INTEROP

Enterprise Modelling

INTEROP-NoE

The INTEROP-NoE (Interoperability Research for Networked Enterprises Applications and Software - Network of Excellence) project (IST-2003-508011) lasted from 2003-11-01 to 2007-04-30 .

With the project emphasis on network building, dissemination of project results has been an activity of major importance. The following list provides an overview of the different activities that have been carried out:amonmg it the I-ESA International INTEROP Conferences, held in Geneva 2005, Bordeaux 2006 and Funchal 2007 with a total of 800 participating researchers from academia and industry.

62 sessions and scientific workshops
70 papers in international journals
8 special issues of international journals
20 books or proceedings
309 communications in international recog-nised conferences
63 national articles on dissemination

We estimate that during the project, the results of the project activities have reached 2500 researchers worldwide Besides the efforts on network building, INTEDROP has created early pilot products from its research activities as well:

Knowledge map (KMap) a knowledge base providing information on organizations, projects and results of the enterprise interoperability community. KMap is employing a query interface to capture recent research results in the area of Enterprise Modelling, Collaborative platforms, Semantic Web, Text Mining, and Ontology Enrichment.
Taxonomy Validator (TAV), a tool to browse, update and validate a taxonomy with functions to create, delete and search concepts; and add conceptual relations
Potential products might be derived from a) The INTEROP Glossary, b) the Interoperability Explicit Knowledge Repository) (IEKR), a virtual library of publications about interoperability, c) Tutorials and Web courses for education about selected interoperability topics.

INTEROP-VLab, a European research organisation, located in Brussels has been established as follow-on organisation. The Vlab will co-ordinate, develop and promote the research on Enterprise Interoperability through a number of newly established regional partner organisations (so far poles in France, Germany, UK and China established, four more in preparation).The German pole, DIF (Deutsches Forum fuer Interoperabilitaet) is located in Berlin. The CIMOSA Association is partner in the DIF.

INTEROP Project organisation

INTEROP-NoE , with its focus on the interoperability and synergy between the domains of Enterprise Modelling, Ontology and Architecture & Platform, can be described
in three clusters of project work packages, complemented by task forces:

1.) Integrating activities (WP1 to WP4): Selection and installation of a collaboration platform (www.interop-noe.org); Design of a Knowledge Map with a query function for interoperability
research, a classification framework (taxonomy) and a prototype for data collection (Protégé); Definition of a model for the definition of the INTEROP Virtual Laboratory to persist after the
termination of the project.

2.) Joint research activities (WP5 to WP9): Analysis of how to classify, organise and map existing enterprise modelling languages, taking into account semantic requirements; Definition of a
framework and a methodology for the management and the synchronisation of distributed enterprise models; Collection of interoperability good practices and solutions as well as a
proposition of design principles and patterns for interoperability; Production of state of the art documents on “Ontology-based integration of enterprise modelling and architectures &
platforms” and on “Model driven and dynamic, federated enterprise architectures and interoperability”.

3.) Dissemination and spreading of excellence activities (WP10 to WP12): Initial elaboration of a glossary of interoperability terms; Definition of a list of Web courses and tutorials to be
developed; Initial rules for the creation of an Interoperability Master Program; Co-ordinated organisation of and participation in a large number of events like international conferences and
workshops, the most significant of them being the International Conferences on Interoperability for Enterprise Applications and Software (I-ESA), held at Geneva (2005), Bordeaux (2006), Funchal (2007) and Berlin (2008). Most of the results are available as public deliverables

What is INTEROP
The Joint Programme of Activities of INTEROP-NoE and ATHENA-IP in the 6FP aims to:

integrate and generate knowledge in Ontology, Enterprise Modelling, and Architectures to give sustainable sense to interoperability,
structure the European research community and influence organisations’ programmes to achieve critical research mass,
animate the community and spread industrially significant research knowledge outside the network.

Why is Interoperability so important
Research in the interoperability domain in Europe remains badly structured, fragmented, sometimes overlapping. There is no global vision of the consistency and no co-ordination between various European research centres, university laboratories, or other bodies.

What needs to be done
The roadmap for Interoperability research emphasises the need for integrating three key thematic components:

Ontology to identify interoperability semantics in the enterprise,
Enterprise Modelling to define interoperability requirements and to support solution implementation,
Architectures and Enabling technologies to provide implementation solutions,

Work Plan
INTEROP intends to extract value from the sustainable integration of these thematic components and to develop industrially significant new knowledge. Network’s role will be to create the conditions of a technological breakthrough to avoid that enterprise investment be simply pulled by the incremental evolution of ICT offer. The project work plan involves several workpackages for joint research, integration and dissemination and training activities.

INTEROP partners
51 European partners from universities, research organisations and industrial enterprises with the University Bordeaux 1, France as the project co-ordinator. A core team of 18 partners consisting of University Bordeaux 1, ADELIOR/GFI and University Henri Poincaré Nancy (CRAN and LORIA), France; University Namur, Belgium; Fraunhofer-IPK, CIMOSA Association and University of Oldenburg, Germany; University Roma, CNR-IASI, TXT and University Torino, Italy; SINTEF, Norway; UNINOVA, Portugal; Polytecnic University Valencia and AIDIMA, Spain, University of Geneva, Switzerland, CIMMEDIA, UK have taken the lead in the project activities. CIMOSA Association together with CRAN/University Nancy was responsible for dissemination and communication.

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