Thematic/Semantic tagging of associations in UML

Question

Is it possible to use semantic tags in UML associations (among classes) to express the wider semantic nature of the relationship?

For example, consider the relation that Doctor TREATS Patient. Beyond the TREATS relation, we also want to express that it's a medical and humanitarian relation. Is it possible to somehow tag the association between Doctor and Patient with these two additional tags in UML?

Also, consider the example of a Doctor's relation with another Doctor. We want a model where a Doctor can have multiple (semantic) relations such as Professional, Social and many other relations with another Doctor.

Answer 1

I'm not sure that UML was designed for this purpose.

You can define an UML profile and define a set of stereotypes. You can then tag each element of a diagram with one or several stereotypes (e.g. « social », « professional », ...).

However, these "tags" are not meant to scale ad infinitum, unless you'd use them in a non standard way. Stereotypes are more used to customize UML for domain specific needs. So I'm not sure it's the best way to go.

You could as well consider to manage a simpler (in terms of syntax) model, using a semantic net enriched with your own tagging system. I'm not an expert of this field, but I think you'd then have the flexibility to combine your model with data formats designed for semantic networks and knowledge management.