Abstraction Strategy of Software Knowledge Reuse for Adaptable Knowledge and Information Systems

Nowadays enterprise information and knowledge systems provide technical platforms for the integration and collaboration of business processes among multi-organizations of enterprises. However, software systems supporting enterprise business processes are hard to be adapted and deployed to satisfy the ever-changing requirements of enterprises. In this paper we put forward an adaptable enterprise information system framework in which we use four levels of abstractions. At the meta-meta model level, the ontology schema is used which provides the specification language for other more specific levels. At the meta-model level, the extended OSM model is used, and the generic elements obtained from analyzing the commonality of requirements are included. At the model level, the commonalities of sub-domains, such as the patterns of tasks in a specific domain are analyzed and generalized for future reuse. The intermediate specifications of the business processes and work flows are used in this level. At the application level, specific elements and requirements of the applications will be added and customized via the tools developed at the abstracted levels. A case study of knowledge management system based on this four level abstraction is discussed.