A meta-model is the ontology for a model, or, in other words, a metamodel is a specification/model of a specification/modeling language.
Relevance
Specific rules expressed in a rule language are instances
The rule language is the model
The meta-model is the ontology of the rule language
- E.g. a « rule » is made of an « antecedent », aka « condition », which is represented by a « boolean expression »; and a « consequent »…
- The semantics of the rule language belongs to the meta-model
Impact on Design
Rule languages can be translated into each other if they share a meta-model
For More Information
JeffPan and Ian Horrocks. Metamodeling architecture of web ontology languages. In Isabel Cruz, Stefan Decker, Jérôme Euzenat, and Deborah McGuinness, editors, The Emerging Semantic Web, Frontiers in artificial intelligence and applications. IOS press, Amsterdam (NL), 2002. An online version is available here.
Saartje Brockmans, Andreas Eberhart, Raphael Volz, Peter Löffler. Visual modeling of OWL DL ontologies using UML. In S.A. McIlraith et al., Proceedings of the Third International Semantic Web Conference, Hiroshima, Japan, 2004, pp. 198-213. Springer, November 2004.
Saartje Brockmans, Peter Haase, Pascal Hitzler. A Metamodel and UML Profile for Rule-extended OWL DL Ontologies. Technical Report, Institute AIFB, University of Karlsruhe. November 2005. (Submitted)
JeffPan, Ian Horrocks and Guus Schreiber. OWL FA: A Metamodeling Extension of OWL DL. In Proc. of the International Workshop on OWL: Experience and Directions (OWL-ED2005), 2005. An online version is available here.
GerdWagner, Carlos Viegas Damásio, and Grigoris Antioniou (2005). Towards a general web rule language, Int. J. Web Engineering and Technology, Vol. 2, Nos. 2/3, pp.181–206.
Ontology Definition Metamodel Third Revised Submission to OMG/ RFP ad/2003-03-40