Agile Integration Modeling Language (AIML): A conceptual modeling grammar for agile integrative business information systems

  • Authors:

  • Hong Zhang;Rajiv Kishore;Raj Sharman;Ram Ramesh

  • Affiliations:

  • Computer Information Systems, Glass Hall 376, Missouri State University, 901 S National Ave, Springfield, Missouri 65897, United States;Department of Management Science and Systems, School of Management, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4000, United States;Department of Management Science and Systems, School of Management, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4000, United States;Department of Management Science and Systems, School of Management, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4000, United States

  • Venue:
  • Decision Support Systems
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

The proliferation of newer agile integrative business information systems (IBIS) environments that use the software agent and the multiagent systems paradigms has created the need for a common and well-accepted conceptual modeling grammar that can be used to efficiently, precisely, and unambiguously, model agile IBIS systems at the conceptual level. In this paper, we propose a conceptual modeling grammar termed Agile Integration Modeling Language (AIML) based on established ontological foundation for the multiagent-based integrative business information systems (MIBIS) universe. The AIML grammar provides adequate and precise constructs and semantics for modeling agile integration among participating work systems in terms of quickly building and dismantling dynamic collaboration relationships among them to respond to fast-changing market needs. The AIML grammar is defined as a formal model using Extended BNF and first order logic, and is elaborated using a running example in the paper. The grammar is also evaluated in terms of its syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic qualities and is found to exhibit a high degree of quality on all these three dimensions. In particular, the pragmatic quality of AIML measured in terms of grammar complexity evaluated using complexity metrics indicates that AIML is much easier to learn and use as compared to the Unified Modeling Language (UML) for modeling agile integration of work systems in organizations.