Erik Proper

Towards a language for coherent enterprise architecture descriptions

A coherent description of architectures provides insight, enables communication among different stakeholders and guides complicated (business and ICT) change processes. Unfortunately, so far no architecture description language exists that fully enables integrated enterprise modeling. In this paper we focus on the requirements and design of such a language. This language defines generic, organization-independent concepts that can be specialized or composed to obtain more specific concepts to be used within a particular organisation. It is not our intention to re-invent the wheel for each architectural domain: wherever possible we conform to existing languages or standards such as UML. We complement them with missing concepts, focusing on concepts to model the relationships among architectural domains. The concepts should also make it possible to define links between models in other languages. The relationship between architecture descriptions at the business layer and at the application layer (business-IT alignment) plays a central role.

Information Systems Evolution

This book constitutes the post-conference proceedings of the CAiSE Forum from the 22nd International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE 2010), held in Hammamet, Tunisia, June 9, 2010. While the CAiSE conference itself focuses on papers that report on matured research, the CAiSE forum was created specifically as a platform to present fresh ideas, new concepts, and new and innovative systems, tools, and applications. The 22 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 32 submissions. The reworked and extended versions of the original presentations cover topics such as business process management, enterprise architecture and modeling, service-oriented architectures, and requirements engineering.

Towards a theory on collaborative decision making in enterprise architecture

Several challenges in enterprise architecture development indicate the need for collaborative decision making to be deployed during architecture creation However, how this should be achieved remains ad hoc This paper, therefore, presents an evolving theory that is currently being used to guide the development of a method for supporting collaborative decision making during enterprise architecture creation The first iteration to evaluate the relevance of the concepts in this theory was done using an exploratory survey, and the findings are briefly presented.

The Roles of Principles in Enterprise Architecture

Key concepts in enterprise architecture include concerns, principles, models, views and frameworks. While most of these concepts have received ample attention in research, the concept of principles has not been studied much yet. In this paper, we therefore specifically focus on the role of principles in the field of enterprise architecture, where we position enterprise architecture as a means to direct enterprise transformations.

Integrating Architectural Models: Symbolic, Semantic and Subjective Models in Enterprise Architecture

The diversity of architectural models in enterprise architecture poses a problem to their integration. Without such integration the effectiveness of these models in the process of architecting enterprises diminishes. In this paper we make a distinction between three classes of models. We will illustrate how the distinctions can be used for model integration within the architectural approach. Symbolic models express properties of architec-tures of systems, semantic models interpret the symbols used in symbolic models, and subjective models are purposely abstracted conceptions of a domain. Building on results obtained in the ArchiMate project, we il-lustrate how symbolic models can be integrated using an architectural language, how integrated models can be updated using the distinction between symbolic models and their visualization, and how semantic models can be integrated using a new kind of enterprise analysis called semantic analysis.

Trends in Enterprise Architecture Research and Practice-Driven Research on Enterprise Transformation : 7th Workshop, TEAR 2012, and 5th Working Conference, PRET 2012, Held at The Open Group Conference 2012, Barcelona, Spain, October 23-24, 2012. Proceedings

Trends in Enterprise Architecture Research and Practice-Driven Research on Enterprise Transformation : 7th Workshop, TEAR 2012, and 5th Working Conference, PRET 2012, Held at The Open Group Conference 2012, Barcelona, Spain, October 23-24, 2012. Proceedings

Assessing Collaborative Modeling Quality Based on Modeling Artifacts

Collaborative modeling uses and produces modeling artifacts whose quality can help us gauge the effectiveness and efficiency of the modeling process. Such artifacts include the modeling language, the modeling procedure, the products and the support tool or medium. To effectively assess the quality of any collaborative modeling process, the (inter-) dependencies of these artifacts and their effect on modeling process quality need to be analyzed. Although a number of research studies have assessed and measured the quality of collaborative processes, no formal (causal) model has been developed to assess the quality of the collaborative modeling process through a combination of modeling artifacts. This paper develops a Collaborative Modeling Process Quality (CMPQ) construct for assessing the quality of collaborative modeling. A modeling session involving 107 students was used to validate and measure the quality constructs in the model.

Playing ArchiMate Models

This paper concerns the application of a gaming approach to the validation of ArchiMate models, with the aim of enhancing validation, by non-architects, beyond mere reading of the model. The game offers a guided process for systematic exploration of ArchiMate models, and for systematically raising questions about them. The development process and the design principles behind the game are discussed, as well as the information transformation involved in creating a model-specific game from an ArchiMate model. The game has been evaluated through application in a small real life case. We discuss the influence of our approach to model understanding by the players, and the conceptual merits and flaws of the game.

Innovations in Information Systems Modeling: Methods and Best Practices

Modeling is used across a number of tasks in connection to information systems, but it is rare to see and easily compare all the uses of diagrammatical models as knowledge representation in one place, highlighting both commonalities and differences between different kinds of modeling. Innovations in Information Systems Modeling: Methods and Best Practices provides up-to-date coverage of central topics in information systems modeling and architectures by leading researchers in the field. With chapters presented by top researchers from countries around the globe, this book provides a truly international perspective on the latest developments in information systems modeling, methods, and best practices.

An Extended RBAC Model for Task Delegation in Workflow Systems

In role-based access control models, delegation of authority involves delegating roles that a user can assume or the set of permissions that he can acquire, to other users. Several role-based delegation models have been proposed in the literature. However, these models consider only delegation in presence of the role type, which have some inherent limitations to task delegation in workflow systems. In this paper, we address task delegation in a workflow and elaborate a security model supporting delegation constraints. Delegation constraints express security requirements with regards to task’s resources, user’s assignment and privileges (delegation of authority). Further, we show how, using a role-based security model, we inject formalised delegation constraints to compute principals and privileges to be specified into delegation policies within an access control framework.