A hybrid representation model for service contracts

The lack of control on personal data/processes and trust in their management by a third party is a well-known problem that limits the success of the cloud computing paradigm. Organizations and final users are increasingly reluctant to move their assets (i.e., services, business data, and personal information) to the cloud, and to participate in an interorganizational service provisioning. In this paper, we discuss the role of contracts as the key elements representing the agreements between service clients and providers. We then present a hybrid approach for machine-readable contract representation, which is ground on Description Logic and SWRL language. We also describe a methodology to map contract clauses written in plain English on the proposed representation. We finally present a case study on a real contract specification.