Scientific Workflows

Distributed data sources and processes can also be chained together: in such cases, one needs to describe the process in a standardised way for future re-use.

This happens already in e-commerce systems, and it is likely that the same standards in use for automation of web commerce will be used in scientific process automation – but the jury is still out on this.

Automation and mediation rely greatly on ontologies for their efficient functioning. These are agreed dictionaries of terms, and can automate some of the mediation.