A Method for the Collaborative and Semi-automated Generation of Conceptual Models from Legal Regulations in Public Organizations

Legal regulations and conceptual models are important for public organizations. Conceptual models are means for complexity reduction in the design and customization of information systems. Legal regulations are important for public organizations as they specify the services that the organizations offer to citizens and businesses. However, the operationalization of legal regulations is challenging because they leave room for interpretation and there is a high number of involved actors. These actors comprise of domain experts and IT experts within a public organization, but also other public organizations on the same or different levels of government. In consequence, there are many actors involved in the operationalization and execution of legal regulations for public services who would benefit from the use of conceptual models. To provide support for these actors, we address the following research goal: Design of a method for the collaborative and semi-automated generation of conceptual model from legal regulations in public organizations. In the course of our design science research approach, we derived requirements for the solution based on interviews with thirteen public officials. We conceptually developed the method and evaluated it with an illustrative scenario and expert interviews with six public officials. The evaluations reveal the general potential usefulness and intended use of our method.