A Roadmap for UEML

Abstract

1 Introduction The Unified Enterprise Modelling Language (UEML) is an ongoing effort to develop an intermediate language for modelling enterprises and related domains, such as information systems. The aim is to support integrated use of enterprise and information systems (IS) models expressed using different languages. This is an ambitious, long-term goal that will require several years of effort and cooperation between academia and industry. A roadmap for how UEML should evolve is therefore needed to direct and coordinate the work. This paper presents such a roadmap for the further UEML evolution, organised as ten complementary directions along which further UEML development can progress, to some extent in parallel. For example, one direction is broader coverage of relevant modelling languages another, and largely independent one, is extended tool support. Between other directions, however, there are strict dependencies. For example, proper industrial validation of UEML will require a certain level of tool support. The roadmap is a long-term plan that involves a large amount of work. Clearly, all its research objectives cannot be accomplished inside the INTEROP NoE (INTEROP 2005), the current locus of UEML activity, which ends in 2006. We therefore also propose a prioritisation of UEML development for the near term, i.e., for the final year of INTEROP and its immediate aftermath. The following Section 2 will present an overview of UEML. Section 3 discusses the dimensions in detail. Section 4 proposes priorities for the near term. Finally, Section 5 concludes the paper and offers paths for further work.