Rapid Modeling, Prototyping, and Generation of Digital Libraries- A Theory-Based Approach

Despite some development in the area of DL architectures and systems, there is still little support for the complete life cycle of DL development, including requirements gathering, conceptual modeling, rapid prototyping, and code generation and reuse. Even when partially supported, those activities are uncorrelated within the current systems, which can lead to inconsistencies and incompleteness. Moreover, the current few existing approaches are not supported by comprehensive and formal foundations and theories, which brings problems of interoperability and makes it extremely difficult to adapt and tailor systems to specific societal preferences and needs of the target community. In this paper, having the 5S formal theoretical framework as support, we present an architecture and a family of tools that allow rapid modeling, prototyping, and generation of digital libraries. 5S stands for Streams, Structures, Spaces, Scenarios, and Societies and is our formal theory for DLs. 5SL is a domain-specific, declarative language for DL conceptual modeling. 5SGraph is a visual modeling tool that helps designers to model a digital library without knowing the theoretical foundations and the syntactical details of 5SL. Furthermore, 5SGraph maintains semantic constraints specified by a 5S metamodel and enforces these constraints over the instance model to ensure semantic consistency and correctness. 5SGraph also enables component reuse to reduce the time and efforts of designers. 5SLGen is a DL generation tool that takes specifications in 5SL and a set of component pools and generates portions of a running DL system. The outputs of 5SLGen include user interface prototypes, in a generic UI markup language, for validation of services behavior and workflow representations of the running system, generated to support the desired scenarios

Generación automática de prototipos funcionales a partir de esquemas preconceptuales

La Educción de Requisitos es una tarea compleja, dado que es en este proceso donde se establecen los elementos del aplicativo de software a desarrollar. Esta tarea, frecuentemente, presenta problemas de comunicación debido a las diferentes formaciones que tienen los analistas e interesados. Usualmente, la información recolectada en las entrevistas se suele plasmar en esquemas conceptuales, generalmente de UML. Aunque estos diagramas son estándar no permiten una validación del interesado debido a su complejidad, ya que son cercanos al lenguaje técnico del analista. Una vez finalizada la Educción de Requisitos, se procede con la generación del código fuente de la aplicación. Con el fin de mejorar y agilizar este proceso existen varios métodos de desarrollo de software que impulsan la generación automática de código. Para tal fin, se utilizan las herramientas CASE convencionales, pero aún están muy distantes de exhibir un proceso automático y muchas de estas herramientas se complementan con algunos trabajos que se alejan de los estándares de modelado. La mayoría de estas herramientas CASE generan parte del código fuente, pero no generan completamente la aplicación de software funcional. Con el fin de solucionar estos problemas, en esta Tesis, se propone un conjunto de reglas heurísticas para generar, automáticamente, una aplicación de software totalmente funcional a partir de Esquemas Preconceptuales bajo el patrón arquitectónico MVC, utilizando como lenguaje de programación PHP 5.x con XHTML. Además, se propone un conjunto de reglas heurísticas para generar, automáticamente, el diagrama entidad-relación y las sentencias DDL para el gestor de base de datos MySQL. Al utilizar los Esquemas Preconceptuales se mejora la comunicación con el interesado, dada la cercanía con el lenguaje natural que poseen estos esquemas. Adicionalmente, se mejora la calidad de las aplicaciones de software ya que es posible obtener una validación del interesado para dicho diagrama durante todas las fases del desarrollo. Esta Tesis se complementa con la elaboración de una herramienta CASE en la cual se incorporan todas las reglas heurísticas definidas para la generación automática del código. El funcionamiento de esta herramienta se ejemplifica con un caso de laboratorio. /Abstract. Requirements elicitation is a complex task, because in this process the elements of the software to-be-made are established. Frequently, this task is affected by communication problems, due to the fact that both analysts and stakeholders (the main actors of this task) have differences in training. Commonly, the information gathered during interviews is reflected into conceptual schemas, mainly UML diagrams. Even though UML diagrams are standardized, they are barely validated by stakeholders, because the UML diagrams are complex and nearer to the analyst technical language. Once requirements elicitation task is completed, source code of the application can be developed. In order to improve and speed up this process, several software development methods searching for the automated generation of code are proposed. So, well-known CASE tools are employed, but they are far away from automated processes and, sometimes, they are non-standard modeling proposals. Most of these tools partially generated source code, but the resulting application is barely functional. Trying to fix the above problems, in this Thesis I propose a set of heuristic rules for automatically generating a fully-functional software application from pre-conceptual schemas. Both the MVC architectural pattern and the XHTML-based PHP 5.x language are selected for this process. Also, I propose a set of heuristic rules for automatically generating the entity-relationship diagram and the DDL commands for constructing and using the MySQL database management system. The usage of pre-conceptual schemas improves the analyst-stakeholder communication process, because such schemas are closer to the natural language. Also, the stakeholder validation of pre-conceptual schemas we can achieve during all the phases of software development lifecycle improves the quality of the software application. This M. Sc. Thesis is complemented by the elaboration of a CASE tool which includes all the defined heuristic rules for automated code generation. A lab case is used to exemplify the functioning of the above mentioned CASE tool.Maestrí

Correctness of model-based software composition (CMC). Proceedings. ECOOP 2003 Workshop #11 in association with the 17th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Darmstadt, Germany, July 22, 2003

This proceedings contains the contributions to the Workshop on Correctness of Model-based Software Composition, held in conjunction with the 17th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP), Darmstadt, Germany on July 22, 2003. While most events concentrate on realisations of composition on the technological level this workshop aims at closing the gap of ensuring the intended composition result supported by the usage of models. Two important problems in composition are first how to model the different assets (such as components, features or aspects) and second the composition of assets such that consistency and correctness is guaranteed. The first problem has been addressed in the Workshop on Model-based Software Reuse (ECOOP 2002). The latter problem occurs when dealing with, e.g., component interoperability, aspect weaving, feature interaction and (on a more abstract level) traceability between different views or models. One approach to deal with the composition problem is to use models allowing to model the composition. This allows checking the interoperability of the different assets to compose, the correctness of the configuration of assets and predicting properties of the assembled system (especially compliance with user requirements). In case of problem detection suitable resolution algorithms can be applied. 10 reviewed contributions give an overview about current research directions in correctness of model-based software compositions. Results from the discussions during the workshop may be found in the ECOOP 2003 workshop reader to be published by Springer LNCS. The web page of the workshop as well as the contributions of this proceedings may be found at URL: http://ssel.vub.ac.be/workshops/ECOOP2003/ Affiliated to previous ECOOP conferences a related workshop about feature interaction (ECOOP 2001) and an additional about model-based software reuse (ECOOP 2002) have been held. Their contributions are published as technical report No. 2001-14 and as technical report No. 2002-4, respectively, at the Universitaet Karlsruhe, Fakultaet fuer Informatik. URLs: http://www.info.uni-karlsruhe.de/~pulvermu/workshops/ecoop2001/ http://www.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/cgi-bin/psview?document=/ira/2001/14 http://www.info.uni-karlsruhe.de/~pulvermu/workshops/ECOOP2002/ http://www.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/cgi-bin/psview?document=/ira/2002/4 We would like to thank the program committee for their support as well as the authors and participants for their engaged contributions. The Workshop Organisers Ragnhild Van Der Straeten, Andreas Speck, Elke Pulvermueller, Matthias Clauss, Andreas Pleus

Adaptation of Heuristic Evaluation for Mobile Applications and the Impact of Context of Use

The aim of this programme of research was to build upon prior work regarding the heuristic evaluation of mobile applications in two important areas. A mixed methods approach was taken to address the research questions using questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, document analysis and statistical analyses. The first contribution of this programme of research was to adapt traditional usability heuristics, so they could be used to more effectively evaluate the usability of mobile applications. The resulting set of mobile application usability heuristics uncovered the highest number of usability issues in absolute terms, as well as the most critical issues within a well-known travel mobile application when compared to two other sets of usability heuristics. In addition, the set of mobile application usability heuristics defined within this programme of research was ranked as the most useful set by participants knowledgeable in the field of human-computer interaction when compared to two other sets of usability heuristics. The second contribution of this programme of research was to extend the set of mobile application heuristics allowing human-computer interaction researchers and practitioners to more effectively consider the potential impact of context of use on the usability of mobile applications. This addressed a gap in the literature as few effective methods existed for this purpose. The protocol was deemed easy to use, easy to understand and easy to learn by participants knowledgeable in the field of human-computer interaction. The beneficiaries of this programme of research are human-computer interaction researchers and practitioners, as well as mobile application users.