The use of different modeling languages in software development makes their integration a must. Most existing integration approaches are meta-model-based with these metamodels representing both an abstract syntax of the corresponding modeling language and also a data structure for storing models. This implementation specific focus, however, does not make explicit certain language concepts, which can complicate integration tasks. Hence, we propose a process which semi-automatically lifts metamodels into ontologies by making implicit concepts in the metamodel explicit in the ontology. Thus, a shift of focus from the implementation of a certain modeling language towards the explicit reification of the concepts covered by this language is made. This allows matching on a solely conceptual level, which helps to achieve better results in terms of mappings that can in turn be a basis for deriving implementation specific transformation code.
['Gerti Kappel', 'Elisabeth Kapsammer', 'Horst Kargl', 'Gerhard Kramler', 'Thomas Reiter', 'Werner Retschitzegger', 'Wieland Schwinger', 'Manuel Wimmer']
Lifting metamodels to ontologies : A step to the semantic integration of modeling languages