A methodology to design cooperative information systems within districts

E-services may be used to wrap an organization’s information system and to provide a standard interface that enables cooperation with other information systems. As a consequence, e-services should not only provide functionalities, but also embed mechanisms for inter-organizational coordination and control to enact cooperation. Cooperation among different organizations is based on contractual agreements that coordinate workflows across cooperating companies and establish mechanisms to control the fulfilment of production goals. The goal of this paper is to describe a methodological approach supporting the design of e-services. The paper explains how the methodology is structured in three phases from requirements specification to conceptual design and implementation. Within districts, interorganizational cooperation can be ruled by a continuum of coordination mechanisms between markets and vertical quasi-integration. It is shown how the design of operating flows changes as coordination and control shift from market to vertical integration forms of governance. The second phase of the methodology helps transforming requirements into conceptual models of control and coordination activities, by customizing and enriching the initial representation. Conceptual models are finally implemented in the third methodological phase based on the WSDL and BPEL4WS languages for eservice and process description.