Mapping a business process model to a semantic Web service model

Abstract

The purpose of OWL-S is to support effective automation of various Web services related activities including service discovery, composition, execution and monitoring. For our work, we are interested in automated Web services composition for a business process model. OWL-S process ontology provides a standard language for describing the composition of Web services. Thus we can treat composed Web services as a process model. However, since OWL-S is an XML based syntax description which is used for automatic agent processing, it is difficult to read and understand for human reader, especially for those with little XML knowledge but from a process modelling background, for example, businessmen. Therefore it can not be easily and directly used for process modelling tasks. The Fundamental Business Process Modelling Language (FBPML) is a diagram based business process modelling language which merges IDEF3, RAD and PSL. It has a precise operational semantics and describes business processes in a conventional logic. Because it is diagram based, it can be easily accepted by processes modelers who normally are familiar with such diagrams. However, its problem is that it does not provide a direct specification for Web services based agents. This paper bridges the gap via conceptual mapping between two different process modelling languages, FBPML and OWL-S.