32nd International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER 2013)
Hong Kong
Panels

Panel I: Are we Close to Open Models?

In contrast to the tremendous propagation of open source in software development, an analog paradigm does not seem to gain comparable momentum in modeling. Nevertheless, there is a series of related initiatives.


A first attempt was made in 2006 by Strecker et al. in a contribution “Conceptual Modelling as a New Entry in the Bazaar: The Open Model Approach” to the 2006 Open Source Systems conference. They also created a website http://openmodels.org/ which, however, seems to be not active currently. In 2007, the same authors initiated a discussion on reference models as potential candidates for open models and outlined success factors of open model initiatives.


In 2012, a Dagstuhl seminar dealt with “Open Models as a Foundation of Future Enterprise Systems”. Among others, there is also a platform for Open Model Courseware (http://www.eclipse.org/gmt/omcw/), and there are some companies offering services around open models for specific application domains.


More recently, Karagiannis et al. formed OMI (http://openmodels.at/web/omi/home), a community pursuing the vision “Models for everyone” which is based on the assumption that models will become “one of the most important means for communication between people in general and an essential factor of production for knowledge intensive business in particular.” The idea here is to share meta-modeling tools, modeling tools developed with these, models created using such tools, and experiences made with all that.

The panel seeks to elucidate the current state of open models in detail. It will analyze the reasons for the limited drive compared to open source, and it will discuss determining factors to make open models a success in future.

Panelists:
  • Dimitris Karagiannis, Universität Wien
  • John Mylopulos, University of Toronto
  • Jeffrey Parsons, University of Newfoundland
  • Liping Zhao, University of Manchester
  • José Palazzo M. De Oliveira, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Moderator: Heinrich C. Mayr, Alpen-Adria-Universität, Klagenfurt

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