Sven Abels

Towards a reference ontology for business models

Ontologies are viewed as increasingly important tools for structuring domains of interests. In this paper we propose a reference ontology of business models using concepts from three established business model ontologies; the REA, BMO, and e3-value. The basic concepts in the reference ontology concern actors, resources, and the transfer of resources between actors. Most of the concepts in the reference ontology are taken from one of the original ontologies, but we have also introduced a number of additional concepts, primarily related to resource transfers between business actors. The purpose of the proposed ontology is to increase the understanding of the original ontologies as well as the relationships between them, and also to seek opportunities to complement and improve on them.

Identification of common methods used for ontology integration tasks

Ontology integration approaches handle multiple different ontologies by identifying mappings between heterogeneous ontologies or by merging them into a single ontology. In this paper, existing ontology integration approaches are analyzed in order to identify the methods they are based on. The result of this paper is a survey of methods, which are used in ontology integration approaches, based on existing literature studies. We intent to use this information to (i) identify suitable tools for specific use cases and to (ii) ease the development of future tools easier since suitable methods are described.

PROMONT – a project management ontology as a reference for virtual project organizations

This paper introduces “PROMONT”, a project management ontology PROMONT models project management specifications from a number of sources, most notably the upcoming DIN 69901 model for the exchange of project data As a reference ontology it helps to build a common understanding of project related terms and methods thus facilitating the management of projects conducted in dynamic virtual environments It is especially well suited for cross-enterprise project related business processes such as integration management, communication and controlling A distributed project scenario is used to illustrate how a project plan is broken down for individual partners, and how activities are coordinated in a heterogeneous group.

Change management issues in Federated ERP systems: an approach for identifying requirements and possible solutions

In this paper, the domain of Federated Enterprise Resource Planning (FERP) systems is described. FERP systems consist of several service-oriented systems that implement the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) functionality in a distributed manner. Within this context, this paper focuses on challenges and requirements that arise when updating systems and changing their orchestration. This paper describes similarities to change management issues of conventional ERP systems and it describes emerging issues that appear when dealing with a distributed ERP system. Moreover, this paper introduces possible solutions in order to ease the process of changes.

Empirical Study on Usage of Electronic Product Classification Systems in E-Commerce Organizations in Germany

This article presents the results of an empirical study recently performed in e-commerce organizations. The purpose of this empirical study was to figure out the usage of electronic product catalogs and especially their systems used for product classification, such as UNSPSC or eCl@ss. The study was performed in August and September of 2004 with the help of a survey that was sent out to a selection of those product suppliers and manufacturers where product catalogs are crucial for business. This article first presents the necessary fundamentals needed for understanding the results of the survey. Then, it presents the results and identifies problematic areas that should be improved. In addition, it gives some advice for e-commerce organizations, standardization committees, and further research activities to foster the usage of modern classification systems in electronic product catalogs.

Automatic Classification and Re-Classification of Product Data in e-Business

This paper gives an introduction into the field of automating product classification and re-classification processes. It therefore starts with an introduction of electronic product catalogs used in e-Business domains and classification systems embedded in those catalogs. Afterwards this paper takes a closer look to the potential of an automated classification of product data and it discusses the importance of reusing existing information when re-classifying catalog data. Moreover, this paper introduces possible technologies and approaches that could be adapted to this e-Business domain to perform an automation and to improve existing software solutions.

Semantic interoperability among models 1st workshop on semantic model integration (SMI05)

The first workshop on Semantic Model Integration (SMI05) took place in Kaiserslautern on the 13th of April 2005. It was held in conjunction with the 3rd Conference Professional Knowledge Management and sponsored by the INTEROP NoE. The workshop was organized by the University of Oldenburg in the Department of Business Information Systems. The following text will give a short summary about the topics of this workshop and about the organization.