Towards a framework for improving goal-oriented requirement models quality

Goal-orientation is a widespread and useful approach to Requirements Engineering. However, quality assessment frameworks focused on goal-oriented processes are either limited or remain on the theoretical side. Requirements quality initiatives range from simple metrics applicable to requirements documents, to general-purpose quality frameworks that include syntactic, semantic and pragmatic concerns. In some recent works, we have proposed a metrics framework for goal-oriented models, but the approach did not cover the cycle of quality assessment. In this paper we present a semiotic-based quality assessment proposal built upon the i* framework and the SEQUAL proposal. We propose a simplification of SEQUAL which can be applied to i* models by defining semantic, pragmatic and social metrics. As a result, we obtain suites of metrics that can be applied to i* goal-oriented requirements models. This theoretical work is put into practice by using iStarML, a XML representation of i* models, over which XQuery sentences compute the proposed metrics.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: NL

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: N

A model of the dynamics of organizational communication

We propose a model of the dynamics of organizational communication. Our model specifies the mechanics by which communication impact is fed back to communication inputs and closes the gap between sender and receiver of messages. We draw on language critique, a branch of language philosophy, and derive joint linguistic actions of interlocutors to explain the emergence and adaptation of communication on the group level. The model is framed by Te'eni's cognitive-affective model of organizational communication

An exploration of how social science students utilise an opportunity to learn about simulation-based research methods : A design-based study

Paper I, Paper III and Paper IV is excluded from the dissertation with respect to copyright.Paper III and Paper IV is not published yet.At the core of this thesis lies an exploration of how social science students utilise an opportunity to learn about Modeling and Simulation (M&S)-based research methods. The study is framed within the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). The thesis also utilises local theories such as the community of practice theory, the theory of objectification, and the theory of semiotic representation, and these are used to analyse, interpret and discuss the data generated in the study. During the analysis, boundary-crossing, boundary objects, tension and contradictions within and between activity systems were identified. Metaknowledge underpinning Modelling and Simulation (M&S) research methodology and mathematics, process and product mathematics, and epistemological analysis of simulation-based educational tools are explicated to interpret the data generated and explore students’ meanings and anchor the discussion presented in the dissertation. The study aims to understand how social science students utilise opportunities to learn about M&S-based research methods to study social dynamics. Further, to achieve the goal, the research also explores how students utilise metaknowledge while learning about M&S-based research methods. The study uses a design-based intervention approach to implement an M&S-based research methods curriculum module for students on social sciences programs. The design-based research processes were cyclic and iterative, with each component of the intervention affecting the others. This dissertation includes four independent papers (published or submitted for publication). The overall study resulted in the development of an M&S-based research methods module that was informed by and evolved throughout each intervention. My Paper 1 reports the outcome of intervention study I, which set out to explore the feasible and practical design of an M&S-based research methods module with the students of religion. Precisely, Paper 1 laid an empirical foundation of the study that made it possible to increase the intensity of the M&S-based research methods module in the following iteration with the students of Development Studies. Paper 2 reports intervention study II, which investigates how Development Studies students can gain metaknowledge about M&S-based research methods: its rationale, background knowledge, and opportunities and limitations of the research methods. Using the results of intervention studies, I and II, the next iteration, intervention study III, set out to explore how undergraduate students of religion utilise an opportunity to learn about the M&S-based research method. Paper 3 reports on formative evaluation of ‘meet-the-expert’ event, an element of the M&S-based methods curriculum module implemented through seminars and workshops. Moreover, Paper 4 deals with the pedagogical aspects of M&S-based tools and reveals how such tools can facilitate students’ evolutionary process of mathematical and social science sense-making during their interaction with the social simulation applet.publishedVersio

Developing Ontological Theories for Conceptual Models using Qualitative Research

Conceptual modelling is believed to be at the core of the IS discipline. There have been attempts to develop theoretical foundations for conceptual models, in particular ontological models as axiomatic reference systems. Although the notion of ontology has become popular in modelling theories, criticism has risen as to its philosophical presuppositions. Taking on this criticism, we discuss the task of developing socially constructed ontologies for modelling domains and outline how to enhance the expressiveness of ontological modelling theories by developing them via qualitative research methods such as Grounded Theory

Patterns-based Evaluation of Open Source BPM Systems: The Cases of jBPM, OpenWFE, and Enhydra Shark

In keeping with the proliferation of free software development initiatives and the increased interest in the business process management domain, many open source workflow and business process management systems have appeared during the last few years and are now under active development. This upsurge gives rise to two important questions: what are the capabilities of these systems? and how do they compare to each other and to their closed source counterparts? i.e. in other words what is the state-of-the-art in the area?. To gain an insight into the area, we have conducted an in-depth analysis of three of the major open source workflow management systems - jBPM, OpenWFE and Enhydra Shark, the results of which are reported here. This analysis is based on the workflow patterns framework and provides a continuation of the series of evaluations performed using the same framework on closed source systems, business process modeling languages and web-service composition standards. The results from evaluations of the three open source systems are compared with each other and also with the results from evaluations of three representative closed source systems - Staffware, WebSphere MQ and Oracle BPEL PM, documented in earlier works. The overall conclusion is that open source systems are targeted more toward developers rather than business analysts. They generally provide less support for the patterns than closed source systems, particularly with respect to the resource perspective which describes the various ways in which work is distributed amongst business users and managed through to completion

The Inhuman Overhang: On Differential Heterogenesis and Multi-Scalar Modeling

As a philosophical paradigm, differential heterogenesis offers us a novel descriptive vantage with which to inscribe Deleuze’s virtuality within the terrain of “differential becoming,” conjugating “pure saliences” so as to parse economies, microhistories, insurgencies, and epistemological evolutionary processes that can be conceived of independently from their representational form. Unlike Gestalt theory’s oppositional constructions, the advantage of this aperture is that it posits a dynamic context to both media and its analysis, rendering them functionally tractable and set in relation to other objects, rather than as sedentary identities. Surveying the genealogy of differential heterogenesis with particular interest in the legacy of Lautman’s dialectic, I make the case for a reading of the Deleuzean virtual that departs from an event-oriented approach, galvanizing Sarti and Citti’s dynamic a priori vis-à-vis Deleuze’s philosophy of difference. Specifically, I posit differential heterogenesis as frame with which to examine our contemporaneous epistemic shift as it relates to multi-scalar computational modeling while paying particular attention to neuro-inferential modes of inductive learning and homologous cognitive architecture. Carving a bricolage between Mark Wilson’s work on the “greediness of scales” and Deleuze’s “scales of reality”, this project threads between static ecologies and active externalism vis-à-vis endocentric frames of reference and syntactical scaffolding

The Social Cognitive Actor

Multi-Agent Simulation (MAS) of organisations is a methodology that is adopted in this dissertation in order to study and understand human behaviour in organisations. The aim of the research is to design and implementat a cognitive and social multi-agent simulation model based on a selection of social and cognitive theories to fulfill the need for a complex cognitive and social model. The emphasis of this dissertation is the relationship between behaviour of individuals (micro-level) in an organisation and the behaviour of the organisation as a whole (macro-level)