Thomas Derave , Frederik Gailly , Tiago Prince Sales , Geert Poels
{"title":"A taxonomy and ontology for digital platforms","authors":"Thomas Derave , Frederik Gailly , Tiago Prince Sales , Geert Poels","doi":"10.1016/j.is.2023.102293","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In academic literature and in business communication digital platforms are categorized into different types including, but not limited to, multi-sided platform, digital marketplace, on-demand platform and sharing economy platform. Observing the substantial literature on these platform types, both in academia and professional contexts, there is lack of consensus on the definition of these digital platform types. On top of that, there is a lack of knowledge in the literature on the requirements and design of these digital platform types. We address the observed lack of shared conceptualizations by creating a taxonomy for digital platforms, by classifying digital platforms according to their distinctive features. Further, we address the lack of design knowledge with a digital platform reference ontology that describes the construction and operation of the different types of digital platform that are distinguished in the taxonomy. This reference ontology, developed using the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO) and several of its core ontologies, is organized into different ontology modules, allowing to describe functionalities that are common to any digital platform and more specific functionalities that have their origin in the distinctive features that were used to construct the taxonomy. The taxonomy that we contribute helps to clearly define the different types of digital platform that can be observed today. It also helps analysing further evolutions in the platform domain. The contribution of a well-founded digital platform reference ontology is a step towards a better understanding of digital platform functionality, better communication between stakeholders, and eventually may facilitate future research and development of new types of digital platform.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50363,"journal":{"name":"Information Systems","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Information Systems","FirstCategoryId":"94","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306437923001291","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
In academic literature and in business communication digital platforms are categorized into different types including, but not limited to, multi-sided platform, digital marketplace, on-demand platform and sharing economy platform. Observing the substantial literature on these platform types, both in academia and professional contexts, there is lack of consensus on the definition of these digital platform types. On top of that, there is a lack of knowledge in the literature on the requirements and design of these digital platform types. We address the observed lack of shared conceptualizations by creating a taxonomy for digital platforms, by classifying digital platforms according to their distinctive features. Further, we address the lack of design knowledge with a digital platform reference ontology that describes the construction and operation of the different types of digital platform that are distinguished in the taxonomy. This reference ontology, developed using the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO) and several of its core ontologies, is organized into different ontology modules, allowing to describe functionalities that are common to any digital platform and more specific functionalities that have their origin in the distinctive features that were used to construct the taxonomy. The taxonomy that we contribute helps to clearly define the different types of digital platform that can be observed today. It also helps analysing further evolutions in the platform domain. The contribution of a well-founded digital platform reference ontology is a step towards a better understanding of digital platform functionality, better communication between stakeholders, and eventually may facilitate future research and development of new types of digital platform.
期刊介绍:
Information systems are the software and hardware systems that support data-intensive applications. The journal Information Systems publishes articles concerning the design and implementation of languages, data models, process models, algorithms, software and hardware for information systems.
Subject areas include data management issues as presented in the principal international database conferences (e.g., ACM SIGMOD/PODS, VLDB, ICDE and ICDT/EDBT) as well as data-related issues from the fields of data mining/machine learning, information retrieval coordinated with structured data, internet and cloud data management, business process management, web semantics, visual and audio information systems, scientific computing, and data science. Implementation papers having to do with massively parallel data management, fault tolerance in practice, and special purpose hardware for data-intensive systems are also welcome. Manuscripts from application domains, such as urban informatics, social and natural science, and Internet of Things, are also welcome. All papers should highlight innovative solutions to data management problems such as new data models, performance enhancements, and show how those innovations contribute to the goals of the application.