Center for Open Enterprise Management


Projects

The following sub-projects are run within the Center for Open Enterprise Management:

1. Collaborative Data Management

2. Service Automation

3. Semantic Web Service Challenge

4. Logical Spreadsheets

5. Semantic Email Adressing (SEAMail)

 

Collaborative Data Management

When data sources are independent, their data can be managed independently. However, in the presence of constraints, updating the data in one source can and should affect the data in other sources; and in such cases, the individuals performing these update must collaborate to ensure that sources are updated correctly. COLLABORATIVE DATA MANAGEMENT (CDM) must replace independent data update.

Support for collaborative data management is common in closed information systems, such as those run by individual organizations. Based on our previous work in data integration, we believe that it is also possible to provide support for OPEN INFORMATION SYSTEMS, such as virtual enterprises and the World Wide Web.

To explore the possibilities here, the Stanford Center for Enterprise Management proposes to conduct research on relevant technologies, including data integration and dissemination, collaborative spreadsheets and websheets, and open workflow management. We propose to create and deploy appropriate technological components, such as Internet standards, Internet-based data brokers, and Internet-based workflow managers. Finally, we propose to demonstrate the power of this technology by building prototypes of collaborative data management in three separate areas, one each in science, industry, and government.

Link: http://oem.stanford.edu/oem/cdm.html

 

Service Automation

Service Automation aims at developing methods and tools for enabling businesses to automate the value co-creation between consumers and businesses (B2C), between businesses (B2B) and within businesses (internal business functions). The visionary goal is that for each service instance the ideal configuration of resources necessary to deliver this service instance, (i.e. information, people, technologies, organizations) is composed and (to the highest possible degree) executed dynamically and in real-time.

More specifically, the following questions are adressed

1. How can a semantic model of the business be developed?

2. How can a repository with semantically described business activities and services be developed?

3. To what extent can plans, processes and workflows for achieving business goals be generated automatically?

4. How can businesses better coordinate their activities, more quickly adapting to changing circumstances.

Link: http://oem.stanford.edu/oem/ServiceAutomation/index.html

 

Semantic Web Service Challenge

The goal of the SWS Challenge is to develop a common understanding of various technologies intended to facilitate the automation of mediation, choreography and discovery for Web Services using semantic annotations. The intent of this challenge is to explore the trade-offs among existing approaches. Additionally we would like to figure out which parts of problem space may not yet be covered.

Our most important service is that we provide a certification of SOA (Service Oriented Achitecture) technologies. We challenge the technical community to show what their web service mediation, discovery, and composition technologies can really do.

The Challenge aims to provide a forum for discussion based on a common application base. The approach is to provide a set of problems that participants solve in a series of workshops. In each workshop, participants self-select which scenario problems, and sub-problems they would like to attempt to solve. The call for problem solutions is a continous one. New participants are invited to start working on the challenge problems any time and to present their solution at the next workshop! Solutions are verified by Challenge staff - participants must invoke the right web services with the right sequence of correct messages in order to solve each problem. In addition, we attempt to evaluate the level of effort of the software engineering technique used in going from a problem to a sub-problem. This evaluation methodology is evolving in the W3C SWS Testbed Incubator. As of February 2008, there is a report of Recommended Best Practices from the Incubator.

Link: http://sws-challenge.org

 

Logical Spreadsheets

Logical Spreadsheets is a revolutionary technology allowing completely new ways of working with spreadsheets, be it working with office suites, within databases, or with webforms. Just one example: Unlike traditional spreadsheets, logical spreadsheets can propagate values in any direction. One might, for example, specify a start time for a room reservation along with an end time, and the duration of the reservation would automatically get filled in. This is also possible with traditional spreadsheets. However, with logical spreadsheets, one could also specify the start time and the duration, and the end time would automatically get filled in. In addition, the logical constraints can express many-to-many relationships instead of just functional ones.

Link: http://logic.stanford.edu/spreadsheet/

 

Semantic Email Adressing (SEAMail)

We use the term semantic email addressing (SEA) to refer to emails that are addressed to a semantically defined set of entities. The recipients to a semantically addressed email are computed on the fly based on the semantic definition of the address.

SEA has other benefits as well:

First, no discovery required. Email addresses and mailing lists can be difficult to discover, even for a human. Worse, since email addresses and mailing list names have no semantics, automatic discovery of email addresses and mailing lists by a computer is an extremely difficult task, if not impossible. With SEA, discovery is completely obviated.

Second, no maintenance required. Traditional mailing lists require manual labor to maintain. A mailing list administrator must go through the process of creating the list. The list must then be maintained by the administrator himself and the individuals who would like to subscribe to the list, unsubscribe to the list, and change their information with regards to the list. This can be particularly onerous when the user must deal with many lists, for example when his email address changes. Ideally, the user could update his personal information such as email address once, in a single place, and have email addressers automatically adapt. SEA makes this possible.

Link: http://logic.stanford.edu/sharing/papers/sea-ic.pdf