A domain model for online community building and collaboration in eGovernment and policy modelling

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a domain model for online community building and collaboration in e‐government and policy modelling.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors followed a structured approach including five distinct steps: define the domain to be investigated; collect domain knowledge from both existing online community building and collaboration platforms and domain experts; analyse the gathered knowledge; develop and evaluate the domain model.

Findings

A domain model was developed for community building and collaboration in eGovernment and policy modelling, including the domain definition, the domain lexicon and the conceptual models modelling its basic entities and functions of the domain. In particular, the UML class diagram was used for modelling the domain entities and the UML use cases diagram for modelling the domain functions.

Originality/value

A literature search revealed a lack of domain models for online community building and collaboration, not only in e‐government and policy modelling but also in general. The proposed model provides a better understanding of the domain. It can also be used in the development of relevant platforms, leading to the reduction of software development costs and delivery time, as well as the improvement of software quality and reliability, by minimising domain analysis errors.

Citation

Kaliva, E., Panopoulou, E., Tambouris, E. and Tarabanis, K. (2013), "A domain model for online community building and collaboration in eGovernment and policy modelling", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 109-136. https://doi.org/10.1108/17506161311308197