Context-aware workflow modeling approach using OWL

Abstract

Context-aware workflow systems can adapt their behavior based on the changes of real world, which is often gathered by a big amount of sensors. Thus, the modeling of context-aware workflow is the key issue in context-aware workflow systems, because context information is often varied and complex. To better describe context information in business processes, this paper proposes an OWL-based (Web Ontology Language) approach to model context-aware workflows. The context model and process model elements is defined based on OWL, so it can not only express the context information involved in business processes but also the corresponding workflow control items as OWL. The modeling rules which make the model more normalized are also designed. Case study and analysis show that our approach has good adaptability, and can be used to easily describe any sophisticated context-aware workflows.