Experimental Study of using Petri nets and EPC from the End-user Perspective

Scientific Study from the year 2005 in the subject Computer Science - Commercial Information Technology, grade: 1,3, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Chair for Commercial Information Technology), language: English, abstract: In winter semester 2003/04 a seminar working paper about the 'relevance of the laboratory experiment in MIS research' was generated, based on an empirical literature study. One result was that this method is generally established within information systems in the English-speaking language area (especially in the data modeling domain and the formal versus non-formal contestation). But surprisingly practically no experimental studies could be found, using the laboratory experiment as research method in process modeling. Based on this cognition, in summer semester 2004 the project EXPEND (Experimental Study of using Petri nets and EPC from the End-user Perspective) was started, intending to realize an experimental study just in that research environment. As a framework for the further study, a comparison of the two process modeling languages EPC and Petri nets (in particular C/E nets) from the end-user perspective was given. Another important target for the study is, in addition to the principle realization of an empirical laboratory experiment, to prove or disprove some of the most prominent hypothesis in the theoretical literature discussion between the supporters of the semiformal EPC and the formal Petri nets. Their theoretical background, justification and transfer to provable hypothesis form the following theoretical framework chapter 2. Because using the laboratory experiment in the data modeling research provides a set of similarities, the approaches from GREEN, PETRE and BELLAMY and from MOHER, MAK and BLUMENTHAL provided a basic proceeding guideline for the study on hand. Both workgroups compared the comprehensibility of Petri nets against textual program representations within a laboratory experiment. Chapter 3 illustrates the specific experimental design used for the study on hand. In chapter 4, the results of the data analysis and statistical tests for the particular hypothesis are illustrated and discussed. The over-all concluding and comprising discussion forms the closing chapter 5.