A Contract Agreement Policy-Based Workflow Methodology for Agents Interacting in the Semantic Web

K. Kravari, G. Kastori, N. Bassiliades, G. Governatori, “A Contract Agreement Policy-Based Workflow Methodology for Agents Interacting in the Semantic Web”, Semantic Web Rules, Proc. 4th International Web Rule Symposium (RuleML 2010), Springer, 6403, pp. 225-239, Washington, DC, USA, 2010.

The Semantic Web aims at automating Web content understanding and user request satisfaction. Intelligent agents assist towards this by performing complex actions on behalf of their users into real-life applications, such as e-Contracts, which make transactions simple by modeling the processes involved. This paper, presents a policy-based workflow methodology for efficient contract agreement among agents interacting in the Semantic Web. In addition, we present the integration of this methodology into a multi-agent knowledgebased framework, providing flexibility, reusability and interoperability of behavior between agents. The main advantage of our approach is that it provides a safe, generic, and reusable framework for modeling and monitoring e-Contract agreements, which could be used for different types of on-line transactions among agents. Furthermore, our framework is based on Semantic Web and FIPA standards, to maximize interoperability and reusability. Finally, an e-Commerce contract negotiation scenario is presented that illustrates the usability of the approach.