BPM Academic Initiative

Process modeling is an integral part of many business administration and IT curricula these days. The Academic Initiative supports Business Process Management (BPM) in academic teaching and research.

As part of the initiative, Signavio offers a web-based process modeling platform to students, lecturers and researchers. More than 10,000 users around the world have already signed up to create and automate BPMN 2.0 diagrams and other process models – free of charge.

BPM Academic Initiative

Join the BPM Academic Initiative and get free access to one of the leading process modeling and workflow automation platforms. It is an ideal BPM tool for lectures, seminars, and projects. As there is no installation required, using the platform is as easy as it could be. The Signavio Process Manager supports multiple modeling languages such as BPMN 2.0, EPC, Petri nets and ArchiMate. Signavio Workflow Accelerator then enables the BPMN 2.0 models to be automated.

BPM Academic Initiative for students

As a BPM Academic Initiative participant, you will benefit from a collaborative workspace for your project team. In addition, you can use Signavio Process Manager and Signavio Workflow Accelerator to prepare your Bachelor or Master Thesis. This is your chance to use these professional modeling and management tools completely free.

BPM Academic Initiative for lecturers

Use the BPMN teaching packages in your university and offer your students the possibility of practical training with Process Manager or Signavio Workflow Accelerator. Open up a collaborative workspace and invite your students by sending an invitation link via E-Mail.

Who is eligible to use the platform?

Students who are currently enrolled at a university or college and employ Signavio Process Manager or Signavio Workflow Accelerator in the context of a university course or project, or in the context of non-commercial process management training are eligible.
Lecturers or researchers who are using the platform for non-commercial and non-productive purposes, or for a publicly funded research project in a nonproductive way.

No installation required
Collaborative workspaces
Process modeling platform
BPMN 2.0, EPC, Petri nets, ArchiMate
Ideal for student projects and theses
BPMN teaching package

For students

Collaborative workspaces
Ideal for student projects and theses
Process modeling platform
Workflow automation platform

For lecturers

Invite your students via E-Mail
BPMN teaching package

For students

Collaborative workspaces
Ideal for student projects and theses
Process modeling platform
Workflow automation platform

For lecturers

Invite your students via E-Mail
BPMN teaching package

Research Prototypes

Restructuring BPMN diagrams using BPStruct

by Artem Polyvyanyy, Luciano García-Bañuelos, Dirk Fahland, Mathias Weske, Marlon Dumas

Complex BPMN diagrams with spaghetti-like structures are hard to read. BPStruct helps to simplify such diagrams. The underlying algorithms transform unstructured programs/service compositions/(business) process models into well-structured ones. A model is well-structured, if for every node with multiple outgoing arcs (a split) there is a corresponding node with multiple incoming arcs (a join), and vice versa, such that the fragment of the model between the split and the join forms a single-entry-single-exit (SESE) component; otherwise the model is unstructured. The transformation preserves concurrency in resulting well-structured models.

Restructuring BPMN diagrams using BPStruct Sample

The motivations are manifold:

Well-structured models are easier to layout for visual representation.
Well-structured models are easier to comprehend by humans.
Well-structured models tend to have fewer errors than unstructured ones and it is less probable to introduce new errors when modifying them.
Well-structured process models are better suited for analysis with many existing formal techniques applicable only for structured models.
Well-structured models are better suited for efficient execution and optimization.

Modeling and analyzing place/transition nets (Petri nets)

Petri nets are a powerful formal model for describing the behavior of concurrent systems. It is often used as formal foundation for verifying the control flow of process models.The Academic Initiative includes Petri nets as a diagram type and offers various correctness criteria in order to identify well-behaving process models. Step-through simulation gives a hint about the control flow semantics.

A Petri net is "sound" if there are no deadlocks and no unreachable transitions. In workflow nets (having one input place and one output place), the net structure defines the initial and the final marking, which in turn are the basis for applying this classical notion of soundness. Weak soundness and relaxed soundness can also be checked by the tool.The implementation is based on a naive state space exploration.

This is sufficient for examples with a small degree of concurrency. More advanced model checking techniques, such as LoLA (available on service-technology.org), allow for a more efficient verification of large state spaces.

BIMP for simulating BPMN business process models

by Madis Abel, Marlon Dumas, Luciano García-Bañuelos and Viljar Kärgenberg

After modeling a BPMN process with activity durations and case frequency, you can export the process model and import it into the BIMP business process simulation tool. This tool allows to simulate complex real-world business processes in large-scale scenarios. The system was designed and implemented by Marlon Dumas and colleagues at the University of Tartu. The bimp-simulator is a Google code project.

* The prototypes are available as part of the modeling platform of the BPM Academic Initiative.

Partners

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