Developing collaborative modeling systems following a model-driven engineering approach

Abstract

Collaborative modeling systems are useful and promising tools for many tasks. However, they are difficult to build and are domain-specific. In response to this situation, we propose a model-driven process for the development of this kind of systems. This process is based on the use of some ontologies which characterize the concepts used in a software architecture to support collaborative modeling systems. These ontologies, from which the meta-models used in the generation process are derived, are explained in detail. In order to emphasize the utility of the proposal, an example of how the concepts in the ontologies are instantiated in a specific system, SPACE-DESIGN, is shown. It is also explained how by means of this approach it is possible to obtain reconfigurable systems, even at a level of application domain, by means of the use of model specifications and transformations.