Business semantics management
Encyclopedia
Business Semantics Management
(BSM) encompasses the technology, methodology, organization, and culture that brings business stakeholders together to collaboratively realize the reconciliation of their heterogeneous metadata; and consequently the application of the derived business semantics patterns to establish semantic alignment between the underlying data structures.
Accordingly, BSM is established by two complementary cycles each grouping a number of activities. The first cycle is the semantic reconciliation cycle, and the second cycle is the semantic application cycle. The two cycles communicate with each other via the unification process. This double process cycle is iteratively applied until an optimal balance of differences and commonalities between stakeholders are reached that meets the semantic integration
requirements. This approach is based on research on community-based ontology engineering that is validated in European projects, government and industry.
One important aspect of business semantics is that they are shared between many disparate data sources. Many data sources share the same semantics but have different syntax, or format to describe the same concepts.
The way these business semantics are described is less important. Several approaches can be used such as UML
, Object role modeling
, XML
, etc. This corresponds to Robert Meersman’s statement that semantics are “a (set of) mapping(s) from your representation language to agreed concepts (objects, relationships, behavior) in the real-world”.
In the construction of information systems, semantics have always been crucial. In previous approaches, these semantics were left implicit (i.e. In the mind of reader or writer), hidden away in the implementation itself (e.g., in a database table or column code) or informally captured in textual documentation. According do Dave McComb, “The scale and scope of our systems and the amount of information we now have to deal with are straining that model.”
Nowadays, information systems need to interact in a more open manner, and it becomes crucial to formally represent and apply the semantics these systems are concerned with.
The available business semantics can be leveraged in the so-called business/social layer of the organization. They can for example be easily coupled to a content management application to provide the business with a consistent business vocabulary or enable better navigation or classifi cation of information, leveraged by enterprise search engines, leveraged to make richer semantic-web-ready websites, etc.
Business semantics can also be used to increase operational efficiency in the technical/operation layer of the organization. Business semantics
provide a kind of abstracted, federated, and virtualized way to access and deliver data in a more efficient and aligned manner. In that respect, it is similar to EII
with the added benefit that the shared models are not described in technical terms but in a way that is easily understood by the business.
Collibra is the first organization to commercialize the idea behind business semantics management. Collibra's approach to Business Semantics Management is based on DOGMA
, a research project at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
(BSM) encompasses the technology, methodology, organization, and culture that brings business stakeholders together to collaboratively realize the reconciliation of their heterogeneous metadata; and consequently the application of the derived business semantics patterns to establish semantic alignment between the underlying data structures.
Accordingly, BSM is established by two complementary cycles each grouping a number of activities. The first cycle is the semantic reconciliation cycle, and the second cycle is the semantic application cycle. The two cycles communicate with each other via the unification process. This double process cycle is iteratively applied until an optimal balance of differences and commonalities between stakeholders are reached that meets the semantic integration
Semantic integration
Semantic integration is the process of interrelating information from diverse sources, for example calendars and to do lists; email archives; physical, psychological, and social presence information; documents of all sorts; contacts ; search results; and advertising and marketing relevance derived...
requirements. This approach is based on research on community-based ontology engineering that is validated in European projects, government and industry.
Semantic Reconciliation
Semantic reconciliation is a process cycle constituted of four subsequent activities: scope, create, refine, and articulate. First, the community is scoped: user roles and affordances are appointed. Next, relevant facts are collected from documentation such as, e.g., natural language descriptions, (legacy) logical schemas, or other metadata and consequently decomposing this scope in elicitation contexts. The deliverable of scoping is an initial upper common ontology that organizes the key upper common patterns that are shared and accepted by the community. These upper common patterns define the current semantic interoperability requirements of the community. Once the community is scoped, all stakeholders syntactically refine and semantically articulate these upper common patterns.Pragmatic Perspective Unification
During unification, a new proposal for the next version of the upper common ontology is produced, aligning relevant parts from the common and divergent stakeholder perspectives. Ultimately, if the semantic reconciliation results in a number of reusable language-neutral and context-independent patterns for constructing business semantics that are articulated with informal meaning descriptions, then the unification is worthwhileSemantic Application
Semantic application is a process cycle constituted of two subsequent activities: select and commit where the scoped information systems are committed to selected consolidated business semantic patterns. This is done by first selecting relevant patterns from the pattern base. Next, the interpretation of this selection is semantically constrained. Finally, the various scoped sources and services are mapped on (read: committed to) this selection. The selection and axiomatization of this selection should approximate the intended business semantics. This can be verified by automatically verbalization into natural language, and validation of the unlocked data. Validation or deprecation of the commitments may result in another iteration of the semantic reconciliation cycle.Business semantics
Business semantics are the information concepts that live in the organization, understandable for both business and IT. Business Semantics describe the business concepts as they are used and needed by the business instead of describing the information from a technical point-of-view.One important aspect of business semantics is that they are shared between many disparate data sources. Many data sources share the same semantics but have different syntax, or format to describe the same concepts.
The way these business semantics are described is less important. Several approaches can be used such as UML
Unified Modeling Language
Unified Modeling Language is a standardized general-purpose modeling language in the field of object-oriented software engineering. The standard is managed, and was created, by the Object Management Group...
, Object role modeling
Object role modeling
Object Role Modeling is a method for conceptual modeling, and can be used as a tool for information and rules analysis, ontological analysis, and data modeling in the field of software engineering.- Overview :...
, XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
, etc. This corresponds to Robert Meersman’s statement that semantics are “a (set of) mapping(s) from your representation language to agreed concepts (objects, relationships, behavior) in the real-world”.
In the construction of information systems, semantics have always been crucial. In previous approaches, these semantics were left implicit (i.e. In the mind of reader or writer), hidden away in the implementation itself (e.g., in a database table or column code) or informally captured in textual documentation. According do Dave McComb, “The scale and scope of our systems and the amount of information we now have to deal with are straining that model.”
Nowadays, information systems need to interact in a more open manner, and it becomes crucial to formally represent and apply the semantics these systems are concerned with.
Application
Business semantics management empowers all stakeholders in the organization by a consistent and aligned definition of the important information assets of the organization.The available business semantics can be leveraged in the so-called business/social layer of the organization. They can for example be easily coupled to a content management application to provide the business with a consistent business vocabulary or enable better navigation or classifi cation of information, leveraged by enterprise search engines, leveraged to make richer semantic-web-ready websites, etc.
Business semantics can also be used to increase operational efficiency in the technical/operation layer of the organization. Business semantics
provide a kind of abstracted, federated, and virtualized way to access and deliver data in a more efficient and aligned manner. In that respect, it is similar to EII
Enterprise Information Integration
Enterprise Information Integration , is a process of information integration, using data abstraction to provide a unified interface for viewing all the data within an organization, and a single set of structures and naming conventions to represent this data; the goal of EII is to get a large set of...
with the added benefit that the shared models are not described in technical terms but in a way that is easily understood by the business.
Collibra is the first organization to commercialize the idea behind business semantics management. Collibra's approach to Business Semantics Management is based on DOGMA
DOGMA
DOGMA, short for Developing Ontology-Grounded Methods and Applications, is the name of research project in progress at Vrije Universiteit Brussel's STARLab, Semantics Technology and Applications Research Laboratory...
, a research project at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
See also
- Business Process ManagementBusiness process managementBusiness process management is a holistic management approach focused on aligning all aspects of an organization with the wants and needs of clients. It promotes business effectiveness and efficiency while striving for innovation, flexibility, and integration with technology. BPM attempts to...
- Conceptual schemaConceptual schemaA conceptual schema or conceptual data model is a map of concepts and their relationships. This describes the semantics of an organization and represents a series of assertions about its nature...
- Data integrationData integrationData integration involves combining data residing in different sources and providing users with a unified view of these data.This process becomes significant in a variety of situations, which include both commercial and scientific domains...
- Enterprise Information IntegrationEnterprise Information IntegrationEnterprise Information Integration , is a process of information integration, using data abstraction to provide a unified interface for viewing all the data within an organization, and a single set of structures and naming conventions to represent this data; the goal of EII is to get a large set of...
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- Ontology double articulationOntology double articulationThe notion of Ontology Double Articulation refers to a methodological principle in ontology engineering.The idea is that an ontology should be built as separate domain axiomatizations and application axiomatization. In other words an application axiomatization should be built in terms of a domain...
- Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business RulesSemantics of Business Vocabulary and Business RulesThe Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules is an adopted standard of the Object Management Group intended to be the basis for formal and detailed natural language declarative description of a complex entity, such as a business...