Variability Management in Software Product Lines Online Learning Applications

The process of learning and teaching online learning has undergone many changes in line with technological developments. Education institutions have begun introducing new methods of learning this. However, it needs a huge amount of labor intensive to produce and maintain educational technologies due to its huge size (literacy, vocational education, school education, engineering and medical education) and huge variants (language, dialect). With the growing demand and at the same time would like to reduce the factor of cost, time and effort is long, then the need for an effective solution allowing rapid system development. A Software Product Line (SPL) approach is one of the best methods that can be used to develop an educational software family. This research focuses on core asset by recognizing and representing variability in variability management. The study employed two phases of activities in data gathering, there are filtering out data from secondary sources which detail out the features of e-learning and constructivist learning environment of each Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Second phase involved the use of expert interviews to determine the features of each higher institution elearning and identify Primitive Requirement of Malaysian Higher Education online learning. Commonality and Variability Analysis (CV Analysis) method has been used as identification of commonality and variability. This analysis is to develop a feature model which further helps in visual representation variants requirements and enhance reusability in the context of product line approaches. As a result, there are 20 Primitive Requirements (PR) has been identified and clearly divided into two categories, common and optional. The frequency in each application of online learning is used to determine whether the PR is reusable. The identification and representation will increase the potential for reuse and help in publishing the specific requirements of the application in the development of the product line

A Comparative Study on Model-Driven Requirements Engineering for Software Product Lines

[EN] Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) and Software Product Lines (SPL) are two software development paradigms that emphasize reusing. The former reuse domain knowledge is represented as models and model transformations for product development, and the latter reuse domain knowledge is represented as core assets to produce a family of products in a given domain. The adequate combination of both paradigms can bring together important advantages to the software development community. However, how to manage requirements during a model-driven product line development remains an open challenge. In particular, the Requirements Engineering (RE) activity must deal with specific properties such as variability and commonality for a whole family of products. This paper presents a comparative study of eleven approaches that perform a MDE strategy in the RE activity for SPL, with the aim of identify ing current practices and research gaps. In summary, most of the approaches are focused on the Domain Engineering phase of the SPL development, giving less attention to the Application Engineering phase. Moreover there is a lack of coverage of the Scoping activity, which defines the SPL boundaries. Several approaches apply some model transformations to obtain architectural and application requirements artifacts. Regarding the tool support for requirements specification and management, we found that most of the approaches use only academic prototypes. Regarding the validation of the approaches, the use of Case Studies as a proof of concept was the most commonly used method; however, there is a lack of well-defined case studies and empirical studies to improve the proposals.This research is part of the MULTIPLE project (with ref. TIN2009-13838).Blanes Domínguez, D.; Insfrán Pelozo, CE. (2012). A Comparative Study on Model-Driven Requirements Engineering for Software Product Lines. Revista de Sistemas e Computação. 2(1):3-13. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/43841S3132

A reusable application framework for context-aware mobile patient monitoring systems

The development of Context-aware Mobile Patient Monitoring Systems (CaMPaMS) using wireless sensors is very complex. To overcome this problem, the Context-aware Mobile Patient Monitoring Framework (CaMPaMF) was introduced as an ideal reuse technique to enhance the overall development quality and overcome the development complexity of CaMPaMS. While a few studies have designed reusable CaMPaMFs, there has not been enough study looking at how to design and evaluate application frameworks based on multiple reusability aspects and multiple reusability evaluation approaches. Furthermore, there also has not been enough study that integrates the identified domain requirements of CaMPaMS. Therefore, the aim of this research is to design a reusable CaMPaMF for CaMPaMS. To achieve this aim, twelve methods were used: literature search, content analysis, concept matrix, feature modelling, use case assortment, domain expert review, model-driven architecture approach, static code analysis, reusability model approach, prototyping, amount of reuse calculation, and software expert review. The primary outcome of this research is a reusable CaMPaMF designed and evaluated to capture reusability from different aspects. CaMPaMF includes a domain model validated by consultant physicians as domain experts, an architectural model, a platform-independent model, a platform-specific model validated by software expert review, and three CaMPaMS prototypes for monitoring patients with hypertension, epilepsy, or diabetes, and multiple reusability evaluation approaches. This research contributes to the body of software engineering knowledge, particularly in the area of design and evaluation of reusable application frameworks. Researchers can use the domain model to enhance the understanding of CaMPaMS domain requirements, thus extend it with new requirements. Developers can also reuse and extend CaMPaMF to develop various CaMPaMS for different diseases. Software industries can also reuse CaMPaMF to reduce the need to consult domain experts and the time required to build CaMPaMS from scratch, thus reducing the development cost and time

A Reference Framework for Variability Management of Software Product Lines

Variability management (VM) in software product line engineering (SPLE) is introduced as an abstraction that enables the reuse and customization of assets. VM is a complex task involving the identification, representation, and instantiation of variability for specific products, as well as the evolution of variability itself. This work presents a comparison and contrast between existing VM approaches using qualitative meta-synthesis to determine the underlying perspectives, metaphors, and concepts of existing methods. A common frame of reference for the VM was proposed as the result of this analysis. Putting metaphors in the context of the dimensions in which variability occurs and identifying its key concepts provides a better understanding of its management and enables several analyses and evaluation opportunities. Finally, the proposed framework was evaluated using a qualitative study approach. The results of the evaluation phase suggest that the organizations in practice only focus on one dimension. The presented frame of reference will help the organization to cover this gap in practice.Comment: 24 page

Defining and validating a feature-driven requirements engineering approach

[EN] The specification of requirements is a key activity for achieving the goals of any software project and it has long been established and recognized by researchers and practitioners. Within Software Product Lines (SPL), this activity is even more critical owing to the need to deal with common, variable, and product-specific requirements, not only for a single product but for the whole set of products. In this paper, we present a Feature-Driven Requirements Engineering approach (FeDRE) that provides support to the requirements specification of SPL. The approach realizes features into functional requirements by considering the variability captured in a feature model. It also provides detailed guidelines on how to associate chunks of features from a feature model and to consider them as the context for the Use Case specification. The evaluation of the approach is illustrated in a case study for developing an SPL of mobile applications for emergency notifications. This case study was applied within 14 subjects, 8 subjects from Universitat Politècnica de València and 6 subjects from Federal University of Bahia. Evaluations concerning the perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, effectiveness and efficiency as regards requirements analysts using the approach are also presented. The results show that FeDRE was perceived as easy to learn and useful by the participants.This research work is cofounded by the Hispano-Brazilian Interuniversity Cooperation Program (HBP-2011-0015), the MULTIPLE project (TIN2009-13838) and the FPU program (AP2009-4635) from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, and the ValI+D program (ACIF/2011/235) Generalitat Valenciana. Copyright 2014 Carnegie Mellon University. This material is based upon work funded and supported by the Department of Defense under Contract No. FA8721-05-C-0003 with Carnegie Mellon University for the operation of the Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded research and development center. NO WARRANTY. THIS CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERING INSTITUTE MATERIAL IS FURNISHED ON AN “AS-IS” BASIS. CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY MAKES NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, AS TO ANY MATTER INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR PURPOSE OR MERCHANTABILITY, EXCLUSIVITY, OR RESULTS OBTAINED FROM USE OF THE MATERIAL. CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY DOES NOT MAKE ANY WARRANTY OF ANY KIND WITH RESPECT TO FREEDOM FROM PATENT, TRADEMARK, OR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. This material has been approved for public release and unlimited distribution. Carnegie Mellon® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by Carnegie Mellon University. DM-0000867. This work was partially supported by the National Institute of Science and Technology for Software Engineering (INES11), funded by CAPES, CNPq and FACEPE, grants 573964/2008-4 and APQ-1037-1.03/08 and CNPq grants 305968/2010-6, 559997/2010-8, 474766/2010-1 and FAPESB. The authors also appreciate the value-adding work of all their colleagues Loreno Alvim, Larissa Rocha, Ivonei Freitas, Tassio Vale and Iuri Santos who make great contributions to the Scoping activity of FeDRE approach.De Oliveira, RP.; Blanes Domínguez, D.; González Huerta, J.; Insfrán Pelozo, CE.; Abrahao Gonzales, SM.; Cohen, S.; De Almeida, ES. (2014). Defining and validating a feature-driven requirements engineering approach. Journal of Universal Computer Science. 20(5):666-691. https://doi.org/10.3217/jucs-020-05-0666S66669120

Review of Requirement Engineering Approaches for Software Product Lines

The Software Product Lines (SPL) paradigm is one of the most recent topics of interest for the software engineering community. On the one hand, the Software Product Lines is based on a reuse strategy with the aim to reduce the global time-to-market of the software product, to improve the software product quality, and to reduce the cost. On the other hand, traditional Requirement Engineering approaches could not be appropriated to deal with the new challenges that arises the SPL adoption. In the last years, several approaches have been proposed to cover this limitation. This technical report presents an analysis of specific approaches used in the development of SPL to provide solutions to model variability and to deal with the requirements engineering activities. The obtained results show that most of the research in this context is focused on the Domain Engineering, covering mainly the Feature Modeling and the Scenario Modeling. Among the studied approaches, only one of them supported the delta identification; this fact implies that new mechanisms to incorporate new deltas in the Domain specification are needed. Regarding the SPL adoption strategy, most of the approaches support a proactive strategy. However, this strategy is the most expensive and risk-prone. Finally, most of the approaches were based on modeling requirements with feature models giving less support to other important activities in the requirements engineering process such as elicitation, validation, or verification of requirements. The results of this study provide a wide view of the current state of research in requirements engineering for SPL and also highlight possible research gaps that may be of interest for researchers and practitioners.Blanes Domínguez, D.; Insfrán Pelozo, CE. (2011). Review of Requirement Engineering Approaches for Software Product Lines. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/1023