Models at Work

Enterprise models, business process models, information models, etc, are all examples of the broader class of domain models. To ensure the relevance of research into (the many different forms of) domain modelling, it is important to gather insights from the use of domain models in practice. To, indeed, better understand the practical needs for, and use of, domain models, it would be beneficial to have a library of cases in which domain models have played a crucial role. This desire is also shared with other academic events including (in order of their planning in 2023):

  • the GI EMISA (Enterprise Modelling and Information Systems Architectures) workshop,
  • the IFIP 8.1 EMMSAD (Exploring Modelling Methods for Systems Analysis and Design) working conference,
  • the IEEE CBI (Conference on Business Informatics),
  • the ER conference on Conceptual Modelling,
  • the EEWC (Enterprise Engineering) working conference, and
  • the IFIP 8.1 PoEM (Practice of Enterprise Modelling) working conference.

It is the desire of these events to, at least in 2023, include explicit reports on the creation and use of domain models in practice (in science or industry) in a dedicated “Models-at-Work” track.

This shared desire has now resulted in a coordinated effort to gather (and share among the events) case reports regarding the creation and use of models in scientific and industrial practice. The longer term ambition is to create an annual “Models-at-Work” post-proceedings / special issue involving the case reports within that year. In line with this, the plan is to have an ongoing call, across the associated events, for such case reports. Each case report will be reviewed in a process similar to the submission of papers to a journal. In other words, submissions can be re-submitted based on improvements required by the reviewers. Once accepted, the case reports will be available to be presented (in virtual or physical mode) at one of the associated events. The allocation of the accepted case reports to the associated events will be done jointly by the authors and the organisers of the involved events.

The longer-term ambition is to create an annual “Models-at-Work” special issue in the EMISA-Journal, involving the case reports within that year. The resulting library of case reports could be used in (at least) three directions:

  • Science: challenges from the real world are made explicitly visible to researchers.
  • Practice: results from research are illustrated (by way of cases) to practitioners.
  • Teaching: case reports can be used for educational purposes.

More information (including relevant deadlines) can be found at www.models-at-work.org