Specifying Semantic Email Processes

Prior work has shown that semantic email processes (SEPs) can be an effective tool for automating emailmediated tasks that are currently performed manually in a tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone manner. However, specifying a SEP can be difficult to accomplish, even for users familiar with RDF and semantic email. In response, this paper considers an approach for specifying SEP templates that can be authored once but then instantiated many times by untrained users. We describe the template language and provide a complete example, highlighting the key features needed to enable general SEPs. We then examine a number of challenges related to SEP authoring. In particular, we discuss the problem of verifying that a given template will always produce a valid instantiation and give the computational complexity of this problem. In addition, we discuss how to simplify the task of SEP authoring (and improve execution quality) by automatically generating explanations for the actions performed in pursuit of a SEP’s goals. Finally, we report on practical experience with our fully deployed system.1