ICT Development and Business Process Modelling in the Legal Domain: The Experience of e-CODEX

In the last 30 years, the use of ICT spread into the justice sector with the aim of improving performances and reducing costs. While the justice domain has many distinctive features that makes ICT development and deployment particularly complex compared to other domains, design techniques and methods that proved to be successful in the broader ICT world, have been more and more introduced and tested in this difficult environment. This paper focuses on Business and Process Modelling (BPM) methodology, as a way to navigate the legal, organizational and social complexity of developing e-Justice services. First born for the analysis and improvement of private business processes through the use of graphical representations, the methodology has been largely utilized also for software design in complex organizations. After introducing the main literature on the BPM, we present the case of e-CODEX EU co-funded project, which developed an e-delivery platform to allow secure cross border exchange of judicial documents. The analysis allows grasping some of the strengths and limits of this method, and to learn important lessons on the relationship between BPMs’ use and the legal performativity of e-justice

A framework for promoting interoperability in a global electronic market-space

The primary contributions to the area of electronic business integration, propounded by this thesis, are (in no particular order):  A novel examination of global Business-to-Business (B2B) interoperability in terms of a "multiplicity paradox" and of a "global electronic market-space" from a Complex Systems Science perspective.  A framework for an, integrated, global electronic market-space, which is based on a hierarchical, incremental, minimalist-business-pattern approach. A Web Services-SOA forms the basis of application-to-application integration within the framework. The framework is founded in a comprehensive study of existing technologies, standards and models for secure interoperability and the SOA paradigm. The Complex Systems Science concepts of "predictable structure" and "structural complexity" are used consistently throughout the progressive formulation of the framework.  A model for a global message handler (including a standards-based message-format) which obviates the common problems implicit in standard SOAP-RPC. It is formulated around the "standardized, common, abstract application interface" critical success factor, deduced from examining existing models. The model can be used in any collaboration context.  An open standards-based security model for the global message handler. Conceptually, the framework comprises the following:  An interoperable standardized message format: a standardized SOAP-envelope with standardized attachments (8-bit binary MIME-serialized XOP packages).  An interoperable standardized message-delivery infrastructure encompassing an RPC-invoked message-handler - a Web service, operating in synchronous and/or asynchronous mode, which relays attachments to service endpoints.  A business information processing infrastructure comprised of: a standardized generic minimalist-business-pattern (simple buying/selling), comprising global pre-specifications for business processes (for example, placing an order), standardized specific atomic business activities (e.g. completing an order-form), a standardized document-set (including, e.g. an order-form) based on standardized metadata (common nomenclature and common semantics used in XSD's, e.g. the order-form), the standardized corresponding choreography for atomic activities (e.g. acknowledgement of receipt of order-form) and service endpoints (based on standardized programming interfaces and virtual methods with customized implementations).Theoretical ComputingPHD (INFORMATION SYSTEMS

ebXML: Global Standard for Electronic Business

Business-to-business integration is transforming the market and has already begun to increase the efficiency of those companies involved. EDI (Electronic Document Interchange) became very popular during 1970’s; Today EDI transactions total about $750 billion year. EDI is being used by 90% of Fortune 1000 companies. It has indeed become a dominant technology for the largest companies, on the other hand it has been adopted by less than 5% of small and medium sized companies in general and, of these, many use EDI only because their larger customers require it. The reason behind is that EDI is a difficult, complex technology to implement usually comes with high transactional cost. Hence it is suitable for large companies with large volume of transactions. EDI uses fixed, rigid and compressed data format that is difficult to decipher and debug. The data exchange in EDI happens in proprietary VAN (value added network) which is an expensive solution. EbXML (Electronic Business XML) envisioned creating a single global electronic marketplace where enterprises of any size and in any geographic location can meet and conduct business with each other through exchange of xml based messages. The XML (the Extensible Markup Language) has rapidly imposed itself as a popular format for exchange of information on the web. The very nature of XML is that it is a structured document format, in that it represents not only the information to be exchanged, but the metadata encapsulating its meaning. XML technology has potential to solve the existing problems in current EDI systems. Using ebXML, companies have a standard method to exchange business messages, conduct trading relationships, communicate data in common terms and define and register business processes. EbXML is designed to provide a simple way for companies to find one another and conduct business over the Web, allowing those with different platforms to speak a common language. EbXML targets to provide low cost solutions for small and medium enterprises as well as complex solution for large enterprises. This project attempts to implement a prototype of ebXML messaging service as per ebXML specification to obtain the insight look of feasibility and suitability of XML solution for EDI

QoS-Enabled B2B Integration

Business-To-Business Integration (B2Bi) is a key mechanism for enterprises to gain competitive advantage. However, developing B2Bi applications is far from trivial. Inter alia, agreement among integration partners about the business documents and the control flow of business document exchanges as well as applying suitable communication technologies for overcoming heterogeneous IT landscapes are major challenges. At the same time, choreography languages such as ebXML BPSS (ebBP), orchestration languages such as WS-BPEL and Web Services are promising to provide the foundations for seamless interactions among business partners. Automatically translating choreography agreements of integration partners into partner-specific orchestrations is an obvious idea for ensuring conformance of orchestration models to choreography models. Moreover, the application of such model-driven development methods facilitates productivity and cost-effectiveness whereas applying a service oriented architecture (SOA) based on WS-BPEL and Web Services leverages standardization and decoupling. By now, the realization of QoS attributes has not yet received the necessary attention that makes such approaches suitable for B2Bi. In this report, we describe a proof-of-concept implementation of the translation of ebBP choreographies into WS-BPEL orchestrations that respects B2Bi-relevant QoS attributes

CBG-Framework: A bottom-up model-based approach for Collaborative Business Process Management

Nowadays most existing products and services are the result of the collaboration of a large number of companies that form a value chain known as Supply Chain (SC). Then individual Business Process Management (BPM) requires a holistic vision that incorporates an inter organizational view that supports SC decision making. This study proposes a novel idea trying to address collaborative BP modelling problem with a new perspective, a bottom-up approach, reusing process models that each organization may have created with a different modelling language. Collaborative Business Generation (CBG) Framework, following Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) paradigm, includes a meta model, a method, a set of model transformations and a support tool to create collaborative BP models from individual ones, maintaining privacy and autonomy in decision making. This paper presents main CBG-Framework elements as well as a real world case study for early validation.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad TIN2016-76956-C3-2-RMinisterio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad TIN2015-71938-RED

Web Services Support for Dynamic Business Process Outsourcing

Outsourcing of business processes is crucial for organizations to be effective, efficient and flexible. To meet fast-changing market conditions, dynamic outsourcing is required, in which business relationships are established and enacted on-the-fly in an adaptive, fine-grained way unrestricted by geographic distance. This requires automated means for both the establishment of outsourcing relationships and for the enactment of services performed in these relationships over electronic channels. Due to wide industry support and the underlying model of loose coupling of services, Web services increasingly become the mechanism of choice to connect organizations across organizational boundaries. This paper analyzes to which extent Web services support the dynamic process outsourcing paradigm. We discuss contract -based dynamic business process outsourcing to define requirements and then introduce the Web services framework. Based on this, we investigate the match between the two. We observe that the Web services framework requires further support for cross - organizational business processes and mechanisms for contracting, QoS management and process-based transaction support and suggest ways to fill those gaps