Authors:
Aurona Gerber
;
Paula Kotzé
and
Alta van der Merwe
Affiliation:
School of Information Technology, North-West University, South Africa
Keyword(s):
Formal ontologies, TOGAF content metamodel, Enterprise architecture, Conceptual model, Metamodel.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Artificial Intelligence
;
Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support Systems
;
Biomedical Engineering
;
Data Engineering
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Health Information Systems
;
Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics
;
Information Engineering Methodologies
;
Information Systems Analysis and Specification
;
Intelligent Control Systems and Optimization
;
Knowledge Engineering
;
Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development
;
Knowledge Management
;
Knowledge-Based Systems
;
Knowledge-Based Systems Applications
;
Modeling Concepts and Information Integration Tools
;
Ontologies and the Semantic Web
;
Ontology Engineering
;
Society, e-Business and e-Government
;
Software Engineering
;
Symbolic Systems
;
Web Information Systems and Technologies
Abstract:
Metamodels are abstractions that are used to specify characteristics of models. Such metamodels are generally included in specifications or framework descriptions. A metamodel is for instance used to inform the generation of enterprise architecture content in the Open Group’s TOGAF 9 Content Metamodel description. However. the description of metamodels is usually done in an ad-hoc manner with customised languages and this often results in ambiguities and inconsistencies. We are concerned with the question of how the quality of metamodel descriptions, specifically within the enterprise architecture domain, could be enhanced. Therefore we investigated whether formal ontology technologies could be used to enhance metamodel construction, specification and design. For this research, we constructed a formal ontology for the TOGAF 9 Content Metamodel, and in the process, gained valuable insight into metamodel quality. In particular, the current TOGAF 9 Content Metamodel contains ambiguities
and inconsistencies, which could be eliminated using ontology
technologies.
In this paper we argue for the integration of formal ontologies and ontology technologies as tools into metamodel construction and specification. Ontologies allow for the construction of complex conceptual models, but more significant, ontologies can assist an architect by depicting all the consequences of a model, allowing for more precise and complete artifacts within enterprise architectures, and because these models use standardized languages, they should promote integration and interoperability.
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