The Evaluation Criteria of Workflow Metamodels Vjeran Strahonja University of Zagreb, Faculty of Organization and Informatics Pavlinska 2, Varaždin, Croatia vjeran.strahonja@foi.hr Abstract. This paper defines the evaluation framework of workflow metamodels, based on a list of evaluation criteria. The presented evaluation criteria combine domain specific evaluation approach and some of the existing quality metrics, defined in the field of software. Well established evaluation criteria of workflow metamodels should enable their comparison, selection and proper use of methods and tool built upon them. The final result is a list of nine categories of evaluation criteria, decomposed into more than forty subcategories, but the list of subcategories is extendable. The practical validation of proposed evaluation highlighted some topics for future research. Keywords. Workflow, modelling, business process, metamodel, evaluation criteria 1. Introduction Over the last decades Business Process Management (BPM) has been identified as a solution for resolving complexity, as well as defining and managing tasks in heterogeneous environments. The role of workflow in the BPM has significantly changed in recent years, from the process definition, to the model driven development (MDD). The terms of business process and workflow are related and widely discussed in literature. Business process can be defined as a set of activities ordered in a structured way, whose final aim is to provide valuable results for the customer. In a broad sense, workflow is used to denote the movement of documents and/or tasks through a work process, how tasks are structured (a set of tasks/actions), who performs them (people and computer system), what their relative order is (the order in which specific work is performed), how they are synchronized, what is the time required to complete tasks, what are information flows between tasks and how tasks are being tracked. A continuing interest from the research and commercial community also triggered adequate academic and commercial research and development. Currently many of modelling languages and tools are used for workflow definition in the BPM systems. The large number of available modelling methods and tools and their diversity caused a lack of integration and interoperability, difficulties at selection, as well as the problems when heterogeneous approaches should be effectively combined. The emerging need of standardization and integration of workflow-related methodologies and tools mobilised both academic and industrial communities on development and evaluation of business process and workflow metamodels. Based on the comparative analysis of related work, analysis of current workflow metamodels and frameworks and current standards, this paper defines a list of criteria that can be used as evaluation dimensions of workflow metamodels. The presented evaluation criteria combine domain specific evaluation approach and some of the existing quality metrics, defined in the field of software. 2. Workflow Metamodels Generally, a metamodel is the conceptual model of a modelling methodology, representing concepts and relations between concepts, frames, rules, constrains and theories, applicable and useful for the modelling in a predefined class of problems. While a model is an abstraction of phenomena in the real world, a metamodel is an abstraction of the model itself. A mMetamodel comprises an explicit description (formalized specification) of constructs, rules and notation for building domain-specific models. Although the concept and the theory of metamodels and metamodeling are widely discussed and applied in many scientific, business and real life domains, they do not exist in a strict, universal form. 553 Proceedings of the ITI 2007 29 th Int. Conf. on Information Technology Interfaces, June 25-28, 2007, Cavtat, Croatia