in Neumont ORM Architect (NORMA), an open-source tool supporting ORM 2.