Building-up a reference generic regulation ontology: A bottom-up approach

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to develop a Reference Normative Ontology. This generic ontology is being developed in order to allow modeling policy-based regulations. Such modeling is for creating models of norms and rules and can be used by a larger framework for compliance checking. The modeling of regulations using this ontology can be showcased for semantic business process management. Our study is based on 3 domain case-specific ontologies describing norms and behavioral standards within Web portals. The analysis of those concrete, small ontologies allows building an abstract, generic ontology which is destined to cover core aspects most of other specific regulation examples. This ontology is designed to grow by integrating additional case-specific normative documents and serve as the core component of a generic regulation modeling ontology. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.