Integrating information from global systems: Dealing with the "on- and off-ramps"; of the information superhighway

The notion of an "Information SuperHighway" has attracted considerable attention. It offers the possibility to access information from around the world in support of many important applications in areas such as finance, manufacturing, and transportation (e.g., global risk management, integrated supply chain management, global in-transit visibility.) Unfortunately, there are significant challenges to be overcome. One particular problem is context interchange, which can be thought of as dealing with the "onand off-ramps" of the Information SuperHighway. Each source of information and potential receiver of that information may operate with a different context. A context is the collection of implicit assumptions about the context definition (i.e., meaning) and context characteristics (i.e., quality) of the information. When the information moves from one context to another, it may be misinterpreted (e.g., sender expressed the price in French francs, receiver assumed that it meant US dollars.) This paper describes various forms of context challenges and examples of potential context mediation services, such as data semantics acquisition, data quality attributes, and evolving semantics and quality, that can mitigate the problem.