Smart Services for Knowledge Integration - ontologiebasierte Dienste zur Unterstützung der kollaborativen Wissensarbeit in Innovationsnetzwerken

In course of the European project AVALON, highly innovative ontology-based services (Smart Services) for supporting collaboration in knowledge-intensive industrial innovation networks (Smart Networks) were defined and prototypically implemented. Due to the immanent complexity of the general innovation problem in networks, Smart Networks are facing multi-level (1) knowledge integration, (2) network coordination and (3) communication problems. To partially solve these problems, semantic means for structuring and harmonizing network knowledge bases, supporting network management as well as enabling appropriate communication strategies are elaborated in this doctoral thesis. Smart Services are knowledge-based IT services that provide analysis and inferencing functionalities in order to answer domain specific performance questions. The services are modeled and implemented according to web services standards by using formal semantics, graphical ontology editors, and conventional inference engines. Based on the Ontology Driven Architecture (ODA) idea of W3C the Ontologydriven Service Development Method was set up as a holistic approach for developing Smart Services. In addition a formal method for evaluating Smart Services prototypes as well as a dedicated Smart Services User Interface was acquired. In comparison to state-of-the-art ontology approaches, Smart Services combine Semantic Modeling as well as Service Development principles by applying formal ontologies as (A) knowledge models for communication and specification of (B) service functionalities that are realized and implemented as Smart Services. As a result, 37 Smart Services for knowledge integration in Smart Networks as well as the Collaborative Innovation Ontology (CIO) for Smart Networking are ready to be re-used and adapted in context of future collaborative innovation initiatives. Thus, this work does not only contribute to the field of research Applied Ontologies but provides practical implications for tomorrow’s effective and efficient knowledge-driven network management principles