| Samenvatting: | Technological advances such as Service Oriented
Architecture (SOA) have increased the feasibility and
importance of effectively integrating information from
an ever widening number of systems within and across
enterprises. A key difficulty of achieving this goal
comes from the pervasive heterogeneity in all levels of
information systems. A robust solution to this problem
needs to be adaptable, extensible, and scalable. In this
paper, we identify the deficiencies of traditional
semantic integration approaches. The COntext
INterchange (COIN) approach overcomes these
deficiencies by declaratively representing data
semantics and using a mediator to create the necessary
conversion programs from a small number of
conversion rules. The capabilities of COIN is
demonstrated using an example with 150 data sources,
where COIN can automatically generate the over
22,000 conversion programs needed to enable
semantic interoperability using only six parametizable
conversion rules. This paper presents a framework for
evaluating adaptability, extensibility, and scalability of
semantic integration approaches. The application of
the framework is demonstrated with a systematic
evaluation of COIN and other commonly practiced
approaches.
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