Insights on How to Enhance the Detection of Modeling Errors by iStar Novice Learners

When teaching a new paradigm which involves practical training to a large group of students, it often becomes time-consuming and impractical for a single instructor to give advice on an individual basis on how to correct errors being made and the need for computer-aided assistants arises.  In this work, we focus on the i* (iStar) framework which is being used to teach requirements engineering and modeling techniques to undergraduate and graduate students in the classroom.  We proposed and developed an online tool for automating the work of checking the design constructs used in i* diagrams so that novice learners could detect and correct errors on their own without the assistance of a human expert nearby.  Although the tool was useful in showing novice learners how to edit their models to make them free of syntax errors, there were a number of situations in which they could not recognize the semantical design flaws and defects of a model using the feedback from the tool.  In this paper, we give examples of the errors we observed and recommend a new tool which will automatically generate a human understandable textual annotation of the main model elements and the relationships connecting them to assist beginners as well as non-technical stakeholders involved in the requirement decisions of a system with detecting simple misrepresentations of information of this type that need to be rectified in the model. 

Ontological analysis of means-end links

The i* community has raised several main dialects and dozens of variations in the definition of the i* language. Differences may be found related not just to the representation of new concepts but to the very core of the i* language. In previous work we have tackled this issue mainly from a syntactic point of view, using metamodels and syntactic-based model interoperability frameworks. In this paper, we go one step beyond and consider the use of foundational ontologies in general, and UFO in particular, as a way to clarify the meaning of core i* constructs and as the basis to propose a normative definition. We focus here on one of the most characteristics i* constructs, namely means-end links.Postprint (published version

i-Star Modeling Tool

Náplň této bakalářské práce spočívá v návrhu a implementaci online softwarového nástroje pro vizuální modelování diagramů modelů cílů, a to pomocí jazyka modelování i-star. Primární funkcionalita, kterou nástroj uživateli zpřístupňuje, je tvorba těchto modelů, jejich editace a následovné vyexportování celého modelu pro budoucí užití. Nástroj podporuje tvorbu modelů cílů na základě dvou metod. Hlavní metodikou je modelování využívající právě jazyka i-star, druhotnou pak tvorba standartních digramů případů užití na základě notace UML. Práce se skládá ze dvou částí, kde obsah první časti se zabývá popisem jazyka i-star, cílového modelování a také srovnáním již existujících nástrojů podporující práci s jazykem i*. Druhá část se pak zaměřuje na návrh a implementaci online nástroje s využitím technologií třetích stran.The goal of this bachelor thesis was to design and implement an online software tool, dedicated for working with goal modeling diagrams, using the i-star modelling laguage. Primary functionality of implemented application lies in creation and modification of goal models as well as in ability to export and import existing diagrams. Tool supports modelling based on two distinct methods. The main method is using the i-star modelling language while the other one is based on using standart UML use-case diagrams. Bachelor thesis can be divided into two main parts. The first one deals with the description of i-star language, after that a detailed goal modeling description as a whole and the comparison of the existing i-star capable tools is also mentioned. Design and implementation details of created online application are discussed in the second part of this paper.460 - Katedra informatikyvelmi dobř

GoBIS: An integrated framework to analyse the goal and business process perspectives in information systems

[EN] Context Organisational reengineering, continuous process improvement, alignment among complementary analysis perspectives, and information traceability are some current motivations to promote investment and scientific effort for integrating goal and business process perspectives. Providing support to integrate information systems analysis becomes a challenge in this complex setting. Objective The GoBIS framework integrates two goal and business process modelling approaches: i⁎ (a goal-oriented modelling method) and Communication Analysis (a communication-oriented business process modelling method). Method In this paper, we describe the methodological integration of both methods with the aim of fulfilling several criteria: i) to rely on appropriate theories; ii) to provide abstract and concrete syntaxes; iii) to provide scenarios of application; iv) to develop tool support; v) to provide demonstrable benefits to potential adopters. Results We provide guidelines for using the two modelling methods in a top-down analysis scenario. The guidelines are validated by means of a comparative experiment and a focus-group session with students. Conclusions From a practitioner viewpoint (modeller and/or analyst), the guidelines facilitate the traceability between goal and business process models, the experimental results highlight the benefits of GoBIS in performance and usability perceptions, and demonstrate an improvement on the completeness of the latter having an impact on efficiency. From a researcher perspective, the validation has produced useful feedback for future research.This work has been supported by the Spanish MICINN Project ProS-Req (TIN2010-19130-C02-01, TIN2010-19130-C02-02) and EOSSAC (TIN2013-44641-P); the Generalitat Valenciana Project IDEO (PROMETEOII/2014/039); the FPI-UPV Pre-Doctoral Grant; the European Commission Project CaaS (FP7 611351); and the ERDF Structural Funds.Ruiz Carmona, LM.; Costal, D.; España Cubillo, S.; Franch, X.; Pastor López, O. (2015). GoBIS: An integrated framework to analyse the goal and business process perspectives in information systems. Information Systems. 53:330-345. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2015.03.007S3303455

Challenges for Model-Driven Development of Strategically Aligned Information Systems

[EN] Model-Driven Development (MDD) has been proposed as an alternative to the traditional development of information systems, given its ability to integrate different stakeholders into the information system engineering process. Currently, longtime researched MDD methods and modern no-code and low-code platforms support the generation of the working code of the information system and services. However, in today's continuously changing environment, organisations need to align the information systems and services with the business structure, strategy, and processes they support. This article shows the design challenges for integrating business strategy information into a model-driven development method. We applied a set of mechanism experiments on an MDD method composed of three modelling frameworks with demonstrated semantic consistency, that covers the organisational, business process, and information system levels to identify information loss and transformation coverage issues that prevent the generation of information systems and services that are strategically aligned. The challenges were discussed with experts, confirming the relevance of avoiding the overlapping between the strategic and business process concepts, providing organisational-level constructs to express strategic ends and means, and considering the organisational structure in the modular design of business process and information systems and services.This work was supported in part by the Spanish State Research Agency and the Generalitat Valenciana under Project MICIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, Project GV/2021/072, and Project INNEST/2021/57 by Agencia Valenciana de Innovacion (AVI); in part by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the European Union Next Generation, and Plan de Recuperacion, Transformacion y Resiliencia (PRTR); and in part by the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID)/Scholarship Program/Doctorado Becas Chile under Grant 2020-72210494.Noel-Lopez, R.; Panach, JI.; Pastor López, O. (2022). Challenges for Model-Driven Development of Strategically Aligned Information Systems. IEEE Access. 10:38237-38253. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.316222538237382531

Open Models

In Anlehnung an den Open Source Gedanken hat sich die Open Model Initiative zum Ziel gesetzt, eine Community zu schaffen, die sich mit der verteilten und kooperativen Entwicklung von Modellen, Konzepten und Tools für die Modellierung beschäftigt. Das Ziel dieser Diplomarbeit ist es, diejenigen Maßnahmen und Funktionalitäten zu identifizieren und implementieren, die für die Ausgestaltung einer Open Model Community notwendig sind. Dazu werden zu Beginn andere, bereits am Markt befindlicher Open Source bzw. Open Content Communities in Hinblick auf ihren Einsatz von Social Software (z.B. Blogs, Wikis, Foren, usw.) untersucht. Im Anschluss daran folgt eine Einführung in die theoretischen Grundlagen von Communities. In diesem Zusammenhang werden die Faktoren untersucht, die dazu führen, dass sich Benutzer überhaupt an einer Community beteiligen. Darüber hinaus wird die Wichtigkeit von Regeln für das reibungslose Miteinander der Mitglieder einer Community herausgestellt. Den Abschluss der Grundlagenbetrachtung bildet ein Überblick über gängige Social Software. Die bis dahin gewonnenen Erkenntnisse dienen dann als Grundlage für die Definition der Anforderungen an die Open Model Community, bevor schließlich deren Umsetzung mithilfe der Liferay Open Source Portalsoftware dokumentiert wird.Inspired by the idea of Open Source, the Open Model Initiative intends to create a community that deals with the distributed and collaborative development of models, concepts and tools for modeling. The aim of this thesis is to identify and implement the provisions and features necessary for such an Open Model Community. For this purpose, the thesis starts with an observation of already established Open Source / Open Content communities and documents, which kind of social software is being used by them (eg. blogs, wikis, forums, etc.). This chapter is followed by an introduction to the theoretical foundations of communities. In this context the major motivational aspects for a potential member’s engagement in a community are shown. Furthermore the need for rules to maintain order inside communities is expressed, before the chapter closes with an overview of common social software. After that, the requirements for the Open Model Community are defined on the basis of the insights gained so far. In the last chapter of this thesis the actual implementation of the previously defined features using the Liferay Open Source Portal is documented

Requirements for a software maintenance support environment

This thesis surveys the field of software maintenance, and addresses the maintenance requirements of the Aerospace Industry, which is developing inige projects, running over many years, and sometimes safety critical in nature (e.g. ARIANE 5, HERMES, COLUMBUS). Some projects are collaborative between distributed European partners. The industry will have to cope in the near and far future with the maintenance of these products and it will be essential to improve the software maintenance process and the environments for maintenance. Cost effective software maintenance needs an efficient, high quality and homogeneous environment or Integrated Project Support Environment (IPSE). Most IPSE work has addressed software development, and lias not fully considered the requirements of software maintenance. The aim of this project is to draw up a set of priorities and requirements for a Maintenance IPSE. An IPSE, however can only support a software maintenance method. The first stage of this project is to deline 'software maintenance best practice' addressing the organisational, managerial and technical aspects, along with an evaluation of software maintenance tools for Aerospace systems. From this and an evaluation of current IPSEs, the requirements for a Software Maintenance Support Environment are presented for maintenance of Aerospace software

An ontology knowledge inspection methodology for quality assessment and continuous improvement

Ontology-learning methods were introduced in the knowledge engineering area to automatically build ontologies from natural language texts related to a domain. Despite the initial appeal of these methods, automatically generated ontologies may have errors, inconsistencies, and a poor design quality, all of which must be manually fixed, in order to maintain the validity and usefulness of automated output. In this work, we propose a methodology to assess ontologies quality (quantitatively and graphically) and to fix ontology inconsistencies minimising design defects. The proposed methodology is based on the Deming cycle and is grounded on quality standards that proved effective in the software engineering domain and present high potential to be extended to knowledge engineering quality management. This paper demonstrates that software engineering quality assessment approaches and techniques can be successfully extended and applied to the ontology-fixing and quality improvement problem. The proposed methodology was validated in a testing ontology, by ontology design quality comparison between a manually created and automatically generated ontology.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio