In order to reach an acceptable level of confidence in the quality of a software product, testing of the software is paramount. To obtain "good" quality software it is essential to rely on "good" test cases. To define the criteria for what make up for a "good" test case is not a trivial task. Over the past 15 years, a short list of publications have presented criteria for "good" test cases but without ranking them based on their importance. This paper presents a non-exhaustive and non-authoritative tentative list of 15 criteria and a ranking of their relative importance. A number of the criteria come from previous publications but also from discussions with our industrial partners. The ranking is based on results collected via a questionnaire that was sent out to a limited number of randomly chosen respondents in the Swedish software industry. This means that the results are more indicative than conclusive.

This paper presents a decision-support system for reshoring decision-making based on fuzzy logic. The construction and functionality of the decision-support system are described, and the functionality is evaluated in a high cost environment exemplified through a Swedish context. Ten different reshoring scenarios, provided by Swedish reshoring experts, are entered into the decision-support system and the decision recommendations provided by the system are presented. The confidence that can be put on the recommendations is demonstrated by comparing them with those of the reshoring experts. The positive results obtained indicate that fuzzy logic is both feasible and that the quality of the results are sufficiently good for reshoring decision-making.

Research projects have an inherent risk of failure, and learning howto cope with the risk is an important task for everyone involved. In order to doso it is necessary to share the knowledge of the experiences done during andafter the project. This paper investigates a recently completed enterprisemodeling research project and contributes with lessons learned andrecommendations for future enterprise modeling projects.

A clear understanding of the organizational competences of anenterprise and the underlying individual competences and the competencedevelopment needs has become more and more important for many industrialareas as a foundation for competence supply processes and adjustment tochanging market conditions. Competence modelling, i.e. the use of enterprisemodelling techniques for capturing existing and describing desiredorganisational and individual competences in enterprises, offers importantcontributions to this. In the last years, the authors of the paper have performed anumber of competence modelling cases, which revealed different characteristicsand resulted in lessons learned. This paper presents an examination of differentcharacteristics of competence modelling cases, and recommendations andlessons learned from these cases for the practice of competence modelling.

Information systems (IS) are nowadays extensively used to support all kinds of activities in healthcare organisations. Enterprise modelling can help to make the use of IS in healthcare more effective by providing process and domain models reflecting a particular healthcare unit. This paper proposes a model of the ward round process in a healthcare unit. The proposed model identifies the roles of medical professionals, tasks that can be performed according to the personnel’s competences, and activities that are carried out as part of the tasks to achieve goals of the ward round process. A formal approach has been used to implement the modelling results in the form of an ontology. Such formal ontologies can support improvement and development of IS in healthcare. We learned that modelling workshops are important for development of models that can be formalized in a machine-readable form.

Due to the increasing implementation of agile and networked manufacturing, supply chain has entered a new phase, virtual supply chain. The phase is characterized by the integration of activities, operations, and functions carried out at different and geographically distributed supply chain stages. The paper proposes an approach to the configuration of a network of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) being integrated into a supply chain. The SME supply chain configuration is based on a shared domain ontology for supply chain management, offering the configuration task as a function of supply chain management. Principles of the development of the shared ontology and possible ways of matching between enterprise and domain ontologies are considered.

Semantic web technologies show great promise in usage scenarios that involve information logistics. This paper is an experience report on improving the semantic web ontology underlying an application used in expert finding. We use ontology design patterns to find and correct poor design choices, and align the application ontology to commonly used semantic web ontologies in order to increase the interoperability of the ontology and application. Lessons learned and problems faced are discussed, and possible future developments of the project mapped out.

Today, many enterprises use information systems to support their activities but as a rule these systems are heterogeneous and incompatible. When enterprises need to cooperate with each other, they have to overcome this heterogeneity and establish interaction between their information systems. Based on a case study from international business development, this paper analyzes principles and conditions for creating interaction between autonomous systems. Furthermore, an approach to interaction between heterogeneous information systems in the case study is presented, which is based on a service-oriented architecture and Web services. In this context, a business process model describes how the distributed autonomous systems should be used by companies in different countries to support establishment of business relationships. These systems have different data models, and use different industrial classifications. Our main contribution to research in the field of interaction between autonomous systems are (1) a proposal for principles to be taken into account when federating autonomous systems and (2) an experience report when putting these principles into practice in the case study presented.

Research in the field of networked learning is steadily growing due to high capabilities of computer and telecommunication systems. Tools are developed to support web-based learning and the case method is often used in different ways to teach various subjects. The goal of the CaseMaster project was to develop a Web-based platform supporting presentation of and work with cases as well as other learning scenarios over the Web and to test this way of working. CaseMaster allows creating cases (course content) as a non-linear structure like a story with one start, but with many possible different endings. A typical case often includes problems that need to be solved, connected questions, and a portfolio. First, a teacher creates a case and stores it in CaseMaster, then students work with the case and the teacher overviews the students' results, and, finally, a follow-up seminar is conducted. CaseMaster has been successfully used in the PharmaPaC project for learning pharmacology and the SwedKid project for learning more about i.e. treatment of minorities, the position of recent refugees and immigrants. The platform was also used in the course "ICT and learning" at IML. The advantages of this platform are as follows. CaseMaster advocates human interaction and gives possibility for solving problems together. CaseMaster encourages a blended learning with human meetings and discussions without attempts to replace the teacher. It does not direct the students through the content. The students will be able to create their own paths through the case and argue for their decisions. In further research, we will concentrate on evaluation of the technical functionality of CaseMaster and investigation of how much CaseMaster affects the learning process compared with traditional ways of working.

Business communities are networked organisations with members from different industries aiming at coordinating their activities for production of the final product/service. Forming a network of companies requires “understanding” of the different companies’ organisational competences. Competence management can help solving this task. This paper starts with presenting our earlier work in competence management projects aimed at supporting creation of business networks. Three cases are introduced: formation of business relationships with developing countries, competence supply in flexible supply networks, and collaborative product innovation. Based on experiences from these projects, competence management requirements for business community creation are identified and a conceptual framework for supporting the identified requirements is proposed. This framework considers competence management as an essential part of participation in business communities and conceptually integrates organisational and individual competence development. Enterprise models can be employed for supporting competence management and competence development in business community within the framework.

The research presented in this paper has the objective to develop a process for transforming an enterprise model into an enterprise ontology. The focus is to preserve as much as possible of the semantics and the information content. A suitable approach to base the development of the transformation process on has been selected in a comparative study of three different approaches. The selected approach uses a meta-model to support the transformation process. The outcome of the research is both the improved transformation process based on the meta-model based transformation approach and a tool named EM2EO for processing the transformation. The tool reads an XML-file containing an enterprise model and produces an OWL-file containing the enterprise ontology.

Cyber-Physics System (CPS) is a relatively new term assuming tight integration of physical systems andcyber (IT) systems interacting in real time. Such systems aim at providing a flexible and extensibleinfrastructure supporting a variety of inputs (e.g. sensor-based and customer needs) and outputs(actuators or indicators/displays). CPSs rely on communication, computation and control infrastructuresto provide for efficient utilization of logistics infrastructure resources. In this context, Logistics-as-a-Service (LaaS) is a logistics network of organizations, people, information and resources supported byservice-oriented cyber-physical systems. Intelligent multimodal logistics network is an important node inthe worldwide logistics, involved in moving a product from supplier to customer or providing anaccompanying service. The paper presents a generic architecture scheme for LaaS, which is based onrepresenting elements of the logistics networks as services. In this environment, the role of anapplication ontology and integration of individual and organizational competences is investigated andthe use of ontology matching for finding suitable resources in a multi-lingual logistics network isdiscussed.

While the main purpose of Ontology Design Patterns (ODPs) is to support the process of ontology engineering, they can also be used to improve existing ontologies. This paper has a focus on ODP selection and integration for ontology improvement. Based on the case of the ExpertFinder ontology, which allows for competency description of researchers, selection and integration of ODP is investigated with an explorative view. The current state of ODP selection strategies is discussed and problems arising during integration of ODP are shown. On this base, suggestions for improvements are made. Although this study deals with the integration into an existing ontology, most of the assumptions and suggestions are also valid for the general case of ODP usage.

The paper introduces self-contextualization in a service infrastructure for product design networks as novel application field for multi-agent technology. The main contributions of this paper are (1) identification of requirements from product design networks to the supporting service infrastructure, (2) the use of enterprise knowledge modelling techniques for the representation of computable context models, (3) a technological framework based on agent technology for self-contextualization based on enterprise knowledge models.

Abstract This paper concerns the problem of data reallocation in systems consisting of several informational servers. This problem may emerge when each server processes queries of the clients in its geographical area and it has to often retrieve the needed data from the other servers, that resulting in profit losses. Under these circumstances data reallocation may take place after the negotiation among the servers.

Cyber-Physics System (CPS) is a relatively new term assuming tight integration of physical systems and cyber (IT) systems interacting in real time. Such systems aimat providing aflexible and extensible infrastructure supporting a variety of inputs (e.g. sensor-based and customer needs) and outputs (actuators or indicators/displays). CPSs rely on communication, computation and control infrastructures to provide for efficient utilizationof logistics infrastructure resources. In this context, Logistics-as-a-Service(LaaS) is a logistics network of organizations, people, information and resources supported by service-oriented cyber-physical systems. Intelligent multimodal logistics network is an important node in the worldwide logistics, involved in moving a product from supplier to customer or providing an accompanying service. The paper presents a generic architecture for LaaS, which is based on representing elements of the logistics networks as services. In this environment, the role of an application ontology and integration of individual and organizational competences is investigated and the use of ontology matching for finding suitable resources in a multi-lingual logistics network is discussed.

Collaborative design in dispersed groups of engineers creates various kinds of challenges to technology, organization and social environment. This paper presents an approach to description and representation of the competences needed for a planned collaborative design project. The most important competence areas are identified starting from the nature of design work, problem solving in design teams, and working in distributed groups. The competence model is built structuring these areas according to three perspectives: general, cultural, and occupational competences. An ontological representation is proposed to implement the described model for collaborative design competence. Using an ontology language for representation of collaborative design competence models makes it possible to identify those individuals who are best suited for the collaboration by ontology matching. Finally, a software design team consisting of two persons was interviewed and two competence profiles were created using the developed ontological representation of the model. The modeling of the team members has proved that the proposed approach can be applied to modeling competences needed for collaborative design in engineering fields.

Within large organisations, decisions about competence development activities or the assignment of staff members to mission-critical projects have to be based on a clear understanding of the organizational competences and the underlying individual competences. Competence modelling, i.e. the use of enterprise modelling techniques for capturing existing and describing desired organisational and individual competences in enterprises, offers important contributions to this field. However, competence models usually do not capture sufficient context information for supporting decision making in organisations. This paper presents an approach for modelling competence supply contexts based on enterprise modelling, investigates an example from network-based defence and discusses first experiences.

Digital libraries face similar challenges as enterprise information sources and the Internet: a fast growing amount of digital content requires enhanced ways of supporting information seeking. This paper presents an approach to context-based retrieval in Digital Libraries (DLs). The proposed approach includes creation of a profile representing general information demand of a user (abstract context), and use of ontology matching to identify the documents relevant to the operational context representing the current information demand of the user. A profile represents the user’s interests as a DL reader and after creation is dynamically updated based on the changes in the user’s interests. The identification of documents relevanсе is carried out by matching the user profile ontology against the digital library ontology. Semantic distance calculation is based on the use of a thesaurus.

In several industrial domains, the adaption of supply strategies  for global market needs resulted in flexible supply networks and other collaborative or networked organization forms. In this context, concepts and approaches from competence management can contribute to capture, systematically develop and integrate organizational competence of the member companies in such networks. The contribution of this paper are (1) to describe two different ways of competence modeling based on enterprise modeling and based on ontology engineering, and (2) the comparison of these two approaches for expressing competence demand. The criteria used for comparing the approaches are (a) requirements derived from the lifecycle of flexible supply networks and (b) criteria assessing the technical characteristics of the demand models.

Many industrial domains experienced during the last decade a shift towards flexible and collaborative strategies adapted for global markets, like flexible supply networks. Competence management offers concepts and approaches which can be applied to identify, systematically develop and integrate organizational competence of suppliers in such networks. Based on a requirement analysis and two case studies, the paper investigates competence supply in flexible supply networks. The contributions of this paper are (1) requirements to competence management in flexible supply networks, (2) an approach to express competence demand based on enterprise models, and (3) recommendations how to adjust enterprise modelling practices and techniques based on the two cases studies.

The work presented in this paper demonstrates an evaluation procedure for a real-life application ontology, coming from the avionics domain. The focus of the evaluation has specifically been on three ontology quality features, namely usability, correctness and applicability. In the paper, the properties of the three features are explained in the context of the application domain, the methods and tools used for the evaluation of the features are presented, and the evaluation results are presented and discussed. The results indicate that the three quality features are significant in the evaluation of our application ontology, that the proposed methods and tools allow for the evaluation of the three quality features and that the inherent quality of the application ontology can be confirmed.

Today XML is a common format supporting interoperabilityand information exchange between systems in the modeling and simulationeld. Although XML enables systems to agree on a common syntaxand understand the exchanged information, systems can misinterpretthem due to their dierent conceptualizations of the domain of interest.In this paper, we present a framework for automatic translation ofXML simulation models which follow the High Level Architecture (HLA) object model template specication, into OWL ontologies. In OWL ontologiesthe semantics of information is formally dened. It provides thebasis for interoperability and information exchange between simulationsystems on semantic level.

This paper presents an ontology which has been developed to represent the requirements of a software component pertaining to an embedded system in the avionics industry. The ontology was built based on the software requirements documents and was used to support advanced methods in the subsequent stages of the software development process. In this paper it is described theprocess that was used to build the ontology. Two pertinent quality measures that were applied to the ontology, i.e. usability and applicability, are also described, as well as the methods used to evaluate the quality measures and the result of these evaluations.

Workplace innovation (WI) is important to provide betterwork opportunities and increase productivity. WI at the individual tasklevel concerns the structure of individual work tasks. A number of surveyshave been done that measured WI at the individual task level, howeverthey paid little attention to work environment, in particular to supportivetechnology. This paper presents the case study of WI in two Swedishorganisations with focus on the alignment of ICT and the individual worktasks. We carried out seven interviews of workers at dierent levels ofjob and in dierent sectors. The qualitative data analysis identied fourthemes: business processes, working roles, data sources, and technology.The analysis was facilitated by constructing BPMN (Business ProcessModel Notation) diagrams for the identied business processes. We discoveredthat the supportive technology in the organisations is adequatebut downright traditional. We argue that technology is an important factorand enabler for WI. Finally, we present an architectural model thatprovides a direction for future work on WI taking ICT as the basis.

This article concerns the problem of creating intellectuallized instruction programs. We suggest applying intelligent agent and multi-agent technologies for the creation of such programs. Two examples, COACH and IDLE, are given of existing systems of this kind. Then we describe the LimTUTOR system which is developed to support the process of teaching students to solve tasks of searching for function limits. Finally we extend LimTUTOR to a multi-agent system to cover di erent aspects of teaching a discipline.

Competence management has received much attention during recent years because it contributes to achieving organizational goals and solving problems such as improvement of information or competence supply. Many approaches were proposed to modelling competence and using competence models but there is still a lack of research into structures and utilisation of competence proles in a competence management system. This article addresses this problem by proposing a formal approach to competence prole management. Four project cases are first analysed to elicit requirements of competence prole management, including competence prole operations. After that, an abstract model of competence prole management is formally denedbased on the requirements. Finally, an ontology-based implementation of the abstract model is presented including a software architecture of a competence prole management system. The main contribution of this work is formalization of operations on competence proles and ontology-based implementation of these operations. The proposed implementation architecture can facilitate construction of a competence prole management system.

This paper considers the use of metalevel tools for inference search control in expertsystems. Offered here are tools for inference search control in the form of a system of languageconstructions, the basic ones of which are inference metarules, control predicates, control labelsand inferences. These tools served as a basis for the development of an inference searchcontrol language designed for the description of query processing control in expert systems.This language allows for more precise description of the logic and techniques of an expert'sreasoning about solving a particular task due to an extended set of control predicates, use of anexplicit labels arrangement for backtracking organization, and description of solution searchstrategies in an explicit way with the help of inference search metarules. The accomplishedprogram implementation of the inference search control language demonstrates possibilities ofthe proposed approach and can form a basis for development of appropriate tools. The designedlanguage is approved in the problem domain connected with the search for functionlimits. A prototype of the knowledge-based system is constructed for solving training tasks ofsearch for function limits.

This paper presents an approach to designing computerised assessment tools for testing with open-ended questions. Student answers are analysed by comparing them to the correct ones, which are constructed using keywords that are essential for the meaning of the answers. The developed tools were used within a course at the Karelian State Pedagogical University. Students preferred open-ended questions to multiple-choice questions. Applying Java technologies and component-based approaches, allowed us to create flexible tools that could be used with diverse computer platforms and integrated into a learning environment.

The paper deals with the issue of using the IMS Question and Test Interoperability standard for the development of assessment tools. This standard is based on XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and intended for description of tests at a structural level independent from the computer platform. According to this standard, questions and tests can be represented as plain text, which is marked-up with XML tags. The testing tool reads a test description in XML and parses it to translate into the format used internally in the system. This approach allows to create test descriptions that are highly interchangeable, readable, and reusable.

When manufacturers, distributors and dealers need to collaborate, they form production networks because this provides significant advantages in production variety, flexibility and lead time. Production processes in such networks often spawn different specific tasks that are to be solved by the network members. This requires creation of a team able to tackle the identified problem. When dealing with multiple organizations and multiple processes within a complicated production network, trying to find a member that has required competence can be a laborious, time-consuming process. Developing and main-taining competence profiles of all the relevant parties associated with produc-tion can significantly reduce the time. The paper proposes an approach to team configuration based on competence profiles. The approach utilizes such tech-nologies as ontology management, context management and profiling. Using ontological representation makes it possible to identify those team members who are best suited for the task by ontology matching.

eServices in the area of healthcare are developing quickly. Providing services for researchers in healthcare deals with both complex domain and sophisticated requirements. The objective of this paper is to propose an architecture of an online service to support collaboration of healthcare researchers. The service facilitates the task of seeking collaborators for joint work on producing scientific artefacts. The search of potential collaborators is based on matching the researcher's profile against others' profiles. Profiles are ontology-based and composed of all different scientific-related activities and products of a person. A first prototype of the service was developed in the CLICK project to support researchers in the projects funded by the Vinnvård Programme. The interviews with several users showed appreciation of the usefulness of the tool.