Initial Situation

Within commercial information systems, keeping a digital model of various aspects of organisational structure is standard. At the very least, to provide members of an organization with digital identities, the actual user accounts may be grouped, ordered, or arranged in hierarchies. This concern is connected to a multitude of terms and technologies. Terms in this context include: LDAB, Active Directory, SingleSignOn Systems, ARIS organizational models, Role-Based Access Control, Group Policies, Data Backbones, C-Org/OQL etc.

Research Goal/Research Questions

The general goal of this thesis is to provide an overview of currently used methods and technologies. The research questions are:

• What are classical and currently used modelling concepts, methods, and languages for complex organisational models? What expressive power do the different modelling languages have?
• What software tools and technologies exist to practically create and especially use the created models?
• What are the typical creation and usage processes for organisational models? What are the organisational models used for (especially regarding workflow engines/workflow management, but also other access rights granting)?

Principle Approach:

In general, this is first and foremost a theoretical work and literature review, though it might additionally require social research to get information from organisations about what they are using, or alternatively, testing and analysing software systems if available.

As a Bachelor Thesis, only one aspect can be looked at. A Master Thesis will need to cover all aspects.

Description of usage process and/or software architectures should be supplemented with a suitable modelling approach, for which the subject-oriented method with the PASS language is a primary consideration.