Beyond Technical Interoperability - Introducing a Reference Model for Measures of Merit for Coalition Interoperability

Interoperability on the technical level is a hot topic since several decades. Despite the fact that several technical reference models to increase interoperability have been introduced, we are still waiting for working solutions. The reason may be, that interoperability is definitely not limited to the technical domain but is dependent on organizational aspects as well. To deal with these issues, they have to be perceived first. The recent CCRTS contributed to this very well. To overcome resulting questions, however, the influence must be captured in a reproducible way in form of measures of merit. Based on the experience in several international projects, the author developed a framework to deal with possible measures of merits to be used to deal with the various layers of semantic interoperability in coalition operations. The paper introduces this reference model, connects it to the recent discussions of measures of merits for C2 Assessment, and introduces some contributions to the discussions of measure for interoperability on various levels. Furthermore, some technical reference models will be mapped to this reference model to show that actual used legacy model results can be migrated, hence reused in this broader context.