Facilitating Business Interoperability from the Semantic Web

Abstract

Most approaches to B2B interoperability are based on language syntax standardisation, usually by XML Schemas. However, due to XML expressivity limitations, they are difficult to put into practice because language semantics are not available for computerised means. Therefore, there are many attempts to use formal semantics for B2B based on ontologies. However, this is a difficult jump as there is already a huge XML-based B2B framework and ontology-based approaches lack momentum. Our approach to solve this impasse is based on a direct and transparent transfer of existing XML Schemas and XML data to the semantic world. This process is based on a XML Schema to web ontology mapping combined with an XML data to semantic web data one. Once in the semantic space, it is easier to integrate different business standards using ontology alignment tools and to develop business information systems thanks to semantics-aware tools.