Automating REA Policy Level Specifications with Semantic Web Technologies

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Enterprise modelers require tools and techniques that consistently represent and logically apply domain knowledge. Current modeling approaches rely on entity relationship or unified modeling diagrams to represent semantic descriptions of business exchanges. However, it remains difficult to transform the implicit metadata, ontologies, and logic embedded in diagrams into a coherent form that can be interpreted by machines and delivered across the web. This study explores the uniting of machine processing capabilities of semantic web technologies with resource event agent (REA) enterprise ontologies to model complex multienterprise partnerships. Web Ontology Language (OWL) and Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) were used to model REA policies for a distributed e-commerce partnership selling nearly new vehicles. We combine a specialized REA application ontology with semantic technologies to direct multienterprise collaborations. We present a prototype that encodes the ontology's concepts within OWL and SWRL and explore these machine-readable representations within the context of a case study.