Conducting Information Systems Research the Old-Fashioned Way

This research career retrospective summarizes the intellectual contributions of the author’s academic career, covering 35 years from the early 1980’s onwards. It also attends to various incidents and conditions that shaped his research career, as well as his research strategy choices that allowed him to overcome some of the challenges imposed by these conditions. These strategic choices comprised to do small research rather than big research and to privilege international collaboration over local collaboration

Domain analysis within the GenSIF framework

The GenSIF framework which is targeted towards very large, distributed, and complex software systems recently has been proposed to accomplish a form of systems engineering and systems development in which the issue of systems integration is considered from the beginning on. One of the components of GenSIF is domain analysis. Domain analysis leads to the design of a domain model. The specific needs GenSIF has in that area were investigated with an emphasis on domain modeling. Main points addressed in that investigation were the issue regarding the relevant information for the domain modeling process and the required type of domain model. Based on these results, an approach to domain modeling for GenSIF was developed that provides a specific graphical notation which allows to create a semiformal kind of domain model. A few modeling examples for the application domain university department were designed to evaluate this notation. In addition, the major aspects of the application of a computer based tool with respect to domain analysis as a concept of GenSIF were analysed

Galileo: A strongly typed, interactive conceptual language

ABSTRACT Galileo, a programming language for database applications, is presented. Galileo is a strongly typed, interactive programming language designed specifically to support Semantic Data Model features (classification, aggregation and specialization) as well as abstraction mechanisms of modern programming languages (types, abstract types and modularization). The main contributions of Galileo are: a) the proposal of a flexible type system to model database structure and semantic integrity constraints; b) the inclusion of type hierarchies to support the specialization abstraction mechanism of Semantic Data Models. c) the proposal of a modularization mechanism to structure data and operations into interrelated units; d) the integration of the abstraction mechanisms into an expression based language that allows an interactive use of the database without resorting to a new stand alone query language. Galileo will be used in the immediate future as a tool for database design and, in the long term, as a high level interface for DBMSs

A Requirements Analyst's Apprentice: A Proposal

The Requirements Analyst's APprentice (RAAP) partially automates the modeling process involved in creating a software requirement. It uses knowledge of the specific domain and general experience regarding software requirements to guide decisions made in the construction of a requirement. RAAP assists the analyst by maintaining consistency, detecting redundancy of description, and analyzing completeness relative to a known body of requirements experience. RAAP is a tool to be used by an analyst in his dealings with the customer. It helps him translate the customer's informal ideas into a requirements knowledge base. RAAP will have the ability to present its internal representation of the requirement in document form. Document-based requirements analysis is the state of the art. A computer-based, knowledge-based analysis system can provide improvement in quality, efficiency and maintainability over document-based requirements analysis and thus advance the state of the art towards automatic programming. RAAP takes a new approach to automating software development by concentrating on the modeling process involved in system construction (as opposed to the model translation process.) By supporting the intelligent creation of perspicuous models, it is hoped that flaws will become self revealing and the quality of software can be improved. Assistance is proved or the creation of "correct" models and for the analysis of the implications of modeling decisions.MIT Artificial Intelligence Laborator

The semantic database model as a basis for an automated database design tool

Bibliography: p.257-80.The automatic database design system is a design aid for network database creation. It obtains a requirements specification from a user and generates a prototype database. This database is compatible with the Data Definition Language of DMS 1100, the database system on the Univac 1108 at the University of Cape Town. The user interface has been constructed in such a way that a computer-naive user can submit a description of his organisation to the system. Thus it constitutes a powerful database design tool, which should greatly alleviate the designer's tasks of communicating with users, and of creating an initial database definition. The requirements are formulated using the semantic database model, and semantic information in this model is incorporated into the database as integrity constraints. A relation scheme is also generated from the specification. As a result of this research, insight has been gained into the advantages and shortcomings of the semantic database model, and some principles for 'good' data models and database design methodologies have emerged

Uso de escenarios en la derivación de software

Esta tesis presenta una estrategia en la Ingeniería de Requisitos, denominada SDRES, que intenta abordar temas poco tratados en la práctica real, tales como los cambios constantes en los requisitos, defectos del software originados en los requisitos, el contexto organizacional que rodea al sistema de software y la consideración de requisitos de calidad. Esta estrategia está dirigida por modelos (Léxico Extendido del Lenguaje, Escenarios y Documento de Requisitos) y orientada al cliente, por ello utiliza sus modelos escritos en lenguaje natural como medio de comunicación y elicitación. SDRES tiene en cuenta la calidad de los modelos que produce mediante procesos de verificación y validación. Para cada actividad de la estrategia se presenta un conjunto de heurísticas y recomendaciones. Se encara el tema de evolución y versionado de los modelos, así como distintas modalidades de utilizar la estrategia según la complejidad del problema, el conocimiento sobre el mismo y otras características.The present thesis shows a Requirements Engineering strategy, called SDRES, which proposes to face topics rarely treated in real practice, such as continuous changes in requirements, software defects brought in requirements, the organisational context surrounding the software system and the quality treatment of requirements. This strategy is driven by models (Language Extended Lexicon, Scenarios and Software Requirements Specification) and oriented to the client. Therefore it uses models written in natural language as means of communication and elicitation. SDRES keeps in mind the quality of the produced models by means of verification and validation processes. For each activity of the strategy a set of heuristic and recommendations is presented. The evolution topic and model versioning is treated, as well as different modalities to use the strategy according to the complexity of the problem, the knowledge on the problem and other characteristics.Es revisado por: http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/9659Facultad de Ciencias Exacta