A Conceptual Graphs Approach for Business Rules Modeling

Business knowledge is the major asset of business organizations, which empowers them not only to survive, but also make proactive decisions in rapidly changing business situation. Therefore mapping business knowledge to the computable form is the primary task for information systems research. Structuring business knowledge using business rules approach is convenient for both business representatives and system analysts. However, the question of modeling language is still open and different approaches are discussed in the literature. In this paper, conceptual graphs are considered as one of the suitable modeling languages. It is proposed to add a new element rule base to conceptual graphs element knowledge base for explicit business rules modeling in order to satisfy the important requirement of business rules systems – business rules must be addressed explicitly. The different business rules classification schemas are discussed with regard to the proposed business rule metamodel and it is shown how to map business rules regardless of their type to the uniform format.