The system building process should start with a model of the relevant part of the real world, but most O-O systems work is concerned with the later stages, taking O-O languages as a given and looking at how to use them to build the system. This article discusses the origin of the object paradigm, and demonstrates the value of beginning with real-world modeling using an O-O approach.

The central theme of this practical book is that we can build much better computer systems if we re-engineer their business information systems. The book provides the reader with the tools, techniques and understanding of object orientation techniques/re-engineering to enable him or her to improve or build business computing/information systems. As well as showing how, this book also shows that information re-engineering can deliver much better systems by helping the reader to understand why and how the benefits are gained. It shows how to actually go about using what has been learned in the book to re-engineer a system. This may be a commercial project taking months or a personal one done over a couple of weekends. It looks at the problems and offers solutions in an easy practical way. This book should be of interest to system designers, analysts and programmers, information systems managers, database designers and IT development managers.

This paper presents a report on work in progress of a Synthesis of (selected) State of the Art Enterprise Ontologies (SSAEO) – which aims to produce a Base Enterprise Ontology to be used as the foundation for the construction of a Core Enterprise Ontology (CEO). The synthesis is intended to harvest the insights from the selected ontologies, building upon their strengths and eliminating – as far as possible – their weaknesses. One of the main achievements of this work is the development of the notion of a person (entities that can acquire rights and obligations) enabling the integration of a number of lower level concepts. In addition, we have already been able to identify some of the common ‘mistakes’ in current enterprise ontologies – and propose solutions.

This paper presents a report on work in progress of a Synthesis of (selected) State of the Art Enterprise Ontologies (SSAEO) – which aims to produce a Base Enterprise Ontology to be used as the foundation for the construction of a Core Enterprise Ontology (CEO). The synthesis is intended to harvest the insights from the selected ontologies, building upon their strengths and eliminating – as far as possible – their weaknesses. One of the main achievements of this work is the development of the notion of a person (entities that can acquire rights and obligations) enabling the integration of a number of lower level concepts. In addition, we have already been able to identify some of the common ‘mistakes’ in current enterprise ontologies – and propose solutions.

More and more enterprises are currently undertaking projects to integrate their applications. They are finding that one of the more difficult tasks facing them is determining how the data from one application matches semantically with the data from the other applications. Currently there are few methodologies for undertaking this task – most commercial projects just rely on experience and intuition. Taking semantically heterogeneous databases as the prototypical situation, this paper describes how ontology (in the traditional metaphysical sense) can contribute to delivering a more efficient and effective process of matching by providing a framework for the analysis, and so the basis for a methodology. It delivers not only a better process for matching, but the process also gives a better result. This paper describes a couple of examples of this: how the analysis encourages a kind of generalisation that reduces complexity and how ontological relativity can be used to enhance this. Finally, it suggests that the benefits are not just restricted to individual integration projects: that the process produces models which can be used as to construct a universal reference ontology – for general use in a variety of types of projects.

The aim of the tutorial is to provide a practical introduction for researchers and practitioners to the BORO methodology, an ontology-based systems re-engineering and modernisation approach. At the core of the methodology is the BORO Foundation. The tutorial will firstly introduce the foundation and then the methodology. It will start with a series of worked examples that explain the philosophical principles underlying the foundation. These will then be developed in further business based worked examples to illustrate how the methodology works and how the philosophical principles drive the methodology and analysis. The examples will showcase how the use of BORO promotes flexibility and reuse of the re-engineered models.

This paper is a case study that describes how the Business Object Reference Ontology (BORO) approach works in practice. It describes in detail a selected part of the work using the approach that has been going on in the EPISTLE community for several years. This will help people better understand not just the benefits of using the approach, but also what it is and how it is applied. It will also illustrate the kinds of results it gives - by providing specific examples of the kind of very general patterns this type of analysis typically produces.

Major metaphysical meta-ontological choices, whether made consciously nor not, influence the overall shape of an ontological architecture. This brief note argues that the development of upper ontologies should include a characterisation of their architecture in terms of these choices and their impact. How this might work is illustrated here with examples of two major choices, these are: Perdurantism versus Endurantism and Presentism versus Eternalism.

This paper describes the precisification of the notion of customer developed within the Core Enterprise Ontology (CEO) Project. The paper first benchmarks the current state of the art. It reviews the three main ways in which current applications attempt to specify the type of customer – highlighting their attractions and inadequacies and ranking them in terms of precision. It then outlines a more precise interpretation of customer, indicating why and where this improvement is needed. The interpretation is based upon the mereology of organisations developed within the CEO Project and an analysis by Margaret Gilbert of the nature of agreements.

More and more enterprises are currently undertaking projects to integrate their applications. They are finding that one of the more difficult tasks facing them is determining how the data from one application matches semantically with the other applications. Currently there are few methodologies for undertaking this task – most commercial projects just rely on experience and intuition. Taking semantically heterogeneous databases as the prototypical situation, this paper describes how ontology (in the traditional metaphysical sense) can contribute to delivering a more efficient and effective process of matching by providing a framework for the analysis, and so the basis for a methodology. It delivers not only a better process for matching, but the process also gives a better result. This paper describes a couple of examples of this: how the analysis encourages a kind of generalisation that reduces complexity. Finally, it suggests that the benefits are not just restricted to individual integration projects: that the process produces models which can be used as to construct a universal reference ontology – for general use in a variety of types of projects.

This paper firstly reviews the need for a radical shift in the foundations and framework of accounting’s conceptual scheme. It, secondly, proposes that the foundations of the new scheme should be a reference ontology. It outlines a process – ontological analysis – for building this and illustrates how it will work with some examples.

This is a report of the results of the Synthesised TOVE Persons Ontology (STPO) project. This project’s goal was a synthesis of a Persons Ontology from the TOronto Virtual Enterprise (TOVE) project’s Organisation Ontology. The report is both an introduction to the interim ontology developed by the project and also a summary of its development.

This is, in essence, the project initiation paper for the CEO Project. Its main concern is explaining the project’s aims, how it intends to achieve them and the methodological framework within which the project will work. It explains the origins, conception and motivation for the project and gives an outline of the management framework for the project, in particular the first synthesis stage. It clarifies the terms of the art and describes the nature of ontological analysis. It also characterises the requirements that shape it and the meta-ontological choices and analytic styles that underlie it. Finally, it describes the potential applications and the next steps.

This paper is a report on progress of the CEO project whose goal is to build a state of the art enterprise ontology. The project is currently at the stage of harvesting insights from the best existing enterprise ontologies. The goal of this stage is to synthesise from these a Base Enterprise Ontology. This will then be used as the foundation for the construction of the ‘industrial strength’ Core Enterprise Ontology (CEO). The synthesis is intended to build upon the strengths and eliminating — as far as possible — the weaknesses from the selected ontologies. Among other things, this paper describes one of the main achievements of this work to date: the development of the notion of a person (entities that can acquire rights and obligations) enabling the integration of a number of lower level concepts. In addition, it identifies some of the common ‘mistakes’ in current enterprise ontologies — and proposes solutions.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the nature of the need for a new accounting conceptual scheme and provide the framework for taking a managed approach to this change. This paper firstly reviews the nature of the need for a radical shift in the foundations and framework of accounting’s conceptual scheme. It touches upon how the existing uses of ontological analysis within accounting information systems research do not address this need. It then outlines how a more philosophical approach to ontological analysis provides a process for starting the shift in the foundation. And illustrates how the process will work with some examples.