Semantic Annotation for Process Models: - Department of Computer ...

Chapter 5
Extension Semantic Annotation
— Goal Annotation
In this chapter, we elucidate the annotation of process models and process model fragments
with a goal ontology to specify organizational objectives (i.e. intentions of systems’
owners) achieved by processes. The aim of goal annotation is to pragmatically facilitate
recognizing process knowledge conveyed by heterogeneous process models based
on the enriched intentional semantics of processes [95].
A goal ontology is a set of conceptualized goals and relationships among them.
Based on the investigation of several goal modeling methods applied in requirements
engineering and process modeling, we propose goal ontology design principles and semantic
representations.
Goal annotation is a procedure to organize and define the process knowledge with
goal ontology, i.e. building relationships between process models and pre-defined goal
concepts. Defining those relationships is the major task of goal annotation, which
indicates what relationships are supported in annotation and how annotation can be
implemented. Consequently, the goal annotated models can be queried and reused in
a goal-driven method with the goal ontology.
5.1 Goal-Driven Process Knowledge Discovery
As knowledge, business process models are required and reused for achieving business
objectives or goals. On the other hand, a process model describes the capability and
utility of a process, i.e. how the process achieves certain results. Therefore, goals
can be used to describe what a knowledge user desires when searching and applying
process models, which is known as goal-driven discovery approach. In such a way, the
knowledge user does not need to specify models’ identification such as name or location
of the process models, but only specify his/her business objectives or goals to query the
models. The search engine finds the process models through mapping the goal request
and capability of process models. This approach provides a pragmatic way for users
to discover knowledge because goals are obvious for users to specify their request. The
discovery process is a black box for users who have no idea of the availability (existence
and location) of desired process models. Goal-driven discovery is also transparent for
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