Interoperation among agent-based information systems through a communication acts ontology

Information technology is evolving from focusing on local systems to encompassing a more global interaction among multiple systems in enterprises and communities. On the one hand, new advances in the area of network communications have facilitated in some way the intercommunication among heterogeneous information systems located at different places. However, what is still missing is the possibility of a real and efficient interoperation among those systems in an open environment as the one favoured by Internet. On the other hand, agent technology provides platforms where cooperative work of information systems is concernable because of the software agents working on behalf of these information systems. But, nowadays that cooperation is in general restricted and requires a laborious a priori preparation. In this paper we present the features of a formal ontology that can play a relevant role in the development of a new kind of information systems interoperation frameworks. The ontology includes classes and properties for describing communication acts among agents. We claim that the communication acts ontology provides interoperability support due to the recognition of communication acts from one Agent Communication Language (ACL) as instances of communication acts in another ACL. Sometimes the comprehension will not be complete, but partial comprehension of the communication may be useful and preferable to the "not understood" answer given nowadays. Terms of the ontology are described as classes or properties using the Web Ontology Language OWL. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.