A design-phase quality model of u-service ontology for evaluating dynamic service composition

Abstract

Efficient service description and modeling methodologies are essential for dynamic service composition to provide autonomous services for users in ubiquitous computing environments. In our previous research, we proposed 'u-service' ontology which is an abstract and structured concept for device operations in ubiquitous environments. One of the problems that we face during the design process is that there are not enough standards to analyze the effectiveness of the u-service ontology. In this paper, we propose a quality evaluation model to facilitate the design process of a u-service ontology. We extract modeling goals and evaluation indicators based on characteristics of the uservice ontology. We also present quality metrics to quantify each quality characteristics. The experiment result of the proposed quality model shows that we can use it to analyze the design of a u-service ontology from various angles. Also, it shows that the model can provide a guideline, and offer appropriate recommendations for improvement. © 2010 IEEE.