Automated code generation tools for collaboration systems

In a collaboration system, information is sent from one collaborator to one or more other collaborators. Typically this information must be put in a standard format for transmitting through the collaboration framework. If a new type of information is to be sent, new intermediate data structures may need to be defined, new entries may be required in the system ´s ontology/data dictionary, and new processing code needs to be written to convert the intermediate data structures into the framework´s standard format. In a rapidly changing environment, the software development process is too slow to support timely sharing of information. This paper describes an approach to automating the process of developing new data structures, meta-data definitions, and translation software through automated tools.