TY - GEN
T1 - Form follows function
T2 - 1st International Symposium on Foundations of Health Informatics Engineering and Systems, FHIES 2011
AU - Davies, Jim
AU - Gibbons, Jeremy
AU - Calinescu, Radu
AU - Crichton, Charles
AU - Harris, Steve
AU - Tsui, Andrew
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - We argue that, for certain constrained domains, elaborate model transformation technologies-implemented from scratch in general-purpose programming languages-are unnecessary for model-driven engineering; instead, lightweight configuration of commercial off-the-shelf productivity tools suffices. In particular, in the CancerGrid project, we have been developing model-driven techniques for the generation of software tools to support clinical trials. A domain metamodel captures the community's best practice in trial design. A scientist authors a trial protocol, modelling their trial by instantiating the metamodel; customized software artifacts to support trial execution are generated automatically from the scientist's model. The metamodel is expressed as an XML Schema, in such a way that it can be instantiated by completing a form to generate a conformant XML document. The same process works at a second level for trial execution: among the artifacts generated from the protocol are models of the data to be collected, and the clinician conducting the trial instantiates such models in reporting observations-again by completing a form to create a conformant XML document, representing the data gathered during that observation. Simple standard form management tools are all that is needed. Our approach is applicable to a wide variety of information-modelling domains: not just clinical trials, but also electronic public sector computing, customer relationship management, document workflow, and so on.
AB - We argue that, for certain constrained domains, elaborate model transformation technologies-implemented from scratch in general-purpose programming languages-are unnecessary for model-driven engineering; instead, lightweight configuration of commercial off-the-shelf productivity tools suffices. In particular, in the CancerGrid project, we have been developing model-driven techniques for the generation of software tools to support clinical trials. A domain metamodel captures the community's best practice in trial design. A scientist authors a trial protocol, modelling their trial by instantiating the metamodel; customized software artifacts to support trial execution are generated automatically from the scientist's model. The metamodel is expressed as an XML Schema, in such a way that it can be instantiated by completing a form to generate a conformant XML document. The same process works at a second level for trial execution: among the artifacts generated from the protocol are models of the data to be collected, and the clinician conducting the trial instantiates such models in reporting observations-again by completing a form to create a conformant XML document, representing the data gathered during that observation. Simple standard form management tools are all that is needed. Our approach is applicable to a wide variety of information-modelling domains: not just clinical trials, but also electronic public sector computing, customer relationship management, document workflow, and so on.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84864970906&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-32355-3_2
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-642-32355-3_2
DO - 10.1007/978-3-642-32355-3_2
M3 - Conference publication
AN - SCOPUS:84864970906
SN - 978-3-642-32354-6
T3 - Lecture notes in computer science
SP - 21
EP - 38
BT - Foundations of health informatics engineering and systems
A2 - Liu, Zhiming
A2 - Wassyng, Alan
PB - Springer
CY - Berlin (DE)
Y2 - 29 August 2011 through 30 August 2011
ER -