A Methodology for Evolving E-Contracts Using Templates

E-contract evolves over a period of time due to changes in e-contract environment. E-contract evolution adversely affects the execution of e-contracts. An e-contract is specified by a model at conceptual level, supported by a database management system (DBMS) at logical level and by both DBMS and workflow management system (WFMS) at implementation level. Any changes in the design as well as runtime environment during e-contract enactment must be reflected at all levels. Conventional modeling approaches simply model the e-contracts as specified workflows and execute them. Since, e-contracts are complex in nature, such models have to undergo large number of transformations during e-contract enactment. Metamodeling approach guides the correctness of transformed models by generating appropriate model instances according to e-contract constraints to support evolution. A metamodel has structural artifacts to capture the relationships among contract elements and model the required specifications and semantics present in an e-contract as a template. In this paper, we develop 1) an active metamodeling approach by a) introducing the taxonomy of evolution operations and b) handling metaevents to facilitate the structural and behavioral conformance during e-contracts evolution, and 2) an $({\rm ER}^{\ast{\rm EC}})$ architecture for enacting evolving e-contracts. Our methodology actively capture behavior features from e-contract executions to drive e-contract evolution.