A Domain Model for Transparency in Portuguese Cooperatives

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to present a domain model that represents the informational needs of transparency (governance structure and accountability dimensions) in Portuguese cooperatives. A domain model is an abstract representation of a reality and a milestone in the development of a metadata application profile (MAP). A community of practice publishes linked open MAP-based data for these data to be interoperable; this means intelligent software/agents can aggregate these data, provide different types of visualizations, infer from the data, and ultimately provide new discoveries. This model was developed having as basis the information obtained from the accomplishment of a focus group, and the analysis of financial reports and websites of seven Portuguese cooperatives. The authors will continue to work on the domain model to include 1) other dimensions that also contribute for transparency in the organizations and 2) other types of entities of the social economy (SE). The final aim is to define a model representing the needs of transparency of all types of European SE entities.