A Model-Driven Approach for the Rapid Development of E-Negotiation Systems

Most of today’s e-marketplaces support a single negotiation protocol. The protocol is usually built into the e-marketplace infrastructure, therefore if a new one is introduced then a time consuming and complex process of
implementing it takes place. Moreover, participants in the e-marketplace need to adapt their interfaces to the new protocol, especially if they make use of automated means such as software agents to interact with the e-marketplace. This paper reports on a model-driven approach and a framework for rapid and user-friendly development of configurable e-marketplaces and automated e-negotiation systems. A designer on the e-marketplace specifies negotiation protocols using Statecharts and feeds them to a mapping system that transforms them into web service orchestrations. Participants use automated negotiation systems to interact with the e-marketplace. An automated negotiation entity capable of interacting with the emarketplace is generated based on the negotiation protocol implemented on the emarketplace. The automated negotiation entity is provided with negotiation strategies and tactics specified in a declarative format. We propose a mapping
algorithm to transform Statechart models of negotiation protocols into web service orchestrations.