Adegboyega Ojo

Lukasz Porwol

Mohammad Waqar

Arkadiusz Stasiewicz

Edobor Osagie

Michael Hogan

Owen Harney

Fatemeh Ahmadi Zeleti

Realizing the Innovation Potentials from Open Data: Stakeholders' Perspectives on the Desired Affordances of Open Data Environment

Keywords: Open Data, Transparency, Open Data Platforms

des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

Currently, there are over 519 open data portals or catalogs available globally 2 and over 8,000 datasets published in the European Union (EU) Open Data Portal [13] in response to calls for unprecedented government openness and the EU's Public Section Information directive [START_REF] Colpaert | A three-level data publishing portal[END_REF]. Unfortunately, barriers such as limited access to open data by citizens and third-parties and lack of dedicated resources on the part of government organizations to sustainably publish datasets of high value [START_REF] Janssen | Benefits, adoption barriers and myths of open data and open government[END_REF] has significantly limited the expected innovation and benefits of open data. While releasing data on processes and decisions of governments should, in general, improve transparency, recent studies have shown that transparency does not only depend on how visible information is made but also on how understandable the information is. Few studies like [START_REF] Peled | Effective Openness -The Role of Open Data 2 . 0 in a Wider Transparency Program[END_REF] have discussed the importance of open data platforms in enhancing A. Ojo et al. transparency through features for accessing, using and collaborating on open data. In our opinion, the innovation potentials of open data are significantly impacted by the transparency-related affordances of the underlying open data platforms. Therefore, we believe that a good understanding of the limitations of existing platforms and the stakeholders' needs with respect to transparency-related affordances of open data platforms, is imperative for harnessing open data resources held on them. Albeit there are a few existing studies on Open Data Platforms such as [START_REF] Group | Technical Assessment of Open Data Platforms for National A[END_REF], none of these studies explicitly address the affordances of these platforms regarding their explicit support for both data and organizational transparency. Building on our previous work reported in [START_REF] Ojo | Pathologies of Open Data Platform and Desired Transparency-Related Affordances for Future Platforms[END_REF], the study presented here fills this gap by first reviewing the features of eleven open data platforms. The selected features are those that impact on the accessibility and understandability (or transparency) of datasets managed on the platforms. The eleven platforms were reviewed in this study include: CKAN [START_REF]CKAN Open Data Portal Platform[END_REF], DKAN [START_REF]DKAN[END_REF], Socrata [27], PublishMyData [START_REF]PublishMyData Linked Data Publising Platform[END_REF], Information Workbench [16], Enigma [START_REF]Enigma Publich Data Search[END_REF], Junar [START_REF]Junar Open Data Platform[END_REF], OpenDataSoft [START_REF]OpenDataSoft SaaS Platform[END_REF], Callimachus [START_REF]Callimachus Project[END_REF], DataTank [START_REF] Datatank | [END_REF] and Semantic MediaWiki [26]. Next, the paper describes findings from the expert interviews and collective intelligence workshop co-organized with with the Dublin City Council to identify perceived shortcomings of current generation open data platform and the desired features of next generation ones from the perspectives of different categories of open data stakeholders. The rest paper is structured as follows: Section 2 provides an extensive review of existing platforms, Section 3 presents the methodology for the review and evaluation while Section 4 reviews the findings from the study, Section 5 discusses our findings, while concluding remarks are given in Section 6.

Review of Existing Platforms

Platform, in general, as a concept comprises three aspects: (1) a stable low-variety core, (2) a changeable set of complements and (3) interfaces which enable core and complements to operate as a single system [START_REF] Baldwin | The Architecture of Platforms: A Unified View[END_REF]. In our study, we consider an Open Data Platform to be a software platform which comprises a software ecosystem that supports different end-user interactions with open data including search and discovery of datasets, publishing of datasets, analysis and visualization of datasets as well as sharing and development of stories from datasets. As part of the background study to our investigation, we reviewed eleven open data platforms based on some features which we considered pertinent for both data and organizational transparency.Data transparency is related to the accessibility and understandability of data. Organizational transparency relates to the degree to which both internal and external agents can observe or access different kinds of information about its functioning [START_REF] Keane | Monitory Democracy and Media-saturated Societies[END_REF]. These platforms were selected based on their popularity and availbility of them. A brief description of the features and our observations are explained as follows:

Metadata Schema and Data File Formats: open data platforms supports different metadata schema and a variety of data file formats. Metadata refers to information about the dataset which includes information such as the title, author, subjects, keywords, publisher, revision history, changes, and the source of data. Metadata also includes structural information about the data such as keys, indexes, columns. Search facility for datasets: contemporary platforms provide keyword-based search capability on metadata associated with the dataset and filtering of results; emerging platforms such as Enigma offer record-level search capability and information filtering at multiple levels.

Social Media and Collaboration: increasingly available platforms allow interaction between users through social sharing features. Specifically, the feature enables users to comment, share, review, and rate available datasets.

Dataset Publishing: supports dataset publishing process including dataset refinement, upload, and linking to other datasets.

Federation and Harvesting: Federation allows data replication across different instances of a platform; enabling seamless integration between the various independent platform instances. This allows searching across multiple instances of the platform. Harvesting allows automated extraction of data from different open data sources and catalogs into a one more more catalogs.

Extensibility mechanism: this feature enable adaptation and extension of the platform with complementary features through mechanisms such as APIs and libraries, connectors, plugins and extensions.

Data Analysis tools: features enables simple statistical operations, online analytical processing (OLAP) operations, use of dashboards and analysis widgets. It also provides access to external analytical tools such as R Programming Language.

Visualisation tools: feature enables the use of maps and charts in visualizing datasets. It employs existing maps services such as OpenStreetMaps, Google and Bing maps. Also, libraries such as D3.js and recline.js are supported.

Personalization tools: this feature allows users to modify the platform's look-andfeel for branding purposes and adopt specific portal view for different users based on desired preferences. This could include how datasets and search results are displayed.

Customization tools: feature allows the portal administrators to define the metadata schema, extensions to use and configuration of the data store and limits.

Dataset licensing service: feature allows licensing information to be added to the dataset as one of the metadata information.

Resource Accessibility: features enables access the data through APIs. These APIs provides clear specifications for external requests using protocols such as REST (Representational State Transfer) or SOAP (Simple Object Access protocol) services.

Technical Environment: describes the programming environment of the open data platform; a vital information for extension of platforms. Others: We capture here all other features available on the platforms such as data download statistics that could impact on the accessibility of datasets.

Table 2 presents the summary of features for each of the eleven platforms reviewed. Summary of our observations on their features are discussed in Section 4 while the we refer the reader to [START_REF][END_REF] for detailed discussion.

Research Objectives

The aim of the study is to determine the needs of stakeholders regarding the desirable affordances of the next-generation open data platform that could reduce the barriers to the adoption and use of open data. The work explicitly aims at answering the following questions:

Q1) To what extent are transparency-enhancing features supported on selected open data platforms? In answering this question, we adopted a set of criteria that enable direct and indirect support for dataset transparency and socialisation around datasets for evaluating selected platforms. These criteria were partly based on past studies [START_REF] Group | Technical Assessment of Open Data Platforms for National A[END_REF]. The identification of remaining features (done iteratively) was based on whether the features will impact data and organizational transparency. Finally, the twelve features elaborated in Section 2 were employed for the analysis -Metadata, Data and File Formats; Flexible search facility for datasets; Social Media, and Collaboration; Dataset Publishing; Federation and Harvesting; Data Analysis; Visualisation tools; Personalisation; Customisation; Dataset licensing; Accessibility and Extensibility mechanisms. We also reviewed extant literature on open data platforms.

Q2) What are the perceived limitations of open data platforms?

To tackle this question, we considered the barriers identified by stakeholders during the collective intelligence workshops and interviews that are related to data transparency and organizational transparency. We associated these barriers with specific stakeholder categories and specified the nature of transparency quality impacted by each barrier. We present the analytical model for Transparency Qualities in Section 3.2.

Q3) What specific platform features suggested by

Stakeholders? To answer this question, contributed solutions to identified barriers provided by stakeholders during interviews and workshops were analysed. The specific features were organized under three categories including a) information needs of stakeholders -what kinds of datasets do stakeholders highlight as important for them? b) social and collaboration needs -what features relate how stakeholders wish to interact and collaboratively make sense of the published data? c) understandability, usability, and decision making needs -what platform features do stakeholders desire to be able to carry out inferences on datasets, enable easy sense-making of data and make decisions based on available data.

Analytical Framework

Our study is conceptually grounded in computer-mediated transparency characterized by Meijer in [START_REF] Meijer | Understanding modern transparency[END_REF]. Computer-mediated transparency is characterised as unidirectional or one-way between parties involved in the transparency relationship and A. Ojo et al. decontextualized regarding information being shared. As a necessary condition for any form of transparency, computer-mediated transparency should ensure that external or receiving parties are capable of processing the information that has been made available [START_REF] Heald | Varieties of transparency[END_REF]. Thus, in our study, we argue, that open data platforms features should explicitly mediate effective transparency in terms of access and understandability. In particular, our study conceptualizes transparency as a quality which should be "satisficed" by an open data platform [START_REF] Cappelli | Managing Transparency Guided by a Maturity Model. 3rd Global Conference os Transparency Research[END_REF]. Specifically, we employ the deconstruction of the transparency construct described in [START_REF] Cappelli | Managing Transparency Guided by a Maturity Model. 3rd Global Conference os Transparency Research[END_REF] as shown in Figure 1 to underpin our analysis of pathologies and platform-related barriers.

Data Gathering

We employed four data gathering methods in this study. The first source of information is extant literature on open data platforms. The second source of information is the survey of selected open data platforms through hands-on use and exploration of selected platforms in addition to review of accompanying documentations. Expert interviews are the third source of information. Lastly, we conducted a Collective Intelligence (CI) workshop involving stakeholders such as publishers, data intermediaries and wrangler, platform developers and end-users.

The CI workshop was co-organized with Dublin City Council in April 2015 to identify and to understand the perceived barriers and issues with using the current set of open data platforms and essential and expected features in the next generation platforms. There were ten participants in the workshop from different stakeholders' categories including data consumers, suppliers, mediators or intermediaries and Enablers. Data consumers are end-users of open data as the general public or apps developers. Data suppliers include all entities involved in the publishing of datasets, Non-Governmental organizations or private sector entities.

Results

Features of Existing Platforms

We studied the features available on the platforms by analysing extant literature and documentations about the platforms in addition to a systematic review of selected instances of these platforms. We observed that CKAN, DKAN, Sokrata and Semantic MediaWiki are clear outliers by providing fully-developed features that support between nine and twelve of the review criteria described in Section 2 (details presented in Table 2). Other solutions support between one and seven fully-functional features. Nevertheless, while the use of social media, personalisation and customisation of platform features are common in state-of-the-art platforms, the support for metadata schema adaptation, advanced visualisation of datasets and granular accessibility of datasets are limited. Features such as availability of publishing pipelines were also found to be relatively limited on existing platforms. Personalisation and customisation features are very common features of existing platforms and most of these platforms also support social media integration for social sharing and posting to social media pages. Table 2 provides a summary of features for the eleven platforms.

Platform Pathologies

This section presents our findings based on the analysis of the information captured from the interviews and workshop sessions about barriers and limitations of current open data platforms, and the desired affordances to address the identified shortcomings. The categories of stakeholders engaged include consumers, enablers, suppliers, and mediators of open data.

The findings show that the most common obstacle for using of open data platforms is perceived the poor quality of open data provided on the platforms. According to the stakeholders, poor data quality is largely characterised by poor metadata, failure to present data appropriately to different audience and difficulty in locating data of interest. Other barriers are related to irrelevancy of datasets, the poor usability of platforms and lack of examples of the prior use of available datasets. We highlight in Table 3 some of the issues identified by stakeholders. For each obstacle identified we specified a category for the problem such as "Non-relevancy" or "Poor awareness" and and also associated the barrier with a high-level transparency quality attribute (such as Accessibility) and a more specific quality attribute like "Availability". This coding is underpinned by the model described in Section 3. Poor usability stood out as the most prominent shortcoming.

Desired Affordances

The desired essential features contributed by stakeholders for next generation open data platforms which were obtained from workshop and interviews were grouped under three related categories: 1) Information needs, 2) Social and Collaboration, and 3) Understandability, Usability and Decision making needs.

On the information need, stakeholders requested future platforms to ensure easy access to datasets related to their immediate environment and communities. They also requested the inclusion of datasets of interests: crime statistics, public health data as well as data about the environment. In addition, stakeholders demanded dataset rating, feedback comments on datasets, collaborative curation of datasets, prioritization and voting on dataset requests. Furthermore, stakeholders requested incentives for the use of platform through reward system and gamification under the social and collaborative needs. For better understandability, usability and improved decision-making on the upcoming platforms, stakeholders demanded customizable dashboards, custom visualization tools, data mining tools, support for linked data and map-based search. Some also demanded for a question and answering features. Details of the desired affordances are shown in Table 4.

Discussion

The contemporary open data platforms provide limited data cataloging features and largely lack interactivity, which implies low user engagement. While the design of the current open data platforms aligns well with the technical users needs (developers and data scientists); the findings from our study show that ordinary end-users (members of the public) require more usability and user-friendliness as an imperative for improved transparency. We argue that the principle of citizen-centric and one-stop service design applied to e-government e-services portals should be mapped onto the next generation open data portals, in order to offer the public with a one-stop access to "data services". In particular, we argue that tools supporting social interaction between platform users are very essential for improved transparency in the context of monitorial, deliberative as well as participatory democracy [START_REF] Meijer | Understanding modern transparency[END_REF] [19] [START_REF] Meijer | Government Transparency in Historical Perspective: From the Ancient Regime to Open Data in The Netherlands[END_REF]. Specifically, based on the feedback received from the interviewed experts and workshop participants, features like content sharing and possibility to discuss around datasets are pivotal. The integration of social media platform with an open data platform was one of the key subjects of the research reported in [START_REF] Alexopoulos | Designing a second generation of open data platforms: integrating open data and social media[END_REF]. Moreover, the stakeholders expressed a strong need for anonymity while using open data. This observation supports the thesis that citizens perceive open data portals as a government-owned website and fear that their privacy may be endangered. Our findings are consistent with Open Data Barometer report [9][10]. We argue that, the next generation open data platforms should augment and extend the existing solutions. Therefore, based on the review of the contemporary platforms we have identified platforms implementing open architecture that can be extended to accommodate new desired features. We observed that platforms like CKAN, DKAN and Semantic MediaWiki are the best candidates as they are most extensible, free and open source. Moreover the platforms provide a rich set of extension mechanisms with a set of guidelines for supporting developers in building new extensions. Callimachus and DataTank platforms are also open source and could be modified however considering no explicit extension mechanism implemented, any modifications would require significantly more effort. Thus, we believe that existing platforms provide a good foundation for next-generation platforms with the desirable set of affordances.

Conclusions

In

  Metadata information enables search capabilities and enables interoperability between different open data platforms. Several file formats are associated with the datasets managed on open data platform. Example of file formats include CSV, JSON, XLS, RDF, PDF and HTML.

Figure 1 :

 1 Figure 1: Transparency Qualities and Sub-Qualities [5]

Table 2 : Summary of Platform Features

 2

	FEATURES	CKAN	DKAN	SOCRATA	PUBLISH MY	DATA	INFO	WKBENCH	ENIGMA	JUNAR	ODS	CALLIM	DATATK	SMWIKI
	DATA, METADATA & FILE FORMAT	Full	Limited	Full	Limited	Limited	Limited	Limited	Full	Full	Limited	Limited
	STANDARDS SEARCH & INDEXING	Full	Limited Limited	Full	NO	F u l l	Limited	Full	NO	Limited	F u l l
	SOCIAL MEDIA, SHARING &	Full	Full	Full	Limited	Limited	NO	Full	Full	Limited	NO	Full
	COLLABORATION PUBLISHING PIPELINE /	Full	Full	Full	Limited	Limited	Limited	Full	Limited	Limited	Limited	Limited
	WORKFLOW HARVESTING, FEDERATION &	Full	Full	Full	Limited	NO	NO	Full	Full	Limited	NO	Limited
	CATALOGUE DATA ANALYTICS	Limited	Full	Full	NO	Full	Full	Limited	Limited	NO	Full	NO
	VISUALISATION	Limited	Limited	Full	NO	Limited	NO	Full	Full	NO	NO	Limited
	PERSONALISATION Full	Full	Full	Full	Full	NO	Limited	Full	Limited	Limited	Full
	CUSTOMISATION	Full	Full	Full	Limited	Full	NA	Full	Limited	Limited	Limited	Full
	DATASET LICENSING	Full	Full	Full	Full	NO	NO	NO	Full	NO	NO	Full
	ACCESSIBILITY	Full	Full	Full	Full	Limited	NA	Limited	Limited	Limited	Limited	Full
	EXTENSIBILITY	Full	Full	Full	Limited	Full	Limited	Limited	Limited	Full	Limited	Full
	TECHNOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT	Python	PHP, Drupal CMS	Scala	Ruby on rails	Java & Web apps	NA	Java & Python	NA	Java	PHP	PHP
	OTHERS	Good manual Simple to use	Easy to use platform	Trackin g & Measur e of perfor mance	Flexible , cloud-based, easy to use	R stat, support transpare ncy, linked data	Reliable, scalable, large OD Analyses	Track & measures user impact on OD	Remote web services ment deploy ; easy	Guides, videos, data Linked tutorial.	Deal with fraud, ncy transpare aids	None

Table 4 :

 4 Desired Features in Future Open Data Platforms

	Information needs
	• Inventory of local business people -support local enterprise
	• Key indicators for my neighbourhood (social, crime, environment, health, etc.) for informed
	decision making
	• Local info of all kinds-planning, sports, cultural, commercial, social, councilors -
	Social and Collaborative Needs
	• Support for anonymity
	• Closed loop, share results of interactions & collaborations
	• Contact tools for finding Public Administration, forums, public participation, network, social media
	interaction, twitter, facebook
	• Dataset rating & ranking, Calendar, wall style fast feedback, live chat, comments on dataset, blogs,
	collaborative editing, curating, adding metadata for dataset
	• Support diversity of engagement , creative use of data, inclusion, new knowledge generation from
	data, viral travel of data, expert facilitation of conversations about data, live webcast with feedback,
	newsfeed for decision, prioritisation of data request based on needs/voting Project management tool
	Reward system, gamification, acknowledgement
	• Verification/traceability of account
	Understandability, Usability and decision-making needs
	• Modelling and simulations, Animations e.g. to illustrate changes, Interactive Visualisation and
	Predictive Analytics
	• Customizable Dashboards, Personalisation
	• Data availability over several portable devices; Customised display -pull in from other platforms +
	layer data
	• Support for integration of related datasets
	• Data mining tools & analysis tools for information extraction to support decision-making or
	interface to external tools
	• In-file data descriptors
	• Interactions, 'rate my dataset', submit suggestions on map get feedback
	• Interactive graphical representations as transparency enhancing tools, promote easy reading,

  this work we provide an elaboration on the shortcomings of the current generation and core affordances for future open data platforms. This study complements state-ofthe-art knowledge on open data platforms from the perspective of different stakeholders groups. While related studies have dealt mainly with the technical aspects of the platforms, our findings provide deeper insight on socio-technical issues in general based on the direct contributions of different categories of stakeholders. Guided by our results, we argue, that some open data platforms such as CKAN, Socrata, DKAN, Semantic MediaWiki are extensible and provide suitable support for better data transparency of datasets. Specifically, CKAN, DKAN and Semantic MediaWiki are open-source platforms which standout regarding extendibility. Thus, we consider these platforms as plausible base infrastructure for building next generation open data platforms with significantly improved adoption and use potentials by public administration, citizens and other stakeholders.

Route-To-PA Project, Raising Open and User-friendly Transparency Enhancing Technologies for Public Administrations, H2020 Project, http://routetopa.eu/

Data Portals -A Comprehensive List of Open Data Portals available around the world, http://dataportals.org/

A. Ojo et al.


Noor Jehan Rajper

Stephan Reiff-Marganiec

Qurat-Ul-Ain Nizamani

Towards a Gamified Approach for Enhancing VBE Preparedness for Establishing Virtual Collaborations

Keywords: Gamification, Virtual Organizations, VO Breeding Environment, Motivation, Preparedness

Formation of collaborative settings (virtual organizations, collaborative network organizations, etcetera) is hindered by the lack of trust between unfamiliar but potential partners. Gamification is the application of game design principles to non-game environments. We claim that incorporating the concepts of gamification into Virtual Organisation Breeding Environments (VBEs) leads to building trust between VBE members, as well as motivating them to be proactive members of the VBEs that contribute towards the flourishing of VBEs. This paper explores a novel gamified approach, supported by a suitable methodology, to address the relatively neglected concept of 'preparedness' of VBEs.

Introduction

The organizations around the world are increasingly interested in opportunity-driven, timely and temporary collaborations and cooperation with other organizations [START_REF] Foster | The anatomy of the grid: Enabling scalable virtual organizations[END_REF]. Such collaboration, not only increase their profit but increase their survivability in today's turbulent and constantly changing business markets as well [START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | A framework for virtual organization creation in a breeding environment[END_REF][START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | Creation of virtual organizations in a breeding environment[END_REF][START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | Ecolead: A holistic approach to creation and management of dynamic virtual organizations[END_REF][START_REF] Sadigh | An ontology-based multi-agent virtual enterprise sys-tem (omave): part 1: domain modelling and rule management[END_REF]. However, different factors (such as lack of trust and the non-existence of basic infrastructure that allow for smooth transaction) play a critical role in the timely formation of such collaborations. To support this emerging tendency, long term alliances of autonomous and geographically dispersed organizations called Virtual organization Breeding Environments (VBEs) are being established among organizations, to serve as the base environments for creation of temporary and opportunity-driven collaborations [START_REF] Nathal´ıegaleano | Virtual breeding environment: A first approach to under-stand working and sharing principles[END_REF]. Their main aim is to increase the preparedness of different organizations towards potential temporary collaborations (generally called Virtual Organizations (VOs)) [START_REF] Romero | Mechanisms for assessing and enhancing organisations readiness for collaboration in collaborative networks[END_REF][START_REF] Irigoyen | Virtual breeding environment: Working and sharing principles[END_REF][START_REF] Afsarmanesh | On management of 2nd generation virtual organizations breeding environments[END_REF]. However, in order to increase preparedness of VBEs the definition of the term must be unambiguously and formally defined first. At the moment, these terms mostly remain neglected and vaguely defined as per the situation.

Our hypothesis is that a deeper understanding of preparedness helps in designing applications that better capture the aspects associated with preparedness. Gamification is about capturing intrinsic innate human desires in a playful and fun way and motivating users to achieve certain objectives. We believe that it can provide great value to enhancing preparedness levels in VBEs. The main research questions that this paper addresses are:

• What does preparedness imply during different stages of VBE life-cycle?

• Who are the main players (actors) in VBEs with respect to preparedness?

• What are the behavioural characteristics of these actors in regard to their responsibilities? The novel contributions of this paper are (a) answers to these research questions through an exploration of the feasibility of applying gamification concepts to enhance preparedness of VBEs, (b) design practices (guidelines) which enhance the preparedness depending on the stage of the VBE life-cycle and the actors involved and (c) a language to express objectives and the rules that contribute to their completion.

Background

VOs can be seen as concrete instances or configurations of partners that address a specific goal; VOs are generally seen as being created out of VBEs -which are essentially a pool of possible partners. Our aim in this work is to increase the preparedness of VBEs by tapping into the underlying behaviour shown by VBE members. We are proposing to use gamification as the solution for this matter. We now introduce the concepts of preparedness and gamification. The success of a VBE depends on its own as well as its members' preparedness. VBE preparedness is generally defined as the agreement between members on common interests and general working principles. Interoperability between different infrastructures and processes of member organizations, provision of a basic VBE bag-of-assets to its members, and development of trust are some of the main facets [START_REF] Kasper-Fuehrera | Communicating trustworthiness and building trust in interorganizational virtual organizations[END_REF]. The preparedness and readiness evaluation approaches suggested in the literature offer insights into evaluating VBE members suitability for a VBE and readiness to join a VO once accepted as a member.

While, preparedness of VBE members has been researched to an extent, so far focus has remained on the VBEs members only [START_REF] Romero | Mechanisms for assessing and enhancing organisations readiness for collaboration in collaborative networks[END_REF][START_REF] Rosas | Modeling collaboration preparedness assess-ment[END_REF]. However, a great role in enhancing the preparedness is played by those who actually create and manage the VBE as well.

We divide VBE preparedness into two phases (with respect to the VBE life-cycle): Pre-joining and Post-joining preparedness. Pre-joining preparedness refers to preparedness of potential VBE member organizations (with intention to gain business perks by joining in) that have shown their willingness to join a VBE. Post-joining preparedness applies to existing members of VBE whether business oriented members or those who are running the VBE. Our work utilizes the existing work on pre-joining preparedness [START_REF] Romero | Mechanisms for assessing and enhancing organisations readiness for collaboration in collaborative networks[END_REF][START_REF] Rosas | Modeling collaboration preparedness assess-ment[END_REF] but focuses on exploring the post-joining preparedness.

Gamification is fast emerging as a new trend to increase user engagement, motivation and participation in any system under consideration using game tactics to nongame environments [START_REF] Deterding | Gamification: using game-design elements in non-gaming con-texts[END_REF][START_REF] Deterding | Gamification: designing for motivation[END_REF][START_REF] Sebastian | From game design elements to gamefulness: defining gamification[END_REF]. Gamification is used for many different purposes such as behavioural adaptation of its users, skill development, or innovation (boosting positive competition between employees, resulting in coming up with new and innovative ideas proactively from employees). Game-like elements on top of business logic aim to transform mundane, repetitive and ordinary jobs to include fun and excitement for users. Rather than changing serious application to games a very subtly addition of gameoriented elements increases the acceptability and capture user's interest in using the application, leading to benefits for the organization such as increased job performance, employee satisfaction, or greater revenue generation.

Gamification mainly comprises of three parts, game mechanics, game dynamics and game rules. To implement gamification, we need to first identify the objectives that we want to achieve using gamification. The next step is to choose gamification mechanics and dynamics. Game mechanics represent the (visual) elements that we earn as we play (perform required tasks) such as badges, points, leaderboards, virtual or real goods. Game dynamics represent the behavioural aspect that is targeted by the game rule for motivating the player to act in a certain way. When the mechanics and dynamics have been decided, game rules are devised to proceed in a game like way (such as when player X achieve certain points, assign it a badge).

Users can show two types of behaviour: altruistic or self-centered. Altruistic behaviour captures all forms of selfless human attributes such as philanthropy, community association, or empathy. It is generally motivated by a will to achieve something for the sake of it rather than for gain. Selfish (self-centered) behaviour includes instincts to prosper, or surpassing everybody else. The majority of game mechanics and dynamics fall into this category: usually represented through rewards for actions and symbols to show achievements (e.g. badges). Gartner suggested that by 2014 70% of the global 2000 organizations would have at least one gamified application 1 . They further predicted that out of those 80% would have failed in the coming year or so due to lack of proper thought given in identifying the objectives and the mechanics selected to achieve them 2 . This failure occurs as gamification mechanics and the game rules are explicitly specified by the gamification providing platforms and specification languages, but the objectives are not explicitly specified. This leads to a plethora of game rules but no easy way to tell what objectives they accomplish or what game mechanics and dynamics are used by those rules. Without this understanding observations on actions cannot easily be traced back to the right rules. Besides explicitly specifying the objectives, we should be able to identify what behavioural attributes are targeted by the game rules. Associating objective with the right behaviour will allow for devised plans to achieve the goal to be more directed and hence more likely to succeed.

Methodology and Gamified VBE Preparedness Model

This paper explores the feasibility of providing a gamified solution for enhancing the preparedness of a VBE using gamification. We proposed the following general methodology to gamify any domain:

Step 1. Identify the main actors of the domain and the associated behavioural attributes with respect to a specific property being investigated.

Step 2. Once the domain actors have been identified identify different gamification approaches with similar characteristics as shown by actors identified in step 1.

Step 3. Map domain actors with gamification approaches with similar characteristics.

These mappings then act as a gamified domain model with respect to certain property for a particular domain. These mappings can be used as guideline while selecting game dynamics and mechanics for the game rules in the domain to enhance the concerned property. In our case the domain is a VBE and the property being explored is "preparedness". We will now consider the steps of the methodology in this context.

Step 1: Pre-joining preparedness applies to ordinary VBE members or simply members of a VBE that have joined a VBE to gain some benefit in their respective businesses (we call these businessMembers) and post-joining preparedness applies to business members as well as member managing the VBE (the latter will be called management-Members). managementMembers are members that have created the VBE and taken up the responsibility of day to day management and smooth running of the VBE.

Considering post-joining preparedness in more detail we can distinguish two flavours: a) Structural preparedness and b) Functional preparedness. Structural preparedness encompasses smooth working and management of the VBE itself such as competency management, membership management, VBE bag-of-asset management, etc. It is not of direct interest to business members themselves that take the underlying infrastructure for-granted and join the VBE for sole purpose of gaining business opportunities. It could be said that management members are altruistic in the management tasks. Functional preparedness on the other hand is of direct interest to business members as it is related to currently available and emerging businesses opportunities. Business members have joined the VBE to gain access to more business opportunities or to overcome missing resources and skills. Clearly business members are selfish.

Step 2: Having identified two kinds of actors and their predominant behaviour (selfish business members and altruistic management members), we need to explore gamification approaches. The identified guidelines will help VBE policy developers to derive appropriate game rules (including mechanics and dynamics)

Gamification is designed to target humans' intrinsic behaviour in order to motivate them to strive, engage with others, or any other purposes. As such, at first it might not seem natural to apply the gamification concepts to the management of alliances of different entities most of which are organizations rather than individual users. However, members in VBEs can be different entities ranging from individual users to organizations and since even the interactions between the VBE and a particular organization can be traced down to an individual user representing the organization, the gamification concepts can readily be applied to organizations as well. Earlier we identified that both altruistic and self-centered gamification behaviours exist. These map very naturally onto the identified behaviour of our actors. Altruistic behaviour can be rewarded through for example badges (which have no material value, but reflect a reward for achievement).

We also identified that game rules and objectives are not usually defined in ways that link them explicitly and obviously together. However, we are able to be explicit the specification and development of gamification objectives, the rules that satisfy or accomplish those objectives and the mechanics and dynamics of those game rules. Furthermore, we are able to rewire game rules, game mechanics and dynamics, as well as the objectives they strive to achieve during application execution.

Step 3: We now map between the concepts from step 1 and step 2. The insights gained from exploring preparedness and gamification result in the proposed gamified VBE preparedness model. This model will act as guiding principle when designing rules for specific desired VBE behaviours.

Figure 1 is a representation of the gamified VBE preparedness model. Recall that structural preparedness is for the strengthening the VBE itself and mainly the responsibility of management members which act altruistically. Therefore, the VBE should incorporate mechanics that raise altruistic levels for tackling the structural preparedness. The VBE will also incorporate self-centered approached to increase the functional preparedness of its business members.

GPSL: Gamified Policy Specification Language

The proposed gamified VBE preparedness model serves as a guiding principle while gamifying the VBE domain. However, we need a mechanism to specify, implement and execute the gamification concepts. The event-driven policy paradigm provides the most natural solution: we can easily add a gamification layer on top of the business logic of the domain (VBE). The policy paradigm is quite flexible and adaptable allowing for easy adaptation and change of the game rules at any time. Since, no policy language have built-in construct with concepts and elements of gamification, we have extended APPEL [START_REF] Reiff-Marganiec | Appel: The accent project policy en-vironment/language[END_REF] policy language for gamification. APPEL follows the Event-Condition-Action (ECA) paradigm for policy specification. The basic building block of APPEL is a policy rule which consists of optional trigger(s), optional condition(s) and an action.

A typical APPEL policy is as follows:

Policy policy-name When [trigger(s)] If [condition(s)] Do action(s)

GPSL (Gamified Policy Specification Language) extends APPEL for the VBE domain through the inclusion of a VBEgoal construct. This construct allows for abstract specification of a VBE objective that is going to be achieved through gamification policies.

It has two attributes: a boolean-valued enabled attribute specifies if the VBE objective is currently enabled or disabled. If disabled, all the associated publishedBy and VBEgoal objective-id enabled: boolean effects : VBEaspectEffected { appliesTo: VBE-actors enabled: Boolean preparedness: preparednessType publishedBy: policy1,policy2,..policyn sinkedBy: policy1,policy2,..policyn }

The only other construct of GPSL is the Policy construct. This construct is based on the APPEL policy rule, with one additional attribute: the supportsGoal attribute which links the policy to the VBEgoal it is contributing to. The policies implement game rules. Each policy is either a publishing policy or sinking policy. A publishing policy is one that sets a gamified tasks for the player to accomplish, and entices them with the promise of a perk. A sinking policy is one that is triggered when the gamified task in the associated publishing policy is accomplished by the player. Whether a policy is publishing or sinking can be identified through pub-lishedBy and sinkedBy attributes of VBEgoal description and the actions they execute.

Table 1 lists some of the actions defined by GPSL, each capturing a specific game mechanic and Table 2 lists actions for sinking policies giving a specified reward to the user. At this point, we are aware this list is incomplete and this aspect is being studied further.

toUnlockChallenge (challenge-id, task)

Player is informed that the mentioned challenge can be unlocked for him to play if he fulfills the task.

toSupportVBE (VBEhelpdBedge-id, task)

The player is notified that by doing the task he is contributing for the betterment of VBE and will be appreciated by getting VBEhelpdBedge-id.

toAdvanceLeaderBoard (leaderboardGroup-id, task)

The player is enticed to do the task by improving his current position in the mentioned leaderboard group.

Having VBE objectives explicitly specified and linking the policies that publish as well as sink the tasks associated with the objective allows to, have a structure gamified application. Instead of having a jumbled up mess of different policies, they are divided into separate groups with clear description of the purpose they serve. This allows the analysis of those policies while the application is in operation, and if the required aims are not achieved, the problematic policies can be readily identified and rectified.

The other benefit of this model is that having identified the nature of VBEgoal through its preparedness attribute, and the VBE actor type it applies to, not only helps policy developers in choosing appropriate game mechanics and dynamics, but it also contributes towards the development of policies editors that are able to suggest appro-priate mechanics and dynamics to the policy developer, and in the development of automated analysis tools to assist in analysis if the chosen mechanics and dynamic contradict with the objective sought by the policies.

The concept of gamification is to make players act in a certain way without making them realize that they are actually working for some objective. The VBEgoal therefore is not visible to the player (VBE member in this case). They are only notified when a certain policy (published or sinked) applies to them and the motivation for them to act according to the policy is the promised reward or consequence mentioned in the policy. The player is blissfully kept unaware of the burden of preparedness enhancement or VBE management or its flourishing. Mentioned points are given to the player or group of players. The reasons for this rewards are not specified here as sinking policies are only triggered if their associated publishing policy is satisfied.

badgeEarned(badge-id, member-id/group-id)

Player or group of players earn a badge for fulfilling some criteria such as passing a threshold of points specified in the associated publishing policy.

levelReached(level-id, member-id/group-id)

Player (or group) advances to next level for satisfying the task demanded by the associated publishing policy.

challengeUnlocked(challengeid,member/group-id)

The challenge gets unlocked, but the player (or group of them) has to overcome it yet. challengeAccomplished (challenge-id, member/groupid)

The unlocked challenge has been overcome by the player or group of them.

VBESupported(hBadge-id, member-id/group-id)

Player (or group) gets some of helping VBE badge, for doing the mentioned task. advancedLeaderBoard (leaderboardGroup-id, member/group-id)

The player (or group) is advanced from its current position to the next position.

Case Study

The case study revolves around a VBE in the tourism sector with members with a wide diversity of competencies such as accommodation providers, travel agents, tour guides, and many others offering services such as health insurance, entertainment or telecommunications. The VBE offers its services worldwide through different VOs for different cities.

The management members are responsible for the smooth day-to-day running of VBE. As the managers of VBE they focus on facilitating the creation of new business opportunities. Though they are by default business members as well in this case study we only focus on their role as VBE management providers. Therefore, all the gamification efforts must be focused at enhancing the VBEs structural preparedness through altruistic approaches according to the model (though there can be exceptions a well).

Business members on the other hand have joined the VBE to get more business, expand their reach, overcome their shortcomings, complements their skills and resources and tap into the VBE assets. Hence, the gamified VBE preparedness described these members as self-centered and their gamification policies incorporate self-centered dynamics and enhancement of functional preparedness (again there can be exceptions as well). Let us consider an example Scenario: Creating a sense of community and bond between members. The aim is to introduce benefits for members to introduce their trusted friends to other members to allow future VOs to be able to tap into more partners. Given below is the excerpt describing the objective and related publishing and sinking policies.

VBEgoal communityBuilding enabled: true effects : VBEMembership, {appliesTo: businessMember enabled: true preparedness: structural publishedBy: introduceFriendToVOpartner sinkedBy: VOformedWithUnaquintedMembers } {appliesTo: managementMember enabled: false preparedness: Structural publishedBy: recommendComplementatingMember, ... sinkedBy: VOformedWithRecommendedMembers} Policy introduceFriendToVOpartner supportsGoal communityBuilding, TrustDevelopment When VOterminates (VO-id, success) If memberVO (VO-id, member-id) and friendOf(member-id, friend-id)and no-tAquinted(friend-id, VO-id.members) Do toEarnPoints(points, introduceFriend(VO-id.members, friend-id))

The introduceFriendToVOpartner is a publishing policy that is triggered when a VO successfully terminates. This policy invites all the members of the successfully terminated VO to introduce their friends to the members of the recently terminated VO with the promise of gaining certain points when this acquaintance is realized in the form of new VO creation with at least one of the members from terminated VO and the newly acquainted friend. context) inclusion into a VBE. We attempt to further our current understanding of preparedness, in particular what it implies, once the business member has been added to a VBE as well as preparedness to members managing the VBE and the role of preparedness in the operational phase of a VBE.

Gamification is has been applied in different domains recently [START_REF] Simes | A social gamification framework for a k-6 learning platform[END_REF][START_REF] Hamari | Transforming homo economicus into homo ludens: A field experiment on gamification in a utilitarian peer-to-peer trading service[END_REF][START_REF] Crowley | Gamification of citizen sensing through mobile social report-ing[END_REF], but most of the applications target individual users (players) using the application. In this paper we have shown that gamification concepts can be trivially applied to situations where target players are actually organizations and not just an individual. Other aspects that distinguish our work from the current gamification implementation approaches is that current solutions do not explicitly specify the objective that is to be achieved through different game rules [START_REF] Herzig | Gaml-a modeling language for gamification[END_REF]. This has serious consequence when the size of the application grows, as it becomes increasingly difficult to identify what game rules are trying to achieve and which game rules collective achieve an objective. Our small policy based modelling language revolves around specifying game rules (policies) for an explicitly specified objective. friendOf(memberA, memberB ) Returns true if memberA is a friend of memberB. introducedBy(VOid.memberLst, member-id) competencyComplements ([businessMember1-id, competency-id], [businessMember2-id, competency-id]) )

Returns true when the competencies of two business members complement each other.

Action Description

introduceFriend (VOid.members, friend-id)

This action is an invitation to the business member to which the policy applies, to introduce his friend (friend-id) to his partners of recently terminated VO.

recommendCompMembers() It is an invitation to the management member to which the policy applies, to introduce business members to each other if their competencies complements.

Conclusion and Future Work

In this paper we put forward a gamified model for enhancing the preparedness of VBEs. This model is obtained by following a methodology proposed in the paper: First of all we identify different actors of a VBE with respect to behaviour that emerges out of the type of responsibilities assigned to them. Then, gamification approaches are explored that relate to the behaviour of the different actors identified previously. This allows us to associate VBE roles to gamification approaches with similar behavioural characteristics. To gamify the VBE application we defined GPSL, a policy language capturing specific game mechanics. The GPSLs unique approach to explicitly specifying VBE objectives to be gamified and linking them with respective publishing and sinking policies have two immediate benefits: 1) the VBE objective is explicitly specified thus the purpose of the policies is immediately visible and 2) policies can be grouped with respect to the objectives they are contributing to.

In future, we will further validate our gamified VBE preparedness model against different VBEs to verify its applicability beyond the current case study. Other direction we are intending to investigate further are, applying the proposed methodology to develop gamified models for other domains. We are also investigating development of tools that suggest game dynamics for an objective at hand while designing policies that contribute towards achieving it.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Gamified VBE preparedness Model sinkedBy policies (explained below) are disabled as well, overwriting their localized enabled attribute. The effects attribute specifies what aspects of the VBE are going to be affected by the objective. The VBEgoal description further consists of one or more curly-bracketed blocks. Each block specifies a list of publishedBy and sinkedBy (policy references), preparedness, enabled and appliesTo attributes. The preparedness attribute specifies what preparedness category the VBE objective falls in, the enabled attribute specifies if the policies referenced by the block are currently enabled or disabled, and the appliesTo attribute describes what VBE actor type is going to be affected by the policies of the block. A typical VBEgoal looks as follow:

Table 1 .

 1 Publishing policy actions to gamify tasks

	Action	Description
	toEarnPoint(points, task)

Player is invited to earn the points, if he fulfills the task.

toEarnBadge(badge-id,task)

Player is invited to earn the badge, if he fulfills the task toReach(level-id, task)

Player is informed that in his current state, he gets eligible to reach mentioned level, if he fulfills the task.

Table 2 .

 2 Sinking policy actions to gamify tasks

	Action	Description
	pointsEarned(points,
	member-id/group-id)

Table 3 .

 3 VBE specific list of some of GPSL triggers, conditions and actions Returns true if members t h e VO-id are not acquainted to a member-id.

	Trigger		Description
	VOterminates (vo-id, success) Triggered when a VO successfully terminates itself.
	VOstatus(vo-id, created)	Triggered when a VO has just created.
	CompMembersRecommended	Is triggered when management member introduces
	(managementMember-id, [busi-nessMember1-id,competency-id], [businessMember2-id, com-	two business members to each other that have com-plementary competencies, hence possibility for joint venture in future.
	petency-id]))
	VOformedWithUnaquinted-	Triggered when the recently formed VO-id has
	Members(vo-id,	unAquinted-	members that have no history of partnership with
	MemberLst)		each other( represented by unAquintedMemberLst) .
	VOplannigRate (VOplanner-	Triggered when a management member's (acting as
	id, threshord.below)	VO planner) performance falls below the threshold in
			terms of number of new VO planned by him.
	Condition		Description
	memberVO(VO-id, member-id) Returns true if member-id is (was, if has terminated)
			member of the VO represented by VO-id.
	notAquainted(member-id,
	VO-id.members)

Available at http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1844115 (2011, November 9)

Available at http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2251015 (2012, November 27)

Returns true if the member(s) (represented by VOid.memberLst) were befriended by member-id.

Policy VOformedWithUnaquintedMembers

When VOformedWithUnaquintedMemebrs(vo-id, unAquinted-MemberLst) If introducedBy(VO-id.unAquintedMemberLst, pastPartnerOf(VO-id.unAquintedMemberLst) Do pointsEarned(points, pastPartnerOf(VOid.unAquinted-MemberLst))

The policy, VOformedWithUnaquintedMemebrs is a sinking policy that is triggered when a new VO is formed that has members that are doing business together for the first time. Once the policy is triggered, its associated condition is checked which in this case checks if the unacquainted members were introduced (befriended) to each other by their common friend (i.e. VO-pastPartnerOf(id.unAquintedMemberLst)). If that happens to be the case, the common friend is rewarded (pointsEarned() action).

Policy recommendComplementatingMember supportsGoal communityBuilding, TrustDevelopment

When VOplannigRate (VOplanner-id, threshord.below) Do toSupportVBE (VBEhelpdBedge-id, recommendCompMembers() Policy VOformedWithRecommendedMembers supportsGoal communityBuilding, TrustDevelopment When CompMembersRecommended (managementMember-id, [businessMember1-id, competency-id], [businessMember2id, competency-id]))

If competencyComplements([businessMember1-id, competency-id], [businessMember2-id, competency-id]) ) Do VBESupported (businessExpansionBedge, management-Member-id)

Table 3 shows some of the VBE specific triggers and actions as used in the scenario. As can be seen from the case study, relatively complex constructs in terms of describing preparedness for VBEs -namely descriptions of how behaviour can be introduced through objectives that increase preparedness (here through having better links between possible partners as well as a wider field of available partners) can be readily captured in a goal description. More importantly, that goal description is linked to clear operational rules that describe how the goal is achieved.

Related Work

VBE preparedness has been rightfully acknowledged as one of the core benefits of VBEs [START_REF] Romero | Mechanisms for assessing and enhancing organisations readiness for collaboration in collaborative networks[END_REF][START_REF] Nathal´ıegaleano | Virtual breeding environment: A first approach to under-stand working and sharing principles[END_REF][START_REF] Rosas | Modeling collaboration preparedness assess-ment[END_REF]. In [START_REF] Romero | Mechanisms for assessing and enhancing organisations readiness for collaboration in collaborative networks[END_REF][START_REF] Rosas | Modeling collaboration preparedness assess-ment[END_REF], preparedness of potential VBE members has been discussed in depth. However, it mostly applies to evaluating business members (in our


Shamaila Iram

Terrence Fernando

May Bassanino
email: bassanino@salford.ac.uk

A Novel Hybrid Engineering Methodology to Enhance Collaboration During the Design and Development of Meta Product Services

Keywords: Meta Products, Product Extension Services, Product-Service Systems (PSS), Information Delivery Manual (IDM), Business Process Model Notation (BPMN), Collaboration

des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

The need to adopt sustainable and environmentally-oriented production and consumption processes led to the idea of transferring the physical products to digital platforms, or to intelligent products and services, called "Meta Products" and "Meta Services" respectively. Essamlali et al. [START_REF] Essamlali | The methodology for collaborative development of intelligent wearable Meta-Products[END_REF] and Rubino et al. [START_REF] Rubino | Meta Products: Meaningful Design for Our Connected World[END_REF] defined the concept of Meta Products as "dedicated networks of four elements: services, products, people, and environments". Alongside Meta Products, the Product-Service System (PSS) has recently emerged as a competitive, added value strategy to impel manufacturers to offer a set of products and services as a whole [START_REF] Geng | An integrated approach for rating engineering characteristics' final importance in product-service system development[END_REF], called Product Extension Services (PES). These services offer to achieve sustainable growth by providing high value service solutions based on the product, such as product maintenance, support, repair, energy management, upgrading and recycling [START_REF] Song | Modularizing product extension services: An approach based on modified service blueprint and fuzzy graph[END_REF].

The complexity and diversity of the PES design and development process, however, demand the integration of diverse skill sets and a wider span of expertise in product design teams. This requirement is by no means surprising since strong collaboration among team members, in the end, defines the quality of PES. The production of large and complex systems usually requires coordination and collaboration among many individuals including designers, developers, marketing staff, standards' experts and customer representatives. Often, these individuals are spread among the numerous divisions of a corporation or amongst different sectors. Collaboration among these actors is extremely crucial in order to synchronize various system development activities. Therefore, collaboration among multidisciplinary teams is recognized as one of the challenges in creating complex product extended services.

In the same line of thinking, Rubino et al. [START_REF] Rubino | Meta Products: Meaningful Design for Our Connected World[END_REF] highlighted "connection among stakeholders" as a critical challenge to the exchange of information among potential stakeholders. Similarly, researchers from different domains [START_REF] Essamlali | The methodology for collaborative development of intelligent wearable Meta-Products[END_REF], [START_REF] Jiaqing | Meta-service oriented collaborative design platform for complex product[END_REF], [START_REF] Büyüközkan | Collaborative product development: a literature overview[END_REF] articulate that due to the involvement of multidisciplinary design teams in creating complex products, an advanced level of collaboration is required to incorporate a variety of diverse services to accelerate the product development process.

Therefore, in order to enhance and promote collaboration in the design and development of complex product services, this paper proposes a novel collaboration methodology with integrated advanced communication services to facilitate the effective exchange of information across all domains.

Literature Review

Recent research work, underpinning the concept of complex Meta Products or Meta Services, highlights collaboration as a main challenge in the enhancement of coordination among multi-disciplinary teams [START_REF] Jiaqing | Meta-service oriented collaborative design platform for complex product[END_REF]. Lots of methods and infrastructural technologies have been developed and applied to support system integration and collaboration for Collaborative Product Development (CPD). For instance, Szykman et al. [START_REF] Szykman | A web-based system for design artifact modeling[END_REF] proposed a product model to make design information accessible to users in a Web-based system. Similarly, Kim et al. [START_REF] Kim | Ontology-based assembly design and information sharing for collaborative product development[END_REF] developed an ontology-based assembly design method that aims to make heterogeneous modelling terms semantically processed both by design collaborators and intelligent systems. Moreover, Chu et al. [START_REF] Chu | Multi-agent collaborative 3D design with geometric model at different levels of detail[END_REF] implemented a 3D design environment where information with different levels of detail is transferred to different design engineers.

In addition , various examples of frameworks have also been proposed, such as the Multi-disciplinary Collaboration Simulation Optimization Platform for complex product design [START_REF]Multidisciplinary Collaboration Simulation Optimization Platform for complex product design[END_REF], the Multi-domain Collaboration Model [START_REF] Wang | Multi-Domain Collaborative Simulation Platform: An Integrative Framework for Complex Products Design[END_REF] and Complex Product Development based on Concurrent Engineering [START_REF] Junjie | Research on Green design of complex product based on concurrent engineering[END_REF]. However, what is still missing from the literature is the mapping of tools and actors to their corresponding design phases in the complete workflow process, the integration of advanced collaboration services (such as communication, cooperation and coordination in one development platform) and, finally, the integration of process, information, organization and technology in one comprehensive collaborative portal to support complete Meta product development ecosystems.

The work presented in this paper provides a new approach to overcome the barriers to communication and leverage the enhancement of collaboration between different domain experts by continuously exchanging the ideas at each stage of the development process. It also offers an opportunity for the industrial partners to continuously engage with the production process, to frequently discuss the achievements and milestones, regularly monitor the current status of the development process and eventually, approve the final product.

Research Approach

The work that is presented in this paper conducted as part of EU research project, ProSEco. The objective of the research is to provide a novel methodology and a set of ICT solutions for collaborative design of cyber-physical based product-services. Collaboration among multi-functional teams is identified as one of the main issues towards the design and development of complex products and services, such as, Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Product Service Systems (PSS), and Product Extension Services (PES). This section articulates the steps that have been followed to propose a solution to solve collaboration issues in the design and development of PES. Since, this study is directly related to the industrial partners who are the key stakeholders of the project; the starting point for this research is the analysis of real industrial cases than theoretical study. However, to relate the work with the existing knowledge, the authors conducted search in relevant academic databases to find peer reviewed papers in the area of PES, collaboration, collaborative process, and barriers to collaboration in the design and development of PES. In the course of finding relevant material they studied available collaboration models, commercial as well EU projects, tools and platforms available in the market with the aim of capturing state of the practice solutions that claim to enhance collaboration for PES design process.

At more advance level of research, face-to-face meetings have been arranged with industrial partners who are involved in this project as well as research and development (RTD) teams to capture basic requirements of the collaborative PES development platform. The purpose of the meetings was to capture those collaboration issues that were not anticipated before and also to discuss the best possible solutions to overcome the collaboration barriers.

Later, in order to propose a new collaboration model, the authors studied the traditional Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) methods, Agile framework, and Information Delivery Manual (IDM) approach together with Business Process Modelling Notations (BPMN). The initial prototype of the framework is designed, developed and agreed among the team member at this stage of the project. However, further, improvements are expected along the progress of the project when more advance level of requirements will be identified.

Collaboration Services

Collaboration services were identified in the CoSpaces project [START_REF] Patel | Factors of collaborative working: A framework for a collaboration model[END_REF] as three distinctive yet interlinked services required within a collaboration service platform. These services are: communication services, coordination services and co-operation services. These services form an important part within the PES collaborative development portal.

Communication Services

Communication is an important attribute to define the quality of team work which is highly dependent on information exchange, knowledge acquisition and knowledge representation. Communication helps to get deep understanding of the evolving ideas, to discuss the complicated issues, to develop new solution and at the end to approve results.

In this context, as part of the communication services, the proposed PES collaboration methodology provides advance integrated communication tools that help users to develop a mutual understanding of the project. The proposed collaboration methodology facilitates all different modes of collaboration such as, colocated/synchronous (same place, same time), distributed/synchronous (different places, same time), co-located/asynchronous (same place, different time) and distributes/asynchronous (different places, different time). The communication services that are provided in the proposed collaboration methodology are; audio/video conference tool, brain storming session through eco-observation wall, and project management through Oobeya tool as presented in Fig. 1.

Coordination Services

Coordination is defined as exchanging information and altering process activities for mutual benefit and for a common purpose [START_REF] Himmelman | On Coalitions and the Transformation of Power Relations: Collaborative Betterment and Collaborative Empowerment[END_REF]. Coordination builds on networking (the exchange of data/information) by adding behaviour, and modifying activities and foci, bringing forward mutual benefits and a common purpose. Coordination increases the efficient use of resources and the ability to meet community needs.

The proposed collaboration methodology provides coordination services through integrated workflow engine. Assigning roles to the corresponding users who are responsible to initiate and complete the workflow activities are part of workflow services. Workflow services are designed to configure and customize PES workflow process. This also helps to trace the current status of the ongoing development process. Furthermore, workflow services also control events by notifying the development team about the current status of the process or the actions that need to be taken to accomplish a task. Step-by-step workflow activities that are needed to develop a complete PES are illustrated in Fig. 1.

Cooperation Services

Interaction among all the participants, who may belong to different sectors or different functional groups, to achieve a common task defines cooperation services. Cooperation services in the proposed methodology will be provided in terms of:

• Managing actors according to their roles, and

• Managing activities corresponding to each engineering tool

The proposed collaboration methodology is designed to manage all the users according to their roles and it also ensures the seamless integration of all the engineering tools into the portal to provide comprehensive support for the design and development of PES solutions.

The cooperation services encapsulate the engineering tools' services, the sharing of data between tools and also the brain-storming services where ideas raised by participants can be discussed.

Fig. 1 demonstrates a comprehensive PES Collaborative Development Portal with an integrated proposed collaboration methodology that facilitates the design and development of a sustainable PES solution for industrial sectors.

Modelling PES Collaboration Environment

This proposed collaboration methodology (designed by the integration of the IDM approach and traditional software development methods) presents a process model which details the steps, milestones and phase dependencies where several functionalities are integrated corresponding to a particular phase of the ongoing PES development process.

The PES Development Life Cycle (PESDLC), described in this paper, is tailored to the traditional standard Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) approach which starts from requirement gathering to software deployment. A traditional software development life cycle (Waterfall [START_REF] Wix | Information Delivery Manual Guide to Components and Development Methods[END_REF], Spiral [START_REF] Breit | Process oriented model based information exchange between architecture and fabrication in early project phases[END_REF], Agile software development [START_REF] Van Der Aalst | Business Process Modeling Notation[END_REF], rapid prototyping [START_REF] Ouyang | From business process models to process-oriented software systems[END_REF], incremental [START_REF] Omg | Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) Version 1.0. OMG Final Adopted Specification[END_REF], and synchronize and stabilize) is composed of a number of clearly defined and distinct workflow phases which are applied by system developers to plan, design, develop and deploy software systems.

However, due to the complex service-oriented nature of the project and also to incorporate a variety of services in terms of knowledge management, context modelling, intelligent data analysis, security enhancement etc., it has not been not possible to follow the exact sequence of a traditional software development life cycle (SDLC). Also, to keep the software applicability traits aligned with the business orientation, where a number of actors/participants will be involved from different organizations/backgrounds, it has been decided to follow an interdisciplinary approach. This approach combines the IDM methodology with the traditional software life cycle approach to provide a mutual understanding of the model in all sectors.

Information Delivery Manual (IDM) Methodology. The Information Delivery Manual (IDM) methodology specifies the process and the actors that are involved in creating, consuming and benefitting from the information as well as what information is created, exchanged and consumed [START_REF] Essamlali | The methodology for collaborative development of intelligent wearable Meta-Products[END_REF]. It intends to help software vendors to cope better with the specified individual process-related information requirements of the clients [START_REF] Wix | Information Delivery Manual Guide to Components and Development Methods[END_REF], [START_REF] Breit | Process oriented model based information exchange between architecture and fabrication in early project phases[END_REF].

While creating a PES, the exchange of requirements defines exactly which artefacts are created during which activities, who (actor) is responsible for the tasks, and what the consuming activities are. So, the IDM methodology, in the case of PES development modelling, will help to reduce the communication gap among PES solution providers and the business partners and allow them to exchange information smoothly and flawlessly.

The IDM methodology is deployed by using a standard notation called Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN).

Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). The Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a standard for expressing process maps which are flow-oriented representations of business operations. This provides a common tool and method for process modelling and mapping. BPMN aims to bridge the communication gap that frequently occurs between business process design and implementation [START_REF] Van Der Aalst | Business Process Modeling Notation[END_REF]. BPMN models are mainly used to facilitate information exchange and communication between project participants to support decision-making based on various analysis techniques and to provide input to software development projects. Furthermore, the BPMN models are also used to specify the information nuggets being shared or exchanged in the process map; subsequently, it would be possible to identify the required software features in the systems' development effort [START_REF] Ouyang | From business process models to process-oriented software systems[END_REF].

Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

At a higher hierarchical level, the main stages of the software development life cycle (SDLC) are: Requirement Gathering and Analysis, Software Design, Software Development, Software Deployment/Implementation and Software Testing and Maintenance. However, due to the complexity of the PES design and development process, these traditional phases of the model are tailored and mapped to the phases of the PES development process as shown in Fig. 1. Since, the informal testing of the software development will be carried out, in a collaborative session, at the end of each phase of the PES development life cycle; therefore, testing and maintenance phase of the traditional software development life cycle is not included explicitly as a separate phase in the PES development life cycle.

Comparing to the traditional software development life cycle phases, PES development phases are more advanced and complicated. This implies that design and development phases, in the PES development life cycle, are further divided into subphases due to the nature of the functionalities required to create a PES. However, these phases are tailored and mapped to traditional SDLC phases to keep the software development traits similar to the traditional development life cycles, as demonstrated in Fig. 1.

PESDLC constitutes of following stages:

• Idea Creation: this phase helps to analyse the existing products to find the hotspots, to realize the problem, to propose new ideas, and finally to conceptualize new business model.

• Market Simulation: this phase is to simulate the importance of proposed solution against its market value. • Knowledge Specification/Data Mining: this phase helps to define new data that is required to be captured in developing the proposed model. This also helps to find the useful patterns to take better future decisions.

• Data Capture Method/AmI Selection: once datasets are identified in the previous sections, this phase will support to find the corresponding sensors that are needed to capture data.

• Functional Specifications: this phase will create the documentation of the specifications of the new products or services.

• Context Modelling: This phase helps users to model the context for the product or service using ontologies and ontological reasoning methods.

• Security Configuration: this will enforce the security parameters during the design and development of services.

• PES Orchestration: this phase helps to specify the sequences of services in which they are going to be deployed.

• PES Deployment: at the end of PESDLC, all the services will be executed in the deployment phase. Other extended attributes of the proposed collaboration methodology are: integrated advanced engineering tools' services, potential users/actors that are responsible for completing each particular phase of the whole process, and output visualization of each service with integrated advanced visualization tools.

As case studies, the proposed collaborative PES development environment with integrated advanced ICT services would serve in different sectors, such as, automotive, home appliances, shoe manufacturing companies and automation equipment to provide effective extensions to their existing products. For instance, in case of automotive company, collaborative PES development environment will be used to improve vehicle's design based on user's behaviour. This will be done by directly analyzing data patterns related to user's behaviour, weather, and pollution level over time and space in a given local and global context. This will help the design teams to discuss the possibility of changing car design that can lead to better driver performance. This can also help to reduced CO2 emissions as well as possible policy change that can enforce positive driver behavior or engine performance configurations and also can reduce pollution levels in the city.

Conclusion and Future Work

The proposed collaboration methodology, presented in this paper, acts as a bridge to minimize the communication gap between the technical solution providers and the rest of the stakeholders and allows them to exchange information smoothly and effectively in intelligent products' development ecosystems. The main advantage of the proposed collaborative PES development environment is to provide a comprehensive single platform with seamlessly integrated advance collaborative, engineering and visualization services at one place. It also provides integrated workflow engine based on collaboration design principles to coordinate the concurrent workflow activities. Furthermore, it correlates the workflow activities with its corresponding design and development phase and recognizes the actors who are responsible to accomplish that phase. It provides the opportunity to analyze a designed artefact with one of the integrated visualization tool and discuss the results and future possibilities in a collaborative session to improve it further.

Moreover, depending on the functional capabilities/responsibilities of each particular participant, the overall workflow process shows the dependencies of business partners and technical expertise on each other, making the whole process a "Cross-Organizational Business Process Model". The PES development process does not initiate until an input is received from the business partners wherein they analyse the product requirements with technical team members who, at the end, provide the software solutions. However, one of the limitation of the proposed framework is it requires users to have proper relevant technical skillset to use the platform.

The first prototype of the collaborative PES development portal is achieved. Currently, the initial testing of the first prototype is being carried out in a laboratory environment. For this initial testing, the proposed solution will be tested for its functional capabilities, usability and likeability. Business benefits, however, will be tested in an industrial environment when a complete prototype will be achieved. The proposed solution will be validated using "Goal Question Metric" (GQM) approach [START_REF] Basili | Software modeling and measurement: the Goal/Question/Metric paradigm[END_REF] together with the "McCall Quality Model" approach [START_REF] Cavano | A framework for the measurement of software quality[END_REF].

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. The PES Collaborative Development Portal

Acknowledgments:

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant Agreement n° 609413. This document does not represent the opinion of the European Community, and the European Community is not responsible for any use that might be made of its contents.