Nils Barnickel

Managing and integrating semantic differences in heterogeneous distributed IT landscapes remains critical and cost intensive. The dominant semantic integration approach of developing a single organization-wide business information model in terms of a single shared ontology has failed. The complexity of business semantics demands for a flexible mechanism for loosely-coupling of information models and their autonomous management. This PhD thesis aims at developing a mechanism for semantic mediation between independently managed but conceptually overlapping domain ontologies. The approach will be integrated into the life-cycle of service oriented architectures (SOA) with a focus on cross-organizational integration aspects from conceptual business process modeling to runtime service execution and monitoring. A case study of an exemplary distributed organization that applies SOA will be carried out in order to evaluate and demonstrate the potential of the developed mechanism for semantic mediation.