The proliferation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Education, Teaching, Training, Learning, and the operational application (Performing) of acquired knowledge, skills, and competencies in contemporary social environments has directly influenced the transformation of early Networked Learning (NL) concepts into a Global Learning Infrastructure. Creating cooperative/collaborative stakeholders networks composed of learning subjects, objects, and competencies consumers, exposes the significant potential for gaining overall social progress. The main challenging obstacles of such globalization are: embedding semantics into the competence credentials carriers, trusted dissemination of verifiable competence tokens, the heterogeneous ontologies mapping, and sustainable service delivery infrastructure.

The concept of digital twins has been in the field for a long time, constantly challenging the specification, modeling, design, implementation, and exploitation of complex cyber–physical systems. Despite the various foundations, standards, and platforms in systems engineering, there are ongoing challenges with verification and validation methodology. This study aims to establish a generic framework that addresses the various aspects of digital twinning. The multifaceted nature of the problem requires raising the abstraction level in both the real (actual) and virtual domains, effective dissemination of information resources, and a design inspired by verification and validation. The proposed framework combines the quintuple helix model with the problem and operational domains of a real (actual) twin, the solution and implementation domains of a virtual twin, and the execution domain as the bridge that links them. Verification and validation dimensions follow the meta object facility abstraction layers (instance, model, meta-model, and meta-meta-model) mapping over five helices. Embedding the complexity reduction mechanisms in the proposed framework builds a suite for extendible and verifiable digital twinning in simulation and real-time scenarios. The application of main conceptual framework mechanisms in a real-world example study aids the verification of this research’s intentions. The validation is a matter of further research endeavors.

We discuss the collaboration support of loosely coupled Smart Systems through configurable hyper-frameworks. Based on the system-of-systems (SoS) paradigm, in this article, we propose the model of a novel extendible conceptual framework with domain-specific moderation support for model-based simulations and the engineering of complex heterogeneous systems. The domain knowledge meta-model and corresponding management enterprise architecture enable the creation of template-based specializations. The proposed SoS conceptual framework meta-model represents an initial framework prototype that supports modeling, simulation, analysis, and utilization of dynamic architecting of heterogeneous SoS configurations. A Smart-Habitat concept encapsulating Smart-Area, Smart-City, Smart-Lot, Smart-Building, and Smart-Unit abstractions illustrate the frameworks’ applicability. The proposed SoS conceptual framework represents the initial conceptual support for modeling, simulation, analysis, and dynamic architecting of heterogeneous SoS configurations. We plan to refine the component architecture meta-model, specify a language workbench with Domain-Specific Orchestration Language support, and verify the configuration-based simulation manifest creation. These actions lead to the framework’s next stage, an operational framework (OF) instance, as a transitional artifact to the aimed software framework (SwF) counterpart.

The System-of-Systems research area, with its opened challenging approach to engineering practice transformation, has a significant impact to the closely related problem domains cooperation. The Architectural Design, Urban Planning, and Construction Engineering Domains, even when treated separately, are extremely demanding targets for sophisticated software tools development. While managing the complex urban blocks interactions in the contemporary city configuration, it is particularly important that these three domains cooperate closely. The application of a smart house paradigm is dominantly focused on the internal facility parameters monitoring and control. For the subset of these internal parameters, like for example: daylight illumination; privacy; and natural ventilation, the facility (building) environment impacts analysis is unavoidable. In this article, based on the System-of-Systems paradigm, we present the model of a smart house environment impact analysis framework suitable for Model Driven Simulations of Building (house) Attributes. The proposed framework architecture is designed to support the cooperation/collaboration of software tools. The verification has shown that it may be effectively used for the impact analysis of arbitrary external (urban block specific) attributes on their internal state and the behavior (specific for a single building).

To cope with the complexity, the digital transformation of cyber-physical and socio-technology systems demands the utilization of heterogeneous tailorable development environments with dynamic configuring ability and transparent integration of independently developed dedicated frameworks. The essential design principles and component-based architecting of the initial prototype of the digital transformation hyper-framework represent this research target. These principles are derived from the broad scope analysis of digital transformation projects, methods, and tools and are glued to the proposed virtual twin hyper-document. The critical analysis of the digital transformation domain influenced the formulation of five research hypotheses that frame digital transformation of digital transformation, as the second goal of this research article. Armed with a meta-modeling layer, the incremental development of hybrid architecture instances focuses on meta-models and their transformations into functional, interpretable environments. The applicability aspects of the formulated hypothesis are verified throughout the architecture, meta-configuration, and handling of information resources as the essential segments of the initial version of the proposed evolution prototype. The detailed illustration of the horizontal and vertical interoperability of the proposed framework is illustrated by the Life Cycle Modeling component framework that creatively integrates the System, Software, and Operation Engineering aspects of the proposed hyper-framework. The proposed prototype capabilities are discussed in the context of the contemporary digital transformation ecosystem. Specification and development of the additional component frameworks, in compliance with specified generative mechanisms, directing further refinements of the proposed hyper-framework.