Requirements for choosing off-the-shelf information systems (OISR) differ from requirements for development of new information systems in that they do not necessarily provide complete specifications, thus allowing flexibility in matching an existing IS to the stated needs. We present a framework for OISR conceptual models that consists of four essential elements: business processes, business rules, information objects and required system services. We formalise the definitions of these concepts based on an ontological model. The ontology-based OISR model provides a framework to evaluate modelling languages on how appropriate they are for OISR requirements specifications. The evaluation framework is applied to the Object-Process Methodology, and its results are compared with a similar evaluation of ARIS. This comparison demonstrates the effectiveness of the ontological framework for evaluating modelling tools on how well they can guide selection, implementation and integration of purchased software packages.

Enterprise architects seek to align enterprise processes and structure with their supporting IT systems so that enterprises can flourish in their environment. The enterprise architecture (EA) discipline has emerged from business best practices. EA frameworks are therefore mostly informal. As a result there is a lack of EA tools that can help enterprise architects to check this alignment. Most notably, current EA tools do not help enterprise architects to formalize the alignment of the multiple levels that constitute an enterprise model. In this paper we propose an EA framework and an associated tool that provide alignment checking along the functional and organizational hierarchies. We illustrate this approach with the Sun Microsystems industrial example of the Pet Store.

The Visual Semantic Web (ViSWeb) paradigm enhances human accessibility to the current Semantic Web technology by enabling the visualization of knowledge. Arguing against the claim that humans and machines need to look at different knowledge representation formats, Object-Process Methodology (OPM) is shown to enable modeling of systems in a single graphic and textual model. ViSWeb provides for representation of knowledge over the Web in a unified way that caters to humans as well as machines. ViSWeb is developed as an OPM-based layer on top of XML/RDF/OWL to express knowledge visually and in natural language. Both the graphic and the textual representations are strictly equivalent. Being intuitive yet formal, they are not only understandable to humans, but are also amenable to computer processing. The advantages of the ViSWeb approach include equivalent graphic-text knowledge representation, visual navigability, semantic sentence interpretation, specification of system dynamics, and complexity management. The ability to use such bimodal knowledge representation that is both human understandable and machine processable is

Web applications can be classified as hybrids between hypermedia and information systems. They have a relatively simple distributed architecture from the user viewpoint, but a complex dynamic architecture from the designer viewpoint. They need to respond to operation by an unlimited number of heterogeneously skilled users, address security and privacy concerns, access heterogeneous, up-to-date information sources, and exhibit dynamic behaviors that involve such processes as code transferring. Common system development methods can model some of these aspects, but none of them is sufficient to specify the large spectrum of Web application concepts and requirements. This paper introduces OPM/Web, an extension to the Object-Process Methodology (OPM) that satisfies the functional, structural and behavioral Web-based information system requirements. The main extensions of OPM/Web are adding properties of links to express requirements, such as those related to encryption; extending the zooming and unfolding facilities to increase modularity; cleanly separating declarations and instances of code to model code transferring; and adding global data integrity and control constraints to express dependence or temporal relations among (physically) separate modules. We present a case study that helps evaluate OPM/Web and compare it to an extension of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) for the Web application domain.

Abstract Object-Process Methodology (OPM) is a system development and specification approach that combines the major system aspects- function, structure and behavior- within a single graphic and textual model. Having applied OPM in a variety of domains, this paper specifies an electronic commerce system in a hierarchical manner, at the top of which are the processes of managing a generic product supply chain before and after the product is manufactured. Focusing on the post-product supply chain management, we gradually refine the details of the fundamental, almost "classical " electronic commerce interaction between the retailer and the end customer, namely payment over the Internet using the customer's credit card. The specification results in a set of Object-Process Diagrams and a corresponding equivalent set of Object-Process Language sentences. The synergy of combining structure and behavior within a single formal model, expressed both graphically textually yields a highly expressive system modeling and specification tool. The comprehensive, unambiguous treatment of this basic electronic commerce process is formal, yet intuitive and clear, suggesting that OPM is a prime candidate for becoming a common standard vehicle for defining, specifying and analyzing electronic commerce and supply chain management systems.

This paper presents a model-based approach that combines the data-flow and object-oriented computing paradigms to model embedded systems. The rationale behind the approach is that both views are important for modelling purposes in embedded systems environments, and thus a combined and integrated usage is not only useful, but also fundamental for developing complex systems. We also show that by using models we were able to implement automated transformations between different views of the system under design. We exemplify the approach with an IPv6 router case study. 1.

Abstract. In the last decade UML has emerged as the standard object-oriented conceptual modeling language. Since UML is a combination of previous languages, such as OOSE, OMT, Statecharts, etc., the creation of multi-views within UML was unavoidable. These views, which represent different aspects of system structure and behavior, overlap, raising consistency and integration problems. Moreover, the object-oriented nature of UML set the ground for several behavioral views in UML, each of which is a different alternative for representing behavior. In this paper I suggest a Top-Level Object-Oriented Framework (TLOOF) for UML models. This framework, which serves as the glue of use case, class, and interaction diagrams, enables changing the refinement level of a model without loosing the comprehension of the system as a whole and without creating contradictions among the mentioned structural and behavioral views. Furthermore, the suggested framework does not add new classifiers to the UML metamodel, hence, does not complicate UML. 1

Abstract: The sustainability of space exploration will depend in large part on its ability to consistently and reliably deliver valued benefits to societal stakeholders over an extended period. This on-going research studies the values of prospective stakeholders in the space exploration enterprise—both in the near term and with a perspective extending over decades. The immediate focus is human and robotic exploration of the Earth/Moon system, but extends to the exploration of Mars as well. Potential beneficiaries of space exploration are identified in broad societal sectors. An analysis of these stakeholders, their values and needs leads to the development of a comprehensive set of space exploration objectives that address those needs. The relative priority of exploration objectives is weighted using information about stakeholder characteristics, values, and their role and place in the exploration value stream. The weighted exploration objectives can then be used to assess the relative value of different technical system architectures, and to design exploration enterprise architecture, attributes and policy frameworks to enable value delivery to societal stakeholders. Ultimately, through stakeholders ’ continuing support, sustainable space exploration will be delivered. I.

To address the problem of alignment and the demands on requirements analyses for enterprise systems (ES), we suggest the optimisation of requirements analyses and thus improved alignment by formalising analyses of both organisation’s requirements and enterprise system’s capabilities with the Bunge–Wand–Weber (BWW) ontology. However, issues arise when applying this ontology to ES requirements. These issues necessitate the extension of the BWW ontology in the sense of a methodically rigorous integration of Bunge’s qualitative differentiation of ontologically distinct layers of reality. This extension of the BWW ontology, by facilitating the development of rigorous methods for the ontological analysis of ES requirements, would form the basis for evaluating the alignment of ES packages with the needs of the organisation.

The paper provides a conceptual framework for designing and executing business processes using semantic Web services. We envision a world in which a designer defines a “virtual“ Web service as part of a business process, while requiring the system to seek actual Web services that match the specifications of the designer and can be invoked whenever the virtual Web service is activated. Taking a conceptual modeling approach, the relationships between ontology concepts and syntactic Web services are identified. We then propose a generic algorithm for ranking top-K Web services in a decreasing order of their benefit vis-á-vis the semantic Web service. We conclude with an extention of the framework to handle uncertainty as a result of concept mismatch and the desired properties of a schema matching algorithm to support Web service identification.