Scientific versus business workflows

Abstract

The formal concept of a, workflow has existed in the business world for a, long time. An entire industry of tools and technology devoted to workflow management has been developed and marketed to meet the needs of commercial enterprises. The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) has existed for over ten years and has developed a, large set of reference models, documents, and standards. Why has the scientific community not adopted these existing standards? While it is not uncommon for the scientific community to reinvent technology rather than purchase existing solutions, there are issues involved in the technical applications that are unique to science, and we will attempt to characterize some of these here. There are, however, many core concepts that have been developed in the business workflow community that directly relate to science, and we will outline them below. © 2007 Springer-Verlag London Limited.