Using UFO as a Reference Ontology in the (Re)Design of
                             Enterprise Modelling Languages

                                                João Paulo Andrade Almeida

                                     Ontology and Conceptual Modeling Group (NEMO),
                                                Computer Science Department
                                  Federal University of Espirito Santo (UFES), Vitória, Brazil



                         Abstract. Conceptual modeling has been considered a key activity in enterprise
                         architecture and information systems engineering, and comprises the use of dia-
                         grammatic languages for communication, understanding and problem
                         solving regarding a universe of discourse. The effectiveness of a modeling
                         language for the aforementioned tasks is strongly related to the
                         language's domain appropriateness, i.e., to the language's ability to
                         express the relevant characteristics of the domain at hand. A language
                         designer must, therefore, understand the phenomena (or domain) that should
                         be covered by the language and propose symbolic structures that will
                         empower prospective language users to efficiently carry out certain tasks
                         concerning the represented phenomena. This requires the design of a
                         language with some form of correspondence between its constructs and
                         things in the external world, which we call real-world semantics.

                         Although essential to language design and semantic interoperability tasks,
                         the real-world semantics of conceptual modeling languages for the
                         enterprise is often defined only informally with no rigor or
                         methodological support for the language designer. As a consequence, a
                         number of language issues may arise, including lack of semantic clarity
                         and expressiveness, which ultimately affect the language's ability to
                         serve as a basis for communication, analysis and transformation.

                         In this tutorial, we will discuss advances in the last decade concerning
                         the application of reference ontologies to address these issues. We will
                         show how well-founded reference ontologies can serve to inform the design
                         and revision of enterprise modeling languages. In order to provide a solid
                         basis for reference ontologies, we will discuss the role of a foundational
                         ontology in this process (the Unified Foundational Ontology, UFO). A
                         number of concrete cases of language revision will be discussed involving
                         ArchiMate and other languages, encompassing different enterprise
                         architectural    domains       (such as   services,   capabilities, goals,
                         organizational structure, etc.).

                            Short Bio. João Paulo Andrade Almeida is associate professor at the Com-
                         puter Science Department of the Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil.




Proceeding of SAOA 2015 Copyright © 2015 held by the author(s)                                             VI
                         He is a member of the Ontology and Conceptual Modelling Research Group
                         (NEMO) .
                            He joined the Centre for Telematics and Information Technology at the Uni-
                         versity of Twente in September 2001, and received his Ph.D. from that universi-
                         ty in 2006, with the Ph.D. thesis entitled Model-Driven Design of Distributed
                         Applications. During 2006, he worked as a Scientific Researcher for the
                         Telematica Instituut on the application of model-driven approaches to the de-
                         sign of services and service-oriented architectures. He has participated in the
                         European SPICE IST and MODA-TEL IST projects, in the Dutch Freeband
                         WASP project and in the AMIDST project. Since 2007, he has been working on
                         the application of ontologies in enterprise architecture and enterprise modeling.
                         He has served as principal researcher in a CNPq/FAPES PRONEX project, as
                         well as Dean of the Graduate School in Computer Science at the Federal Uni-
                         versity of Espírito Santo (2011-2013).




Proceeding of SAOA 2015 Copyright © 2015 held by the author(s)                                               VII