OpenReq: recommender systems in requirements engineering

The major focus of OpenReq is the development of recommendation and decision technologies that effciently support requirements engineering processes in large and distributed software projects. Example scenarios thereof are the bid management in industrial systems, requirements engineering in cross-plattform open source software development, and requirements management in large user communities (telecommunications sector). The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of OpenReq and to provide insights into related application scenarios and research issues.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Personal recommendations in requirements engineering : the OpenReq approach

[Context & motivation] Requirements Engineering (RE) is considered as one of the most critical phases in software development but still many challenges remain open. [Problem] There is a growing trend of applying recommender systems to solve open RE challenges like requirements and stakeholder discovery; however, the existent proposals focus on specific RE tasks and do not give a general coverage for the RE process. [Principal ideas/results] In this research preview, we present the OpenReq approach to the development of intelligent recommendation and decision technologies that support different phases of RE in software projects. Specifically, we present the OpenReq part for personal recommendations for stakeholders. [Contribution] OpenReq aim is to improve and speed up RE processes, especially in large and distributed systemsPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Requirements elicitation techniques for software development: a systematic review of literature

Introduction: Requirements elicitation (RE) is a difficult task in which there are issues related to information ambiguity, incomplete and inconsistent data. It seeks to discover and understand the users' problems and needs. The success of software development depends on the correct elicitation of requirements, and its quality is influenced by the techniques used.  This research aims to identify the RE techniques most cited in the literature of software development projects within this context. Method: a systematic literature review was carried out, which analyzed 61 articles from the Scopus database. Results: We identified the 10 RE techniques most cited in the literature. The ranking of these techniques showed that those obtained by stakeholders' groups' involvement were the least mentioned. Conclusions: the research identified the opportunity and relevance for developing a descriptive or confirmatory analysis of RE techniques based on the interaction between groups of users and members of the software development team.Introdução: A elicitação de requisitos (ER) é uma tarefa difícil na qual é necessário lidar com ambiguidade de informações, dados incompletos e inconsistentes. Ela busca descobrir e entender o real problema e as necessidades dos usuários. O sucesso do desenvolvimento de software depende da elicitação correta dos requisitos, e a qualidade deles é influenciada pelas técnicas usadas. Dentro deste contexto, o objetivo desta pesquisa é identificar as técnicas de ER mais citadas na literatura em projetos de desenvolvimento de software. Método: Foi realizada uma revisão sistemática da literatura, que analisou 61 artigos da base de dados Scopus. Resultados: Foram identificadas as 10 técnicas de ER mais citadas na literatura. A classificação dessas técnicas mostrou que aquelas obtidas pelo envolvimento de grupos de stakeholders foram as menos citadas. Conclusão: A pesquisa identificou a oportunidade e relevância para o desenvolvimento de pesquisa acadêmica descritiva ou confirmatória sobre técnicas de ER baseadas na interação entre grupos de usuários e membros da equipe de desenvolvimento de software

Addressing Challenges of Ultra Large Scale System on Requirements Engineering

AbstractAccording to the growing evolution in complex systems and their integrations, Internet of things, communication, massive information flows and big data, a new type of systems has been raised to software engineers known as Ultra Large Scale (ULS) Systems. Hence, it requires dramatic change in all aspects of “Software Engineering” practices and their artifacts due to its unique characteristics.Attendance of all software development members is impossible to meet in regular way and face-to-face, especially stakeholders from different national and organizational cultures. In addition, huge amount of data stored, number of integrations among software components and number of hardware elements. Those obstacles constrict design, development, testing, evolution, assessment and implementation phases of current software development methods.In this respect, ULS system that's considered as a system of systems, has gained considerable reflections on system development activities, as the scale is incomparable to the traditional systems since there are thousands of different stakeholders are involved in developing software, were each of them has different interests, complex and changing needs beside there are already new services are being integrated simultaneously to the current running ULS systems.The scale of ULS systems makes a lot of challenges for Requirements Engineers (RE). As a result, the requirements engineering experts are working on some automatic tools to support requirement engineering activities to overcome many challenges.This paper points to the limitations of the current RE practices for the challenges forced by ULS nature, and focus on the contributions of several approaches to overcome these difficulties in order to tackle unsolved areas of these solutions.As a result, the current approaches for ULS miss some RE essential practices related to find vital dependent requirements, and are not capable to measure the changes impact on ULS systems or other integrated legacy systems, in addition the requirements validation are somehow depended on the user ratings without solid approval from the stakeholders

On the use of requirement patterns to analyse request for proposal documents

Requirements reuse is still today a difficult goal to achieve. One particular context in which requirements reuse may give more benefits than costs is that of call for tenders projects, due to the similarity of the requirements documents (which take the form of requests for proposal documents, RfPs) from one project to another. In this paper, we present an approach aimed at making systematic the assessment of RfPs that technology providers need to conduct in order to decide whether they present a bid or not in a call for tenders project. The approach extends a metamodel we already defined for the former PABRE method, which has a similar goal but from the perspective of the organization that issues the call for tenders. The method is illustrated with an exploratory case study in the field of the railway systems domain.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Automating Software Customization via Crowdsourcing using Association Rule Mining and Markov Decision Processes

As systems grow in size and complexity so do their configuration possibilities. Users of modern systems are easy to be confused and overwhelmed by the amount of choices they need to make in order to fit their systems to their exact needs. In this thesis, we propose a technique to select what information to elicit from the user so that the system can recommend the maximum number of personalized configuration items. Our method is based on constructing configuration elicitation dialogs through utilizing crowd wisdom. A set of configuration preferences in form of association rules is first mined from a crowd configuration data set. Possible configuration elicitation dialogs are then modeled through a Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Within the model, association rules are used to automatically infer configuration decisions based on knowledge already elicited earlier in the dialog. This way, an MDP solver can search for elicitation strategies which maximize the expected amount of automated decisions, reducing thereby elicitation effort and increasing user confidence of the result. We conclude by reporting results of a case study in which this method is applied to the privacy configuration of Facebook

Prototipo para oferta de educación superior y docentes en Bogotá D.C.

Currently, the modernization of information systems has made it possible to facilitate the search for any good or service, with technological tools that allow immediate access to a specific query or interest topic, allowing users to improve their experience when it comes to seek an answer to your need. In the educational area, some of the most common difficulties for students and recent high school graduates when looking for information are: the search for a teaching professional with a specific area of ​​knowledge or finding an educational offer that is ideal for their training development, due to the great variety of information and lack of standardization in the platforms that the different universities have. In the present work it will be possible to find information about the design of a platform that can provide an alternative for consulting the university educational offer in the city of Bogotá D.C. that allows users to access said offers, with clear and specific information about what each one can provide for their development as a professional.En la actualidad, la modernización de los sistemas de información ha permitido facilitar la búsqueda de cualquier bien o servicio, las herramientas tecnológicas permiten acceder de forma inmediata a temas de consulta o interés específico, ayudando a los usuarios a mejorar su experiencia a la hora de buscar alguna respuesta a su necesidad. En el área educativa, algunas de las dificultades más comunes para estudiantes y recién egresados de educación media son: la búsqueda de un profesional en docencia con un área de conocimiento específica o encontrar una oferta educativa que sea ideal para su desarrollo formativo, debido a la gran variedad de información y falta de estandarización en las plataformas con las que cuentan las diferentes universidades.     En este documento se describe la información del diseño de un prototipo de plataforma que permite brindar una alternativa de consulta en oferta educativa universitaria en la ciudad de Bogotá D.C., la cual permite a los usuarios consultar información clara y concreta para el desarrollo profesional

A Collaborative Requirement Mining Framework to Support OEMs

With the fastidiously ever-increasing complexity of systems, the relentless, massive customisation of products and the mushrooming accumulation of legal documents (standards, policies and laws), we can observe a significant increase in requirements. We consider the tremendous volume of requirements as big data with which companies struggle to make strategic decisions early on. This paper proposes a collaborative requirement mining framework to enable the decision-makers of an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to gain insight and discover opportunities in a massive set of requirements so as to make early effective strategic decisions. The framework supports OEMs willing to uncover a subset of key requirements by distilling large unstructured and semistructured specifications.Keonys, Toulouse, Franc

A framework for active software engineering ontology

The passive structure of ontologies results in the ineffectiveness to access and manage the knowledge captured in them. This research has developed a framework for active Software Engineering Ontology based on a multi-agent system. It assists software development teams to effectively access, manage and share software engineering knowledge as well as project information to enable effective and efficient communication and coordination among teams. The framework has been evaluated through the prototype system as proof-of-concept experiments