Abstract
We present methods for applying controlled natural language (CNL) and Semantic Web user interfaces to make rapid prototypes of business rule-based systems. This helps system developers quickly demonstrate design choices to stakeholders. CNLs provide a balance between understandability for laypersons and unambiguous specificity for programmers. Executable CNLs generate rudimentary systems automatically and thus quickly, which suits rapid prototyping. The Semantic Web provides a wide range of free and open tools for standardized forms of data representation and logic, whose potential application includes business rules.
We identify several general categories of business rules that each map to a core form of Semantic Web logic that can implement it. This work then presents prototyping methods that apply these mappings. Different Semantic Web software interface components demonstrate different aspects of each form of logic. The Semantic Web ontology editor Protégé illustrates our methods, but any equivalent Semantic Web software can apply. Example rapid prototypes in Protégé from the frequently used fictional business rules case EU-Rent serve here as illustrative scenarios that evaluate our methods.
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Acknowledgments
This work comes from the Master’s Theses in the Rapid Rules Thesis Circle in the BPMIT (Business Process Management and Information Technology) Master’s program at the Open University of the Netherlands, completed in February of 2022. This work’s authors are the writers of these thesis documents and their supervisor [3, 5, 17]. Ella Roubtsova was the co-supervisor for the group, and provided insightful and useful feedback on the thesis document, which has helped this work as well.
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Rutledge, L., Corbijn, J., Cuijpers, B., Wondaal, L. (2022). Rapid Prototyping of Business Rule-Based Systems with Controlled Natural Language and Semantic Web Software. In: Shishkov, B. (eds) Business Modeling and Software Design. BMSD 2022. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 453. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11510-3_1
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