Using ontology for the representational analysis of process modelling techniques

International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management

Volumn 4, Issue 4, 2009, Pages 251-265

  Rosemann, Michael ^a   Recker, Jan ^a   Green, Peter F ^b   Indulska, Marta ^b  

^a QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY   (Australia)

^b UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND   (Australia)

Author keywords

BPM; Business process management; Business process modelling; Ontology; Representational analysis

Indexed keywords

EID: 70749104523     PISSN: 17418763     EISSN: 17418771     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1504/IJBPIM.2009.032282     Document Type: Article

References (84)

1. American National Standards Institute (1970) ANSI Standard Flowchart Symbols and Their Use in Information Processing (X3.5), American National Standards Institute, New York.
2. Andrews, T., Curbera, F., Dholakia, H., Goland, Y., Klein, J., Leymann, F., Liu, K., Roller, D., Smith, D., Thatte, S., Trickovic, I. and Weerawarana, S. (2003) Business Process Execution Language for Web Services, Version 1.1, available at http://xml.coverpages.org/BPELv11-May052003Final.pdf, accessed on 10 February 2006.
3. Aristotle (1991) The Metaphysics, Translated by John H. McMahon, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, New York.
4. Arkin, A. (2002) 'Business process modeling language', available at http://www.bpmi.org/, accessed on 16 January 2006.
5. Arkin, A., Askary, S., Fordin, S., Jekeli, W., Kawaguchi, K., Orchard, D., Pogliani, S., Riemer, K., Struble, S., Takacsi-Nagy, P., Trickovic, I. and Zimek, S. (2002) 'Web service choreography interface (WSCI) 1.0', available at http://www.w3.org/TR/wsci/, accessed on 16 January 2006.
6. Bandara, W. and Rosemann, M. (2005) 'What are the secrets of successful process modeling? Insights from an Australian case study', Systèmes d'Information et Management, Vol.10, pp.47-68.
7. BPMI.org and OMG (2006a) 'BPMNModel UML documentation', available at http://www.bpmn.org/Documents/BPMNMetaModel.zip, accessed on 10 March 2006.
8. BPMI.org and OMG (2006b) 'Business process modeling notation specification, final adopted specification', available at http://www.bpmn.org, accessed on 20 February 2006.
9. Bubenko, J.A. (1986) 'Information systems methodologies - a research view', in T.W. Olle, H.G. Sol and A.A. Verrijn-Stuart (Eds.): Information Systems Design Methodologies: Improving the Practice, pp.289-318, North-Holland, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
10. Bunge, M.A. (1977) Treatise on Basic Philosophy Volume3: Ontology I - The Furniture of the World, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
11. Bunge, M.A. (1979) Treatise on Basic Philosophy Volume4: Ontology II-A World of Systems, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
12. Chen, P.P-S. (1976) 'The entity relationship model - toward a unified view of data', ACM Transactions on Database Systems, Vol.1, pp.9-36.
13. Cohen, J. (1960) 'A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales', Education and Psychological Measurement, Vol.20, pp.37-46.
14. Davies, I., Green, P., Rosemann, M., Indulska, M. and Gallo, S. (2006) 'How do practitioners use conceptual modeling in practice?', Data & Knowledge Engineering, Vol.58, pp.358-380.
15. Davies, I., Rosemann, M. and Green, P. (2004) 'Exploring proposed ontological issues of ARIS with different categories of modellers', 15th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, Hobart, Australia.
16. Dumas, M., van der Aalst, W.M.P. and ter Hofstede, A.H.M. (Eds.) (2005) Process Aware Information Systems: Bridging People and Software Through Process Technology, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.
17. Fettke, P. and Loos, P. (2003) 'Ontological evaluation of reference models using the Bunge-Wand-Weber Model', in J.W. Ross (Ed.): 9th Americas Conference on Information Systems, Association for Information Systems, Tampa, Florida, pp.2944-2955.
18. Floyd, C. (1986) 'A comparative evaluation of system development methods', in T.W. Olle, H.G. Sol and A.A. Verrijn-Stuart (Eds.): Information System Design Methodologies: Improving the Practice, pp.19-54, North-Holland, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
19. Fowler, M. (2004) UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modelling Language. 3rd ed., Addison-Wesley Longman, Boston, Massachusetts.
20. Gane, C. and Sarson, T. (1979) Structured Systems Analysis: Tools and Techniques, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, California.
21. Gartner Group (2009) Meeting the Challenge: The 2009 CIO Agenda, Stamford, Connecticut.
22. Gehlert, A. and Esswein, W. (2005) 'Ontological analysis reconsidered - a formal approach', in M-A. Sicilia, S. Sánchez-Alonso, E. García-Barriocanal and J.J. Cuadrado-Gallego (Eds.): Ontology, Conceptualizations and Epistemology for Software and Systems Engineering 2005, Proceedings of the ONTOSE 2005 International Workshop, University of Alcalá, Madrid, Spain.
23. Gemino, A. and Wand, Y. (2003) 'Evaluating modeling techniques based on models of learning', Communications of the ACM, Vol.46, pp.79-84.
24. Gemino, A. and Wand, Y. (2005) 'Complexity and clarity in conceptual modeling: comparison of mandatory and optional properties', Data & Knowledge Engineering, Vol.55, pp.301-326.
25. Green, P. and Rosemann, M. (2000) 'Integrated process modelling: an ontological evaluation', Information Systems, Vol.25, pp.73-87.
26. Green, P. and Rosemann, M. (2001) 'Ontological analysis of integrated process models: testing hypotheses', The Australian Journal of Information Systems, Vol.9, pp.30-38.
27. Green, P. and Rosemann, M. (2002) 'Perceived ontological weaknesses of process modelling techniques: further evidence', in S. Wrycza (Ed.): 10th European Conference on Information Systems, Gdansk, pp.312-321.
28. Green, P. and Rosemann, M. (2004) 'Applying ontologies to business and systems modeling techniques and perspectives: lessons learned', Journal of Database Management, Vol.15, pp.105-117.
29. Green, P. and Rosemann, M. (2005) 'Ontological analysis of business systems analysis techniques: experiences and proposals for an enhanced methodology', in P. Green and M. Rosemann (Eds.): Business Systems Analysis with Ontologies, pp.1-27, Idea Group, Hershey, Pennsylvania.
30. Green, P., Rosemann, M. and Indulska, M. (2005) 'Ontological evaluation of enterprise systems interoperability using ebXML', IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, Vol.17, pp.713-725.
31. Green, P., Rosemann, M., Indulska, M. and Manning, C. (2006) 'Candidate interoperability standards: an ontological overlap analysis', Data & Knowledge Engineering, forthcoming.
32. Gruber, T.R. (1993) 'A translation approach to portable ontology specifications', Knowledge Acquisition, Vol.5, pp.199-220.
33. Guarino, N. and Welty, C. (2002) 'Evaluating ontological decisions with Ontoclean', Communications of the ACM, Vol.45, pp.61-65.
34. Guizzardi, G. (2005) Ontological Foundations for Structural Conceptual Models, Telematica Instituut, Enschede, The Netherlands.
35. Hevner, A.R., March, S.T., Park, J. and Ram, S. (2004) 'Design science in information systems research', MIS Quarterly, Vol.28, pp.75-105.
36. Holsapple, C.W. and Joshi, K.D. (2002) 'A collaborative approach to ontology design', Communications of the ACM, Vol.45, pp.42-47.
37. Kautz, K., Wyssusek, B., Lyytinen, K., Milton, S., Kazmierczak, E., Opdahl, A.L., Krogstie, J., Guarino, N., Guizzardi, G., Wand, Y. and Weber, R. (2006) 'Debate section: 'On ontological foundations of conceptual modelling'', Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, Vol.18, No.1, pp.61-152.
38. Keen, C.D. and Lakos, C. (1994) 'Information systems modelling using LOOPN++, an object Petri net scheme', in H.G. Sol, A. Verbraeck and P.W.G. Bots (Eds.): 4th International Working Conference on Dynamic Modelling and Information Systems, Delft University Press, Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands, pp.31-52.
39. Keen, C.D. and Lakos, C. (1996) 'Analysis of the design constructs required in process modelling', in M. Purvis (Ed.): International Conference on Software Engineering: Education and Practice, IEEE Computer Society, Dunedin, Ireland, pp.434-441.
40. Keen, P.G.W. (1980) 'MIS research: reference disciplines and a cumulative tradition', in E.R. McLean (Ed.): 1st International Conference on Information Systems, ACM Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, pp.9-18.
41. Keller, G., Nüttgens, M. and Scheer, A-W. (1992) 'Semantische Prozessmodellierung auf der Grundlage 'Ereignisgesteuerter Prozessketten (EPK)'', (Working Paper, No. 89), Institut fur Wirtschaftsinformatik, Universität Saarbrücken (in German), Saarbrucken, Germany.
42. Kim, H.M. (2002) 'Predicting how ontologies for the semantic web will evolve', Communications of the ACM, Vol.45, pp.48-54.
43. Krogstie, J., Sindre, G. and Jørgensen, H.D. (2006) 'Process models representing knowledge for action: a revised quality framework', European Journal of Information Systems, Vol.15, pp.91-102.
44. Kuhn, T.S. (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago University Press, Chicago.
45. Lindland, O.I., Sindre, G. and Solvberg, A. (1994) 'Understanding quality in conceptual modeling', IEEE Software, Vol.11, pp.42-49.
46. Masolo, C., Borgo, S., Gangemi, A., Guarino, N. and Oltramari, A. (2003) Ontology Library (final) (WonderWeb Deliverable, No. Del 18), Laboratory For Applied Ontology, Trento, Italy.
47. Mayer, R.J., Menzel, C.P., Painter, M.K., de Witte, P.S., Blinn, T. and Perakath, B. (1995) Information Integration for Concurrent Engineering (IICE) IDEF3 Process Description Capture Method Report (Interim Technical Report, No. AL-TR-1995-XXXX), Logistics Research Division, College Station, Texas.
48. Miers, D., Harmon, P. and Hall, C. (2006) The 2006 BPM Suites Report, available at BPTrends.com.
49. Moody, D.L. (2005) 'Theoretical and practical issues in evaluating the quality of conceptual models: current state and future directions', Data & Knowledge Engineering, Vol.15, pp.243-276.
50. Nelson, H.J., Poels, G., Genero, M. and Piattini, M. (2005) 'Quality in conceptual modeling: five examples of the state of the art', Data & Knowledge Engineering, Vol.55, pp.237-242.
51. OASIS (2001) ebXML Business Process Specification Schema Version 1.01, available at http://www.ebxml.org/specs/ebBPSS.pdf, accessed on 12 March 2005.
52. Opdahl, A.L. and Henderson-Sellers, B. (2001) 'Grounding the OML metamodel in ontology', Journal of Systems and Software, Vol.57, pp.119-143.
53. Opdahl, A.L. and Henderson-Sellers, B. (2002) 'Ontological evaluation of the UML using the Bunge-Wand-Weber model', Software and Systems Modeling, Vol.1, pp.43-67.
54. Petri, C.A. (1962) 'Fundamentals of a theory of asynchronous information flow', in C.M. Popplewell (Ed.): IFIP Congress 62: Information Processing, North-Holland, Munich, Germany, pp.386-390.
55. Recker, J. and Indulska, M. (2007) 'An ontology-based evaluation of process modeling with Petri Nets', Journal of Interoperability in Business Information Systems, Vol.2, pp. 45-64.
56. Recker, J., Indulska, M., Rosemann, M. and Green, P. (2005) 'Do process modelling techniques get better? A comparative ontological analysis of BPMN', in B. Campbell, J. Underwood and D. Bunker (Eds.): 16th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, Australasian Chapter of the Association for Information Systems, Sydney, Australia.
57. Recker, J., Indulska, M., Rosemann, M. and Green, P. (2006a) 'How good is BPMN really? Insights from theory and practice', in J. Ljungberg and M. Andersson (Eds.): 14th European Conference on Information Systems, Goeteborg, Sweden.
58. Recker, J., Rosemann, M., Green, P. and Indulska, M. (2006b) 'Extending the scope of representation theory: a review and a proposed research model', in S. Gregor and D. Hart (Eds.): 3rd Biannual ANU Workshop on Information Systems Foundations, ANU E Press, Canberra, Australia.
59. Recker, J., Rosemann, M., Indulska, M. and Green, P. (2009) 'Business process modeling: a comparative analysis', Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Vol.10, pp.333-363.
60. Rosemann, M. and Green, P. (2000) 'Integrating multi-perspective views into ontological analysis', in W.J. Orlikowski, P. Weill, S. Ang and H.C. Krcmar (Eds.): 21st International Conference on Information Systems, Association for Information Systems, Brisbane, Australia, pp.618-627.
61. Rosemann, M. and Green, P. (2002) 'Developing a meta model for the Bunge-Wand-Weber ontological constructs', Information Systems, Vol.27, pp.75-91.
62. Rosemann, M., Green, P. and Indulska, M. (2004) 'A reference methodology for conducting ontological analyses', in H. Lu, W. Chu, P. Atzeni, S. Zhou and T.W. Ling (Eds.): Conceptual Modeling - ER 2004, pp.110-121, Springer, Shanghai, China.
63. Rosemann, M., Green, P. and Indulska, M. (2005) 'A procedural model for ontological analyses', in D. Hart and S. Gregor (Eds.): Information Systems Foundations: Constructing and Criticising, pp.153-163, ANU E Press, Canberra, Australia.
64. Rosemann, M., Recker, J., Indulska, M. and Green, P. (2006) 'A study of the evolution of the representational capabilities of process modeling grammars', in E. Dubois and K. Pohl (Eds.): Advanced Information Systems Engineering - CAiSE 2006, pp.447-461, Springer, Luxembourg, Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg.
65. Russell, N., ter Hofstede, A.H.M., Edmond, D. and van der Aalst, W.M.P. (2005a) 'Workflow data patterns: identification, representation and tool support', in L.M.L. Delcambre, C. Kop, H.C. Mayr, J. Mylopoulos and O. Pastor (Eds.): Conceptual Modeling - ER 2005, pp.353-368, Springer, Klagenfurt, Austria.
66. Russell, N., van der Aalst, W.M.P., ter Hofstede, A.H.M. and Edmond, D. (2005b) 'Workflow resource patterns: identification, representation and tool support', in Ó. Pastor and J. Falcão e Cunha (Eds.): Advanced Information Systems Engineering - CAiSE 2005, pp.216-232, Springer, Porto, Portugal.
67. Scheer, A-W. (2000) ARIS - Business Process Modeling, 3rd ed., Springer, Berlin, Germany.
68. Shanks, G., Tansley, E. and Weber, R. (2003) 'Using ontology to validate conceptual models', Communications of the ACM, Vol.46, pp.85-89.
69. Soffer, P. and Wand, Y. (2005) 'On the notion of soft-goals in business process modeling', Business Process Management Journal, Vol.11, pp.663-679.
70. Uschold, M. and Grüninger, M. (1996) 'Ontologies: principles, methods and applications', The Knowledge Engineering Review, Vol.11, pp.93-136.
71. van der Aalst, W.M.P. (2003) 'Don't go with the flow: web services composition standards exposed', IEEE Intelligent Systems, Vol.18, pp.72-76.
72. van der Aalst, W.M.P., ter Hofstede, A.H.M., Kiepuszewski, B. and Barros, A.P. (2003) Workflow Patterns, Distributed and Parallel Databases, Vol.14, pp.5-51.
73. Wand, Y. and Weber, R. (1988) 'An ontological analysis of some fundamental information systems concepts', in J.I. De Gross and M.H. Olson (Eds.): 9th International Conference on Information Systems, Association for Information Systems, Minneapolis, Minnesota, pp.213-226.
74. Wand, Y. and Weber, R. (1989) 'An ontological evaluation of systems analysis and design methods', in E.D. Falkenberg and P. Lindgreen (Eds.): Information System Concepts: An In-depth Analysis, pp.79-107, Proceedings of the IFIP TC 8/WG 8.1 Working Conference on Information System Concepts, North Holland, Amsterdam.
75. Wand, Y. and Weber, R. (1990a) 'Mario Bunge's ontology as a formal foundation for information systems concepts', in P. Weingartner and G.J.W. Dorn (Eds.): Studies on Mario Bunge's Treatise, pp.123-149, Rodopi, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
76. Wand, Y. and Weber, R. (1990b) 'An ontological model of an information system', IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Vol.16, pp.1282-1292.
77. Wand, Y. and Weber, R. (1993) 'On the ontological expressiveness of information systems analysis and design grammars', Journal of Information Systems, Vol.3, pp.217-237.
78. Wand, Y. and Weber, R. (1995) 'On the deep structure of information systems', Information Systems Journal, Vol.5, pp.203-223.
79. Wand, Y. and Weber, R. (2006) 'On ontological foundations of conceptual modeling: a response to Wyssusek', Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, Vol.18, pp.127-138.
80. Weber, R. (1997) Ontological Foundations of Information Systems, Coopers & Lybrand and the Accounting Association of Australia and New Zealand, Melbourne, Australia.
81. Weber, R. and Zhang, Y. (1996) 'An analytical evaluation of NIAM's grammar for conceptual schema diagrams', Information Systems Journal, Vol.6, pp.147-170.
82. Wohed, P., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Dumas, M. and ter Hofstede, A.H.M. (2003) 'Analysis of web services composition languages: the case of BPEL4WS', in I-Y. Song, S.W. Liddle, T.W. Ling and P. Scheuermann (Eds.): Conceptual Modeling - ER 2003, pp.200-215, Springer, Chicago, Illinois.
83. Wohed, P., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Dumas, M., ter Hofstede, A.H.M. and Russell, N. (2005) 'Pattern-based analysis of the control-flow perspective of UML activity diagrams', in L.M.L. Delcambre, C. Kop, H.C. Mayr, J. Mylopoulos and Ó. Pastor (Eds.): Conceptual Modeling - ER 2005, pp.63-78, Springer, Klagenfurt, Austria.
84. Wohed, P., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Dumas, M., ter Hofstede, A.H.M. and Russell, N. (2006) 'On the suitability of BPMN for business process modelling', in S. Dustdar, J.L. Fiadeiro and A. Sheth (Eds.): Business Process Management - BPM 2006, pp.161-176, Springer, Vienna, Austria.