Abstract
Modeling landscapes in organizations suffer from the problem of information silos, where a number of process models, business rule repositories and other information artefacts may exist concurrently for the same business activity. In this paper, we investigate integrating business process models and business rules. Prior literature presents three such approaches, namely text annotation, diagrammatic, and link integration. We evaluate these approaches from a cognitive load perspective and measure the value of integration from three perspectives: understanding accuracy, mental effort and time efficiency. Our results indicate that diagrammatic integration is associated with better understanding accuracy than text annotation and link integration, but may require more mental effort and time under certain conditions. We also found that the integration approach partially influences mental effort and time efficiency. Further insights from our empirical analysis reveal relationships between process model constructs, integration approaches and cognitive load, especially how approaches applied to models with specific characteristics, impact on process understanding and cognitive load.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For more specifications of eye tracker, please visit https://www.tobiipro.com/product-listing/tobii-pro-tx300/.
- 2.
Model originated from a travel booking diagram in OMG’s BPMN 2.0 examples can be viewed in http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?dtc/10-06-02.
- 3.
Model adopted from Signavio website can be viewed in https://www.signavio.com/post/process-thinking-insurance/.
- 4.
The experiment materials can be download from https://www.dropbox.com/sh/eiow8c3z6u4vx7w/AACm44dstgRm2KRLJBRzwF8Na?dl=0.
- 5.
The Shapiro-Wilk test is a test of normality.
- 6.
Levene’s test is an inferential statistic used to assess the equality of variances for a variable calculated for two or more groups.
- 7.
Tukey’s HSD is a post-hoc analysis of ANOVA that can be used to find means that are significantly different from each other.
- 8.
Kruskal-Wallis test is a non-parametric method when there are more than two groups.
- 9.
Dunn’s test is a non-parametric multiple comparison post-hoc test of Kruskal-Wallis test.
References
Burton-Jones, A., Meso, P.N.: Conceptualizing systems for understanding: an empirical test of decomposition principles in object-oriented analysis. Inf. Syst. Res. 17, 38–60 (2006)
Chen, F., et al.: Robust Multimodal Cognitive Load Measurement. HIS. Springer, Cham (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31700-7
Cheng, R., Sadiq, S., Indulska, M.: Framework for business process and rule integration: a case of BPMN and SBVR. In: Abramowicz, W. (ed.) BIS 2011. LNBIP, vol. 87, pp. 13–24. Springer, Heidelberg (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21863-7_2
Duchowski, A.T.: Eye Tracking Methodology: Theory and Practice. Springer, London (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84628-609-4
Figl, K., Laue, R.: Influence factors for local comprehensibility of process models. Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud. 82, 96–110 (2015)
Gemino, A., Wand, Y.: A framework for empirical evaluation of conceptual modeling techniques. Requir. Eng. 9(4), 248–260 (2004)
Governatori, G., Shek, S.: Rule based business process compliance. In: Proceedings of the RuleML2012@ ECAI Challenge, article 5 (2012)
Green, P.F., Rosemann, M.: Perceived ontological weaknesses of process modeling techniques: further evidence. In: Proceedings of the ECIS, pp. 312–321 (2002)
Gruhn, V., Laue, R.: Adopting the cognitive complexity measure for business process models. In: 5th IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Informatics (ICCI 2006), Beijing, China (2006)
Haji, F.A., Rojas, D., Childs, R., de Ribaupierre, S., Dubrowski, A.: Measuring cognitive load: performance, mental effort and simulation task complexity. Med. Educ. 49, 815–827 (2015)
Hogrebe, F., Gehrke, N., Nüttgens, M.: Eye tracking experiments in business process modeling: agenda setting and proof of concept. In: Proceedings of EMISA 2011, pp. 183–188 (2011)
Just, M.A., Carpenter, P.A.: Eye fixations and cognitive processes. Cogn. Psychol. 8, 441–480 (1976)
Kappel, G., Rausch-Schott, S., Retschitzegger, W.: Coordination in workflow management systems — a rule-based approach. In: Conen, W., Neumann, G. (eds.) ASIAN 1996. LNCS, vol. 1364, pp. 99–119. Springer, Heidelberg (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0027102
Knolmayer, G., Endl, R., Pfahrer, M.: Modeling processes and workflows by business rules. In: van der Aalst, W., Desel, J., Oberweis, A. (eds.) Business Process Management. LNCS, vol. 1806, pp. 16–29. Springer, Heidelberg (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45594-9_2
McBrien, P., Seltveit, A.H.: Coupling process models and business rules. In: Sölvberg, A., Krogstie, J., Seltveit, A.H. (eds.) Information Systems Development for Decentralized Organizations. ITIFIP, pp. 201–217. Springer, Boston (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-34871-1_12
Meghanathan, R.N., van Leeuwen, C., Nikolaev, A.R.: Fixation duration surpasses pupil size as a measure of memory load in free viewing. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 8, 1063 (2015)
Melcher, J., Mendling, J., Reijers, H.A., Seese, D.: On measuring the understandability of process models. In: Rinderle-Ma, S., Sadiq, S., Leymann, F. (eds.) BPM 2009. LNBIP, vol. 43, pp. 465–476. Springer, Heidelberg (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12186-9_44
Melcher, J., Seese, D.: Towards validating prediction systems for process understandability: measuring process understandability (experimental results). Research report, Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Institut AIFB (2008)
Mendling, J., Reijers, H.A., Cardoso, J.: What makes process models understandable? In: Alonso, G., Dadam, P., Rosemann, M. (eds.) BPM 2007. LNCS, vol. 4714, pp. 48–63. Springer, Heidelberg (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75183-0_4
Mendling, J., Reijers, H.A., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Seven process modeling guidelines (7PMG). Inf. Softw. Technol. 52, 127–136 (2010)
Mendling, J., Strembeck, M.: Influence factors of understanding business process models. In: Abramowicz, W., Fensel, D. (eds.) BIS 2008. LNBIP, vol. 7, pp. 142–153. Springer, Heidelberg (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-79396-0_13
Mendling, J., Strembeck, M., Recker, J.: Factors of process model comprehension—findings from a series of experiments. Decis. Support Syst. 53, 195–206 (2012)
Paas, F., Tuovinen, J.E., Tabbers, H., Van Gerven, P.W.M.: Cognitive load measurement as a means to advance cognitive load theory. Educ. Psychol. 38, 63–71 (2003)
Petrusel, R., Mendling, J.: Eye-tracking the factors of process model comprehension tasks. In: Salinesi, C., Norrie, M.C., Pastor, Ó. (eds.) CAiSE 2013. LNCS, vol. 7908, pp. 224–239. Springer, Heidelberg (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38709-8_15
Petrusel, R., Mendling, J., Reijers, H.A.: Task-specific visual cues for improving process model understanding. Inf. Softw. Technol. 79, 63–78 (2016)
Recker, J.: Empirical investigation of the usefulness of Gateway constructs in process models. Eur. J. Inf. Syst. 22, 673–689 (2012)
Recker, J., Rosemann, M., Green, P.F., Indulska, M.: Do ontological deficiencies in modeling grammars matter? MIS Q. 35, 57–79 (2011)
Reijers, H., Mendling, J., Dijkman, R.: Human and automatic modularizations of process models to enhance their comprehension. Inf. Syst. 36, 881–897 (2011)
Rima, A., Vasilecas, O., Šmaižys, A.: Comparative analysis of business rules and business process modeling languages. Comput. Sci. Tech. 1(1), 52–60 (2013)
Rolón, E., Garcia, F., Ruiz, F., Piattini, M., Visaggio, C.A., Canfora, G.: Evaluation of BPMN models quality - a family of experiments. In: ENASE, pp. 56–63 (2008)
Sánchez-González, L., GarcÃa, F., Mendling, J., Ruiz, F.: Quality assessment of business process models based on thresholds. In: Meersman, R., Dillon, T., Herrero, P. (eds.) OTM 2010. LNCS, vol. 6426, pp. 78–95. Springer, Heidelberg (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16934-2_9
Sapkota, B., van Sinderen, M.: Exploiting rules and processes for increasing flexibility in service composition. In: 2010 14th IEEE International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference Workshops (EDOCW), pp. 177–185. IEEE (2010)
Turetken, O., Rompen, T., Vanderfeesten, I., Dikici, A., van Moll, J.: The effect of modularity representation and presentation medium on the understandability of business process models in BPMN. In: La Rosa, M., Loos, P., Pastor, O. (eds.) BPM 2016. LNCS, vol. 9850, pp. 289–307. Springer, Cham (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45348-4_17
Wang, W., Indulska, M., Sadiq, S.: Cognitive efforts in using integrated models of business processes and rules - semantic scholar. In: Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE Workshop), Ljubljana, Slovenia. Springer (2016)
Wang, W., Indulska, M., Sadiq, S.: To integrate or not to integrate – the business rules question. In: Nurcan, S., Soffer, P., Bajec, M., Eder, J. (eds.) CAiSE 2016. LNCS, vol. 9694, pp. 51–66. Springer, Cham (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39696-5_4
Wang, W., Indulska, M., Sadiq, S., Weber, B.: Effect of linked rules on business process model understanding. In: Carmona, J., Engels, G., Kumar, A. (eds.) BPM 2017. LNCS, vol. 10445, pp. 200–215. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65000-5_12
Weitlaner, D., Guettinger, A., Kohlbacher, M.: Intuitive comprehensibility of process models. In: Fischer, H., Schneeberger, J. (eds.) S-BPM ONE 2013. CCIS, vol. 360, pp. 52–71. Springer, Heidelberg (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36754-0_4
Zugal, S., Pinggera, J., Weber, B., Mendling, J., Reijers, H.A.: Assessing the impact of hierarchy on model understandability – a cognitive perspective. In: Kienzle, J. (ed.) MODELS 2011. LNCS, vol. 7167, pp. 123–133. Springer, Heidelberg (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29645-1_14
Zur Muehlen, M., Indulska, M., Kittel, K.: Towards integrated modeling of business processes and business rules. In: Proceedings of the 19th Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS)-Creating the Future: Transforming Research into Practice, Christchurch, New Zealand, pp. 690–697. Citeseer (2008)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Chen, T., Wang, W., Indulska, M., Sadiq, S. (2018). Business Process and Rule Integration Approaches - An Empirical Analysis. In: Weske, M., Montali, M., Weber, I., vom Brocke, J. (eds) Business Process Management Forum. BPM 2018. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 329. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98651-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98651-7_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-98650-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-98651-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)