Educational process modelling with workflow and time Petri nets : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Computer Science at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

The research presented in this thesis describes how to use workflow management technology to model educational processes with a time axis. As workflow management technology has been widely used in modelling business processes, it has the potential to model educational processes. Based upon the components of workflow, educational processes and business processes have many common features such that educational processes can be modelled with workflow management technology. In addition, owing to the importance of the time component in processes, time Petri nets have been chosen as the design language for the modelling of the educational processes. The notation of time Petri nets has been illustrated in this thesis for the educational process. In this thesis, three different educational processes have been presented and modelled with workflow management technology as well as with time Petri nets individually. Furthermore, the architecture of the educational process management system has been constructed by adopting the reference model from the Workflow Management Coalition. To show the validity of using workflow management technology in the education domain, a sub-process of an educational process has been modelled and developed with certain developing techniques. It provides the potential research direction for further research on the modelling of educational process with workflow technology associated with a time component

A component-based product line architecture for workflow management systems

This paper presents a component-based product line for workflow management systems. The process followed to design the product line was based on the Catalysis method. Extensions were made to represent variability across the process. The domain of workflow management systems has been shown to be appropriate to the application of the product line approach as there are a standard architecture and models established by a regulatory board, the Workflow Management Coalition. In addition, there is a demand for similar workflow management systems but with some different features. The product line architecture was evaluated with Rapide simulation tools. The evaluation was based on selected scenarios, thus, avoiding implementation issues. The strategy that has been used to populate the architecture and experiment with the product line is shown. In particular, the design of the workflow execution manager component is described

Особенности человеческого сознания

Анализируется проблема познания через призму вопроса о смысле жизни человека. Сознание как орудие познания имеет некоторые особенности, сущность которых проявляется в ходе когнитивного отношения человека к миру. Если есть начало познания, то, что может выступать критерием его завершения? Поиск возможного ответа на этот важный вопрос и составляет содержание данной статьи

KWM: Knowledge-based Workflow Model for agile organization

The workflow management system (WFMS) in an agile organization should be highly adaptable to the frequent organizational changes. To increase the adaptability of contemporary WFMSs, a mechanism for managing changes within the organizational structure and changes in business rules needs to be reinforced. In this paper, a knowledge-based approach for workflow modeling is proposed, in which a workflow is defined as a set of business rules. Knowledge on the organizational structure and special workflow, such as role/actor mappings and complex routing rules, can be explicitly modeled in KWM (Knowledge-based Workflow Model). Using knowledge representation scheme and dependency management facility, a change propagation mechanism is provided to adapt to the frequent changes in the organizational structure, business rules, and procedures

From Design to Production Control Through the Integration of Engineering Data Management and Workflow Management Systems

At a time when many companies are under pressure to reduce "times-to-market" the management of product information from the early stages of design through assembly to manufacture and production has become increasingly important. Similarly in the construction of high energy physics devices the collection of (often evolving) engineering data is central to the subsequent physics analysis. Traditionally in industry design engineers have employed Engineering Data Management Systems (also called Product Data Management Systems) to coordinate and control access to documented versions of product designs. However, these systems provide control only at the collaborative design level and are seldom used beyond design. Workflow management systems, on the other hand, are employed in industry to coordinate and support the more complex and repeatable work processes of the production environment. Commercial workflow products cannot support the highly dynamic activities found both in the design stages of product development and in rapidly evolving workflow definitions. The integration of Product Data Management with Workflow Management can provide support for product development from initial CAD/CAM collaborative design through to the support and optimisation of production workflow activities. This paper investigates this integration and proposes a philosophy for the support of product data throughout the full development and production lifecycle and demonstrates its usefulness in the construction of CMS detectors.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figure

TeamWorker: An agent-based support system for mobile task execution

Traditional workflow management systems are considered insufficiently flexible to support autonomous job management via close team working. This paper proposes a multi-agent system approach to enhancing existing workflow management systems to enable team-based job management in the field of telecommunications service provision and maintenance. This paper adopts a component-based approach and explains how applications can be developed by customising the generic components provided by a multi-agent systems framework

CrossFlow: Cross-Organizational Workflow Management for Service Outsourcing in Dynamic Virtual Enterprises

In this report, we present the approach to cross-organizational workflow management of the CrossFlow project. CrossFlow is a European research project aiming at the support of cross-organizational workflows in dynamic virtual enterprises. The cooperation in these virtual enterprises is based on dynamic service outsourcing specified in electronic contracts. Service enactment is performed by dynamically linking the workflow management infrastructures of the involved organizations. Extended service enactment support is provided in the form of cross-organizational transaction management and process control, advanced quality of service monitoring, and support for high-level flexibility in service enactment. CrossFlow technology is realized on top of a commercial workflow management platform and applied in two real-world scenarios in the contexts of a logistics and an insurance company

Workflow resource pattern modelling and visualization

Workflow patterns have been recognized as the theoretical basis to modeling recurring problems in workflow systems. A form of workflow patterns, known as the resource patterns, characterise the behaviour of resources in workflow systems. Despite the fact that many resource patterns have been discovered, people still preclude them from many workflow system implementations. One of reasons could be obscurityin the behaviour of and interaction between resources and a workflow management system. Thus, we provide a modelling and visualization approach for the resource patterns, enabling a resource behaviour modeller to intuitively see the specific resource patterns involved in the lifecycle of a workitem. We believe this research can be extended to benefit not only workflow modelling, but also other applications, such as model validation, human resource behaviour modelling, and workflow model visualization

Advanced Architectures for Transactional Workflows or Advanced Transactions in Workflow Architectures

In this short paper, we outline the workflow management systems research in the Information Systems division at the University of Twente. We discuss the two main themes in this research: architecture design and advanced transaction management. Attention is paid to the coverage of these themes in the context of the completed Mercurius and WIDE projects and in the new CrossFlow project. In the latter project, contracts are introduced as a new theme to support electronic commerce aspects in workflow management