Modelling of publishing processing with UML - CiteSeerX

Graphic Arts in Finland 3 1 (200 2) 3Modelling of publishing processing with UMLStåhl, H., Jankko, T. and Oittinen, P.1 Helsinki University of Technology, Department of Automation and System Technology, Laboratory ofMedia TechnologyP.O.Box 6400, FIN-02015 HUT, Finland, http://www.media.hut.fiE-mail: Henri.Stahl@media.hut.fi, Tero.Jankko@media.hut.fi, pirkko.oittinen@hut.fiKEYWORDSPublishing Process, Cross- Media, Publication, Business Process Modelling, UML, UnifiedModelling Language, News Object, Multiple MediaTIIVISTELMÄArtikkelissa tarkastellun tutkimuksen kokonaistavaoitteena on olla kannustamassa viestintä - jajulkaisualan yrityksiä mallintamaan omia prosessejaan ja käyttämään mallintamista osanatulevien prosessien suunnittelua. Publication Unified Prosessin (PUP) tarkoituksena on toimiaesimerkkinä ja helpottaa alkuunpääsyssä omassa mallinnuksessa. Raportissa käydään läpikuvitteellinen PUP- prosessi yksityiskohtaisesti eri tyyppisiä UML- kaavioita käyttäen.Luotu malli kuvaa yleispätevästi monikanavajulkaisemiseen soveltuvaa prosessia ja senosatekijöitä ja on samalla hyvä esimerkki liiketoiminnan mallintamisesta UML- kielellä jaobjektiajattelun mukanaan tuomista eduista. Mallista voi myös havaita eri medioidenjulkaisuprosesseissa yhdistämisestä koituvia monikanavaisuuden etuja. Mallin on kuitenkinerityisesti tarkoitettu käytettäväksi valmiina pohjana uusille prosessimalleille.Jatkossa olisi hedelmällistä tehdä tutkimusta ja kehittää vastaavan kaltaisia mallipohjia muidenalojen keskeisistä prosesseista, sillä valmiit mallipohjat madaltavat huomattavasti mallintamisenaloittamiskynnystä.ABSTRACTThe goal of the research project discussed in this article was to encourage the companies withinthe areas of media and publishing technology to model their own processes and to use businessprocess modelling in designing future processes. Publication Unified Process (PUP) is meant toserve as an example and to facilitate the first step to modelling. The report goes through in detailan imaginary PUP- process and different types of UML diagrams are used in desc ribing theprocess.The model created is a generic description of a cross - media publication process and associatedkey factors. At the same time it is a good example about modelling business processes with UMLand it illustrates the benefits that object- o rientation brings to modelling. The model also shows theadvantages that integration bring to cross-media publication. The model is especially meant toserve as a design pattern for new process models.1 0

Graphic Arts in Finland 3 1 (200 2) 3Further research should be done in designing more des ign patterns for the essential businessprocesses in different area of business, because ready- made design patterns make the first step tobusiness modelling easier.INTRODUCTIONThe techniques and processes of information and media technology have undergon big changesduring the past ten years. The break - through of Internet brought possibilities like disseminatingdigital papers and hypertext documents around the world. Many traditional media houses haveexpanded their activities to Internet. For a long time the contents to different media have beenproduced separately, even in separate organisations within a media house. In the 21st centurycross- media publishing has arisen and one and the same unit may produce content to differentmedia. Cross- media publishing brings along more complicated processes than in the pastandseveral new elements, like real- time publishing. Therefore designing and managing processes isboth economically and functionally much more challenging and important than before.The go al of the research was to encourage the companies within the areas of media and publishingtechnology to use business process modelling while designing their processes. The diagramsproduced in this project are available via Internet and they are free to be reused and modified.Therefore they can help companies starting to model. Modelling the present state of ownprocesses with the help of the example diagrams, teaches also UML (Unified ModellingLanguage) and its use in business process modelling. Different modelling methods and tools wereconsidered in projects carried out in the Laboratory of Media Technology at the HelsinkiUniversity of Technology and finally UML was qualified as modelling method for this project.This article goes through the idea of improving business processes and the basics of UML inbusiness process modelling. On this basis, the PUP example process is introduced and the conceptof the news object is examined. The full report can be reached in Finnish via URLhttp://www.media.hut. fi/GTTS/Suomi/dt&raportit/PUP/www_raportti.htm.TECHNICAL BACKGROUNDImproving Business ProcessesIt is often very useful to model a business process while trying to make improvements. Modellinggives a good overall picture about the process as a whole and its different phases. A thoroughunderstanding of the current processes helps creation of a vision about more productive and costeffectiveprocesses and find the steps to reach them.Business Process Re- engineering (BPR) is an effort to improve the productivity by creating betterbusiness processes. BPR proceeds often through the following five steps /12/:1 . Learn to understand the existing processes,2 . Model the processes,3 . Search the ways to improve the processes,4 . Create the future mo del (a model about the better future) and5 . Find the steps to achieve the better future.1 1

Graphic Arts in Finland 3 1 (200 2) 3Business Process Modelling MethodsThere are many different modelling methods and tools for business process modelling. Of thesethe Unified Modeling Language (UML) is one of the most promising. UML is an object- orientedmodelling language standardised by the Object Management Group (OMG) in 1997 /10/.Different companies have provided a huge amount of UML supporting tools, because UML is atotally independent stan dard. UML was originally designed for system and software development/5/ and was later extended toward different areas of modelling, including business processmodelling /8/.By way of examples, UML has been used to modelling traffic systems. Because the complexity ofthe problems is arising Urban Traffic Systems designers are forced to use modelling approaches inorder to manage the design their systems, and to define and implement traffic managementstrategies. In this use UML has turned to be a very useful tool /1/. Second, UML has been used inthe insurance sector in the transformation to a process oriented organization. Based onreengineered business processes, a refocusing of the information system infrastructure was sought.UML and PROMET Business Process Re- engineering were used together. The conclusion wasthat the combination of UML and PROMET BPR produced the best results /2/.To be fair to the other modelling methods, IDEF0 has been used for publishing processesmodelling. First, In Helsin ki University of Technology had a project called Information Flow inNewsroom Processes. The object of the study was to model the newsroom process chain in a waywhich would make it possible to assess development needs from a technical viewpoint. As ac o n clusion, The IDEF0 model was found to offer sufficient features for describing the newsroomwork flow. /9/TOOLSUnified Modeling LanguageThe notation of UML is clear and easy to learn. Therefore UML diagrams can be understoodwithout big efforts of study. The generally applicable UML diagrams fit well to many purposes.UML suites particularly to business process modelling, because UML supports well visualizationof actions and activities. The processes can be divided in sub- processes and the important actionsor parts can be modelled in more detail. Additionally UML can present synchronisation andparallelism of actions and both human and IT - roles in collaboration. And object orientation incommon allows the models to be comprehensive, understandable, ch angeable, adaptable andreusable. /4/Different approaches to a process can be presented with nine different diagrams types of UML. Inbusiness process modelling the best applicable diagrams are Use Case, Activity and Classdiagrams, but also State, Sequence and Collaboration diagrams are very useful. /8/A Use Case diagram describes the actors, roles and activities. It has a simple and effectivenotation. It is especially applicable in describing process goals. A Class diagram presents insteadthe static structures and associations. A Class diagram is very versatile and it can also describevery complicated structures. It is good when used in forming entities and describing theirrelations.1 2

Graphic Arts in Finland 3 1 (200 2) 3Figure 1 P U P Main DiagramIn the use case diagrams of Figures 2 and 3, the news process is modelled starting with theoccurrence of a news item to its publication to a customer. These diagrams are sub-diagrams ofthe PUP use case in Figure 1.The Basis of the News Process (Figure 2) goes through the first steps of the process and the actorspossibly influencing the process. ‘News Gathering’ is about retrieving a news topic. It containsobservation of the sources of the news, the evaluation of the news topics found and the creation ofthe news object if the news topic is qualified. ‘Beginning the News Process’ includes choosing thewriter or the editors for the news item, determining the broadcasting channels and choosing thepoint of view. ‘Collecting Materials’ contains gathering the content and other channel -dependentmaterial for the story. Meta information is added to the material gathered and these are filed in thematerial archive (Figure 3). While filing, it is good to check the information formats immediatel yand change the format if it is incorrect. More material can be gathered later if needed.1 4

Graphic Arts in Finland 3 1 (200 2) 3Figure 2 The Basis of the News Process1 5

Graphic Arts in Finland 3 1 (200 2) 3Figure 3 Filing of the MaterialIn Figure 3 Filing of the Material includes the phases after the basis of the news process has beencreated. In ‘Writing story’ phase the story is written by using a cross- media assisting form, whichdefines the destination channels of the different parts of the text. The material found is gonethrough and used while writing. The story text is ready after checking the spelling and metainformation.‘Editing Story from Single to Cross- Media’ deals with editing the ready- made storysuitable to be published in another media.‘Lay outing of Story’ is considered as a phase of the PUP process that has potential to be highlyautomated and thereby the layouts for cross- media can be generated at once. Therefore it containsthe possibility to use layout- templates. By using templates the text and other edited material canbe fed to the publications with different layouts with just “a press of a button”. The alternative toautomatic layout is making manual layout. Making layout for the story is presented in a digram ofits own (available via URL http://www.media.hut.fi/~th/PUP/layout_diagram.html).The use case ’Publishing’ (Figure of Publishing sub -diagram is available via URLhttp://www.media.hut.fi/~th/PUP/pub.html) is another part of the cross- media publication that canbe highly automated. In publishing a separation into two branches takes place: real- time updatednews and news updated as a whole. In publishing phase the stories with ready layouts are1 6

Graphic Arts in Finland 3 1 (200 2) 3published real- time or they are gathered into a single publication. Creating entities manually or ashighly automated as possible are both considered in the diagram. After the publishing phase thepublished product is ready in its final form and can be made accessible to the customer.Figure 4 The Editing PhaseThe News ObjectThe news process is modelled from the moment of a news event occurrence to the state where thenews is delivered to the customer. The news item is ready when it is finally ready for publishing.It is essential to model the development of a news item during the different phases of the process.For this purpose the concept of a news object /7/ was created.Creating a news object (Figure 5) means that an event has been chosen as a news item. Theeditorial staff creates a news object when it discovers an interesting and suitable topic for news. Inthe beginning, the news object is abstract and only a decision about creating a news item. Afterthat, the news object is edited to become a ready news item. While working with the news object,things are added to it. Therefore the model shows the concrete state of a news item during thedifferent phases of the process. The model also shows what has been done to the news item andwhat has to be done before it is ready to be published.1 7

Graphic Arts in Finland 3 1 (200 2) 3Figure 5 Sequence Diagram of The Creation and Preparation of the News ObjectFigure 5 presents the states following immediately the creation of the news object, that is selectionof the publication channels. The channels must be chosen in cro ss- media publishing. After thepublication channels are chosen, the editors for the news item are chosen.The actors affecting the news object are presented in Figure 6. Naturally, most of the activitiessomehow deal with the news object during the news process, but some specifications need to bemade.1 8

Graphic Arts in Finland 3 1 (200 2) 3Figure 6 The Actors Influencing on the News ObjectThe editorial staff creates a news object and chooses a reporter for it. The point of view is chosenand it is added to the news object. The reporter searches for information and therefore goesthrough the archives of the editorial office and other sources of information and news. All therelevant material found is attached to the news object. The meta- information is always updatedwhen adding, removing or updating things to the news object.The reporter writes the story according to the material gathered by using a cross- media assistingform. Editors and the reporter edit and layout the rest of the material and unite it with the text.Finally, after spell checking and other corrections the news object has become a ready news item.The news item is either added to the publication object or published directly in case of real- timepublication. The ready news item is filed in the editorial office’s archives.1 9

Graphic Arts in Finland 3 1 (200 2) 3A new concept of ‘publication object’ was developed is this project. It is used like the newsobject, but it describes the phases of a publication received by the customer. The publication maybe for example a whole newspaper or a television broadcast.The creation of a publication begins with the creation of a publication object. The news items andpossible advertisements are added to the publication object, when they are ready. The layout ismade when all the material is gathered to the publication object. After the layout and necessarycorrections the publication object is ready to be filed and published in its media. At that time, thepublication object is ready.CONCLUSIONSThe model created is a generic description o f a cross-media publication process and its factors. Atthe same time it is an example about modelling business processes with UML and it illustrates thebenefits that object- orientation brings to modelling. The model facilitates the use of logical objectsin publication processes, such as news object and publication object. These objects can be used todescribe distinctly the development of a single news object and the whole publication in thedifferent phases of the publication process.The model is especially meant to serve as a design pattern for new process models. The diagramsof the model can be adjusted to fit own processes and then specified with more detailed subdiagrams.The diagrams can be simply adjusted with pen and paper or by downloading a diagramfile via URL http://www.media.hut.fi/~th/PUP/pup_final.mdl. The diagrams are in a file formatused by the Rational Rose. A free trial version of Rose has been available at Rational Softw are’swebsite.The model shows also the advantages brought to cross - media publication by integration. Thereport describes the parts of the process that offer possibilities for strong integration. Therefore themodel can be used as a guide while modifyin g own publishing processes towards cross- mediapublication.Further research should be done in designing more design patterns for the essential businessprocesses in different regions of business. This is profitable, because ready design patterns lowerth e first step to business modelling. Further research should be done also in finding the benefits ofobject- orientation in business process modelling.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe Publication Unified Process project was financed by GTTS which is gratefully acknowledged.2 0

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