The Use of Business Metadata in Source-Transaction-Agent Modelling

Business process modelling is a way of representing an organisation to enable its analysis and improvement. The development of business process models which become more complex can be assisted by using metadata which are business metadata and technical metadata. Business metadata can act as a communication tool between business people and the technical information technology (IT) team. There is a need to match  business metadata and technical metadata to assist effective communication between business people and technical IT people. Source-Transaction-Agent (STA) data model is introduced as a modelling technique that uses business metadata. STA data model uses business metadata to assist business and IT persons to communicate and participate effectively and efficiently in the business data modelling of a system development process. A study is done on five workshop groups, consists of 206 participants, to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of STA data model usage. The findings on the evaluation show that the STA data model is an effective and efficient data modelling technique. The participants were able to participate effectively and efficiently in the modelling process as the terms used are familiar and business-friendly.