Ontology based semantic interoperability facilitator among task group

Abstract

Collaboration among enterprises in a dynamic environment makes the actors to concentrate on their respective core competences and allow provision and sharing of expertise, resources, and skills for taking advantages and better respond to business opportunities. The coming together of such organizations, usually enhanced by computer network, is referred to as virtual enterprise (VE) or task group. This partnership is only possible if the systems in the various associated organizations can process the data in one another. A major challenge in the enterprise collaborative system that has attracted many research efforts in the recent past is semantic interoperability. This collaborative-based market place requires among others common conceptualization and meaningful data exchange. Effective collaboration among VE members is a major key to the accomplishment of this noble objective. For this interoperability to be effective, we propose in this paper an ontology-based middleware framework ldquoOntology Gatewayrdquo used by players in such situation to exchange information needed to carry out the process. The middleware not only assists in the formation of VE by interested members, but also facilitates semantic interpretability among task groups.