A knowledge-based approach to manage information systems interoperability |
| |
Authors: | Jolita Ralyt Manfred A Jeusfeld Per Backlund Harald Kühn Nicolas Arni-Bloch |
| |
Affiliation: | aCUI, University of Geneva, Rue de Général Dufour 24, CH-1211 Genève 4, Switzerland;bTilburg University, Warandelaan 2, 5037 AB Tilburg, The Netherlands;cUniversity of Skövde, P.O. Box 408, SE 541 28 Skövde, Sweden;dBOC Information Systems GmbH, Wipplingerstr. 1, A-1010 Vienna, Austria |
| |
Abstract: | Interoperability is a key property of enterprise applications, which is hard to achieve due to the large number of interoperating components and semantic heterogeneity. The inherent complexity of interoperability problems implies that there exists no silver bullet to solve them. Rather, the knowledge about how to solve wicked interoperability problems is hidden in the application cases that expose those problems. The paper addresses the question of how to organise and use method knowledge to resolve interoperability problems. We propose the structure of a knowledge-based system that can deliver situation-specific solutions, called method chunks. Situational Method Engineering promotes modularisation and formalisation of method knowledge in the form of reusable method chunks, which can be combined to compose a situation-specific method. The method chunks are stored in a method chunk repository. In order to cater for management and retrieval, we introduce an Interoperability Classification Framework, which is used to classify and tag method chunks and to assess the project situation in which they are to be used. The classification framework incorporates technical as well as business and organisational aspects of interoperability. This is an important feature as interoperability problems typically are multifaceted spanning multiple aspects. We have applied the approach to analyse an industry case from the insurance sector to identify and classify a set of method chunks. |
| |
Keywords: | Interoperability Situational Method Engineering Method chunk Knowledge base Interoperability Classification Framework Method repository |
本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录! |
|