COLLABORATION ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

An Ontology-based Approach for Enterprise Interoperability

Aggelos Liapis, Stijn Christiaens, Pieter De Leenheer and Robert Meersman

Semantics Technology & Applications Research Lab (STARLab)

Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 BRUSSEL 5, Belgium

Keywords: CSCW, collaborative environments, ontology, enterprise interoperability, legacy systems.

Abstract: In the current competitive industrial context, enterprises must react swiftly to market changes. In order to

face this problem, enterprises must increase their collaborative activities. This implies at one hand high

communication between their information systems and at the other hand the compatibility of their practices.

An important amount of work must be performed towards proper practices of standardization and

harmonization. This is the concept of Interoperability. Interoperability of enterprises is a strategic issue,

caused as well as enabled by the continuously growing ability of integration of new legacy and evolving

systems, in particular in the context of networked organisations. of the reconciliation of the communicated

business semantics is crucial to success. For this, non-disruptive re-use of existing business data stored in

“legacy” production information systems is an evident prerequisite. In addition the integration of a

methodology as well as the scalability of any proposed semantic technological solution are equally evident

prerequisites. Yet on all accounts current semantic technologies as researched and developed for the so-

called Semantic Web may be found lacking. In this paper we present a methodology, which has resulted in

the implementation of a highly customizable collaborative environment focussed to support ontology-based

enterprise interoperability. The main benefit of this environment is its ability to integrate with legacy

systems, rescuing enterprises from having to adapt or upgrade their existing systems in order to interoperate

with their partners.

1 INTRODUCTION

Collaboration and knowledge sharing have become

crucial to enterprise success in the knowledge-

intensive European Community and the globalised

market world-wide. In this market the trend in

innovation of products and services is shifting from

mere production excellence to intensive,

collaborative and meaningful interoperability (De

Leenheer and Meersman, 2007).

The main objective of this paper is to illustrate the

features and the underpinning technology of a

collaboration platform designed to support the

effective interoperability within and between very

large enterprises. A main key issue that this platform

addresses is the variety and number of different

resources that concur to achieve a cross-enterprise

business service. A second key issue it addresses is

the diversity of agreed (e.g. meaning negotiation

when creating online contracts) models, and the

difficulty in adapting its integrated features and

services to different situations.

These problems are addressed with a flexible

solution, avoiding rigidity that occurs in the

implementation and maintenance of existing

cooperation platforms and their integration with an

advanced semantic repository.

The proposed platform operates at two levels: at the

front end, it enables the end users to access seamless

collaborative (e.g., synchronous, asynchronous and

semi-synchronous) as well as individual mode tools

and services to extract valuable information; at the

back end, it uses a sophisticated ontology framework

to support and record the collaborative work,

enhancing interoperability among different

enterprises and other service providers.

The final part of the paper presents appropriate

evidence regarding the usability as well as the

functionality of the platform through a realistic case

study.

255

Liapis A., Christiaens S., De Leenheer P. and Meersman R. (2008).

COLLABORATION ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE - An Ontology-based Approach for Enterprise Interoperability.

In Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - SAIC, pages 255-262

DOI: 10.5220/0001718702550262

 SciTePress

2 ENTERPRISE

INTEROPERABILITY

In general, interoperability is defined as the ability of

two or more systems or components to exchange

information and to use the information that has been

exchanged (Athena, 2004, Interop, 2003). The

European Commision (EC, 2006) adopts a broader

notion with Enterprise Interoperability (note the

capitals), which indicates the field of activity aimed

at improving the manner in which enterprises

interoperate by means of ICT.

Enterprise interoperability is considered “valid” if

inter-business interactions are enabled at three main

enterprise IT levels: data, application and business

process (IDEAS, 2003). Figure 1 illustrates these

levels, and how ontologies, being formal computer-

based of concepts and vocabulary of the business

context under discussion, are instrumental in these

interactions as they provide the necessary shared

semantic resources (De Leenheer and Meersman,

2007).

Figure 1: IDEAS Interoperability framework (adapted

from IDEAS, 2003)

Data integration is not a novel issue, however an

important share of so-called legacy data is crucial

for competency is still locked in different corners of

the enterprise.

Legacy systems are in many cases mission-critical.

Large investments have been made in those systems,

and it is clear that enterprises are very reluctant

towards simply replacing those systems by newer

equivalents. Especially in the case that the legacy

system is consistent in its information processing,

reliable in its operation, and predictable in its output.

A current trend in information systems is the

adoption of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).

According to the OASIS Committee on SOA, a SOA

is defined as “a paradigm for organizing and

utilizing distributed capabilities that may be under

the control of different ownership domains”

(OASIS, 2006). In SOA, everything is a service, and

services can be consumed by different systems. The

benefit here is that any legacy system can be

subdivided in several specific services, which can

then be encapsulated in modern technologies and

incorporated in a SOA architecture.

As such, a lot of the technical details (e.g.,

technology, format, syntax) are currently being

taken care of. An important aspect here, which has

not received enough attention in our opinion, is the

need for decent information architecture. It is

exactly here that proper semantics can be covered,

and that the last frontier in computing (Meersman,

2002) can be tackled. Semantically unlocking the

data in legacy systems, and deploying it across the

boundaries of the enterprise, is a collaborative effort

and requires a methodological approach.

Brodie and Stonebraker (1995) define a legacy

information system as “any information system that

significantly resists modification and evolution”.

The technical annex of the Enterprise

Interoperability roadmap by the EC (EC, 2006)

simply states, “Previous generation(s) of

technologies, [are] now termed ‘legacy’”. In any

sense, these type of systems are in many cases

mission critical, and their failure can have a serious

impact on business (Bennett, 1995). Next to pure

technical issues such as hardware and interfaces, we

can also add proper understanding of the concepts

contained in and used by these systems (Bisbal et al.,

1999).

Collaborative environments can be described as

systems aimed at improving the experience of

distributed users. Since distance between co-workers

usually equates to less effective teams and

inadequate project outcomes, the use of technology

focussed to bridge this gap is considered to be

essential (Tomek et al., 2003). By providing more

effective communication tools, we enable distributed

co-workers to collaborate, co-ordinate and

communicate effectively on projects while

distributed.

2.1 Issues

The majority of the researchers support the view that

Enterprise Interoperability must come along with

considerable performance penalty (Hauguel and

Viardot, 2001, IDEAS, 2003). Thus almost all of the

proposed models of frameworks used to evaluate the

difficulties in Enterprise Interoperability focussing

on communication, security and performance

excluding the integration of a methodology focussed

to serve the specific cause and integration and

support for legacy systems.

Casola et al. (2007) argue that that although a

service provider is able to guarantee a predefined

service level and a certain security level, the mere

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nature of interoperability and the utilisation of up to

date technologies does not allow for automatic

measurement of such attributes.

De Leenheer and Christiaens (2007) conceive the

interoperability issue as a gap between different the

social (communication between humans) and the

technical (communication between machines) parts

of any knowledge-sharing system. They adopt the

four knowledge conversion modes described by

Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) socialisation (person to

person), externalisation (person to machine),

combination (machine to machine) and

internalisation (machine to person).

2.2 The Need for a Methodology

According to the ISO standard, Enterprise

Methodology (EM) is defined as the act of

developing an enterprise model which is a

representation of what an enterprise intends to

accomplish and how it operates (Curtis, 1988). More

precisely, EM is the representation of the structure,

the behaviour and the organization of the enterprise

according to different points of views (Casola et al.,

2007):

• Functional, Informational, Physical (Business),

Decisional, Processes and,

• Technical, Economical, Social, Human

With two interconnected visions:

• Global System Theory: the global view of the

enterprise which collects objectives, structure,

functions, evolution of the enterprise (dynamic),

links with legacy systems and features of the

environment;

• Local: detailed description according to the

concepts of activities and processes.

The role of the methodology is to represent,

understand and analyze through an enterprise model,

the running of an enterprise in order to improve its

performances (Curtis, 1988). The role of EM in

Interoperability is to define interoperability

requirements and to support a solution

implementation. This contributes to the resolution of

interoperability problems by increasing the shared

understanding of the enterprise structure and

behaviour. Several problems are related to

interoperability and the absence of a concrete

methodology to support it.

• The enterprise systems of the partners are not

exchangeable (e.g., built using two different

languages) or there are compatibility issues due

to legacy support failure.

• The same term used by two systems does not

mean the same thing (lexical ambiguity).

• Models of both enterprises show differences in

practices, which are not aligned (output data of

the first is semantically different to input data of

the second).

• Models of both information technology (IT)

systems shows incompatibility in information

exchange.

Based on the above issues it is almost certain that

the implementation of a concrete methodology will

play a significant role in interoperability, particularly

in terms of analysis to target the problems, which

can appear in an approach of implementation of

Interoperability and how to solve these problems.

Interoperability problems are either related to (i) the

semantics and vocabulary used to annotate the

resources; (ii) the architecture and platform; and (iii)

the model of the enterprise.

The first allows having a common language; the

second allows the interoperability by the technical

aspects (e.g., software, hardware, net) and the third

models the supply chain to allow having

interoperable practices at the interfaces. To solve the

problems related to ontology, we have two options:

either we set up a common and global ontology in

all enterprises of the supply chain but the

implementation and management will be difficult

and tiresome, or we set up a common ontology only

at the boundaries of the enterprises. Therefore, to

bring an answer to some of the enterprise

interoperability problems, we need to develop a

methodology, which has the following

functionalities:

• To manage the evolution of enterprise with the

definition of different steps;

• To manage the performance of the supply chain

in its entirety. The notion of performance is very

important because it allows to bring the activity

and to share the information, to promote the

cooperation between the function in the

enterprises and between the members of the

supply chain, and the will to increase the vision

angle inside the supply chain;

• To model only the information, the flows and the

services which, concern interoperability of the

supply chain. We don't speak about boundaries

of an enterprise toward another enterprise but we

speak about boundaries of the supply chain.

Indeed, two enterprises don't need to be

completely interoperable, but they need to be

interoperable at the interface. For this reason, we

have to define a supply chain boundary to

separate the services which collaborate from the

others;

257

• To take into account the human aspect i.e. the

communication between different people and

the human psychological aspects in the

evolution of their enterprise. Indeed, in the

evolution management, people are often

recalcitrant to change due to the conflicts

involved with their current legacy systems.

2.3 Role of Collaboration in EI

Collaboration is a key factor to success in any

enterprise setting, and even more so when enterprise

borders have to be crossed (e.g., interoperability in

the extended enterprise). According to the FRISCO

report (Falkenberg et al., 1996), a community

constitutes a social system, where action and

discourse is performed within more or less well-

established goals, norms and behaviour. If

collaboration within an (inter-) organisational

community is to be successful, it is clear that proper

communication should be in place, and that the

semantics of the concepts being communicated are

clear and agreed upon. Engineers or architects

tasked with tying systems together need to

understand each other properly in order to get

maximum results out of their collaboration. Given

the wide variety of design abstractions and differing

terminologies, it is clear that communication in this

kind of collaboration can lead to frustrating

misunderstanding and ambiguities.

2.4 Levels of the Environment

The general architecture of the prototype is

organised into the following four layers (Liapis,

2007):

• Configuration level

• Reuse level

• Reflection level

2.4.1 Configuration Level

The main metaphor of the environment is the

concept of customizability. It allows the user to

customise the tools according to the needs of the

project by simply dragging and dropping them into

the categorized tabs as illustrated in figure 3 (Liapis,

2007).

2.4.2 Reuse Level

Generally, the ability to reuse heavily relies on the

ability to build larger systems from smaller ones,

and being able to identify and resolve common

problems and conflicts between current and legacy

systems (Malins et al., 2006). Reusability is often a

required characteristic of collaborative environments

(Liapis, 2007). The concept behind the

implementation of this prototype was to provide

users with appropriate tools in order to help them

reflect on their ideas. The tools were implemented

and arranged in a way that a user is constantly

reminded of the next step, related sources, and about

past and present approaches. The prototype is

designed in a way that allows participants to work

collaboratively, as well as individually,

simultaneously following a loosely coupled group

approach. All the contributions are being monitored

and recorded by appropriate mechanisms providing

meta-information as to the date and time the

contribution took place, and the name(s) of the

contributor(s).

2.5 Front-end of the Prototype

The following section presents the most significant

features of the proposed prototype focussing on their

architecture and contribution on the particular

context.

Figure 3: Customisation of the main interface (adapted

from Liapis, 2007).

2.5.1 Brainstorming

The proposed prototype includes the following two

brainstorming techniques:

• Brainstorming

• Mind-mapping

Brainstorming, is a highly successful method, but

requires significant support to be successfully used

in a virtual setting (Diehl, 1987). There are two

essential stages to any brainstorming process: the

first being to generate as many ideas as possible

(Malins et al., 2006); the second being to categorize

or evaluate the ideas that have been generated

(Liapis, 2007). The other technique is mind-

mapping. Brainstorming through mind-maps may

assist the design process by allowing the structuring

of abstract concepts as well as concrete ones (Buzan,

2005). Both tools are using a series of data mining

algorithms to allow users access to relevant third

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COLLABORATION ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE - An Ontology-based Approach for Enterprise Interoperability

party online resources while brainstorming. In

addition the post it notes tool includes an integrated

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) reader dedicated

to scan the web for the latest technologies,

approaches and events based on user input.

2.5.2 Collaborative Tools

Collaborative environments allow a virtual team or

an organisation to share their work, seeing what

others are doing, commenting and working together.

Current collaborative technology still fails to support

real life collaboration (Malins and Liapis, 2007).

This problem is a direct result of not looking at the

dynamic aspects of work. In collaborative

technology that is able to support real-life interaction

processes we need to pay attention to the fact that

real-life situations are dynamic and involve complex

tasks (Malins et al., 2006). Throughout the design

process, the team needs to be able to communicate

effectively. This is especially the case in an

enterprise level where there is a tendency for a lack

of communication because of the constant

competition and the issues illustrated in the above

sections. We have integrated two synchronous and

one asynchronous collaborative service:

• Voice over internet protocol (VoIP) via

Skype communicator

• Remote access via virtual network computing

(VNC)

• Ontology server (DOGMA)

2.5.2.1 Ontology Management

Supporting an online team requires an advanced

ontology management system, capable of mediating

and sharing the contributions of the team. For a

comprehensive state of the art on theories, methods,

and tools for ontology management, see Hepp et al.

(2008).

Figure 4: DOGMA Studio Workbench - the modelling

tool.

The tool illustrated in figure 4 is the DOGMA

Studio Workbench, which allows users to elicit and

apply different ontological elements. They can

browse and edit their ontologies, keep a record of

different versions and share selected elements with

other partners.

2.5.2.2 Recording Mechanisms

When a team collaborates using a groupware system

its members must be co-ordinated in order to avoid

possible conflicts (Malins et al., 2006). To preserve

the integrity of the project throughout its complete

lifecycle appropriate recording mechanisms should

be integrated into the system (Liapis, 2007).

Recording mechanisms allow participants to

coordinate their work without communicating with

others. This is an important characteristic as it

prevents coordination breakdowns which frequently

occur during collaborative design (Malins et al.,

2006). The prototype consists of four different

recording mechanisms to provide participants with a

verification mechanism with regards to the evolution

and security of the project. In addition participants

can use the outputs as a reference for future work or

to review the process (Liapis, 2007):

1. Video and audio recording mechanism for

synchronous collaborative sessions

2. Automatic logging of users activity when

using the environment

3. Automatic file versioning

4. Collaborative history mechanism in the

modelling tool

The outputs of these files are being saved in the file

repository tool with appropriate Meta information

such as date, time, and participants.

2.6 Back-end of the Prototype

As the backbone of our knowledge management

system, we adopted the DOGMA (Developing

Ontology-Grounded Methods and Applications)

framework for ontology engineering. A DOGMA

inspired ontology is decomposed into a lexon base

and a layer of ontological commitments (Meersman,

1999, 2001). A full formalisation of DOGMA can be

found in De Leenheer et al. (2007), and an overview

is given by Jarrar and Meersman (2007).

2.6.1 Concept Definition Service

Each (context, term)-pair then lexically identi es a

unique concept. The concept is described by a gloss

(short natural language description) and a set of

259

synonyms. Together with the linguistic

representation in the form of the lexons, DOGMA

remains close to natural language, which is

indispensable in communication between

collaborating teams.

2.6.2 Ontological Commitment

Any application-dependent interpretation of a set of

lexons is moved to a separate layer, called the

commitment layer. This layer serves as a mediator

between the plausible fact types (lexons) and their

axomatisation in applications. Each commitment

consists of a selection of appropriate lexons and a

limitation on their use through the application-

specific constraints.

By separating the conceptualisation (lexonbase)

from the axiomatisation (commitment), this

approach provides more common ground for reuse

and agreements. For instance, a business rule stating

that each person has exactly one address may hold

for one partner’s application, but may be too strong

for another.

2.6.3 Versioning

As with all things, information systems are in

constant flux. Especially in a collaborative setting,

where an ontology serves as a mediating instrument,

will we find a high and continuous need for proper

versioning and evolution management. DOGMA

incorporates proper support for these issues through

the use of change operators, change logs and context

dependencies. This includes detailed Meta

information such as the name of the contributor,

time, date, and appropriate commentary on future

changes or possible objections in a project.

3 CONCLUSIONS

In this paper we positioned the features and the

underpinning technology of a collaborative platform

designed to support the effective cooperation of

large-scale enterprises. We outlined the key issues

addressed from the specific platform such as the

integration of appropriate resources that concur to

achieve a cross-enterprise business service and its

ability of adapting its integrated features and

services according to the project needs.

We are planning to address these issues with a

flexible solution based on a methodology that will

help avoid the rigidity that usually occurs during the

implementation and maintenance stages of existing

cooperation platforms. We will perform experiments

with cases from a EU-funded project, where

educational institutes and public employment

organisations from various EU-countries

collaboratively developed a “vocational competency

ontology” enabling them building interoperable

competency models. Part of this work is currently

being published.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research performed in the context of this paper

was partially sponsored by the EU PROLIX project

(FP6-IST-027905), as well as by the Brussels-

Capital Region. We would like to thank the people

involved in the experiment, as well as our colleague

Damien Trog for his assistance during the

experiment and valuable discussions about theory

and case. We would also like to thank Professor

Robert Meersman for his significant contribution

and guidance through the entire process (Liapis et al.

2008, Liapis and Meersman 2008).

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