Regulations and software evolution: An example from the military domain

AbstractIn this article, the impact of regulatory changes on software development is assessed in the context of military standards. A previously conducted experiment incorporating three standards is further investigated for this purpose, outlining the characteristics of the evolution in standards and its effects. In addition to this experiment that was designed with projects conducted as graduate class work, a real project from the industry is utilized, to demonstrate the similar effects of the evolution as discovered in the earlier experiment. Finally, the results of the assessment are generalized and a forecast is presented for the next potential regulation change, the IEEE Std 12207-2008

A Requirements-Based Exploration of Open-Source Software Development Projects – Towards a Natural Language Processing Software Analysis Framework

Open source projects do have requirements; they are, however, mostly informal, text descriptions found in requests, forums, and other correspondence. Understanding such requirements provides insight into the nature of open source projects. Unfortunately, manual analysis of natural language requirements is time-consuming, and for large projects, error-prone. Automated analysis of natural language requirements, even partial, will be of great benefit. Towards that end, I describe the design and validation of an automated natural language requirements classifier for open source software development projects. I compare two strategies for recognizing requirements in open forums of software features. The results suggest that classifying text at the forum post aggregation and sentence aggregation levels may be effective. Initial results suggest that it can reduce the effort required to analyze requirements of open source software development projects. Software development organizations and communities currently employ a large number of software development techniques and methodologies. This implied complexity is also enhanced by a wide range of software project types and development environments. The resulting lack of consistency in the software development domain leads to one important challenge that researchers encounter while exploring this area: specificity. This results in an increased difficulty of maintaining a consistent unit of measure or analysis approach while exploring a wide variety of software development projects and environments. The problem of specificity is more prominently exhibited in an area of software development characterized by a dynamic evolution, a unique development environment, and a relatively young history of research when compared to traditional software development: the open-source domain. While performing research on open source and the associated communities of developers, one can notice the same challenge of specificity being present in requirements engineering research as in the case of closed-source software development. Whether research is aimed at performing longitudinal or cross-sectional analyses, or attempts to link requirements to other aspects of software development projects and their management, specificity calls for a flexible analysis tool capable of adapting to the needs and specifics of the explored context. This dissertation covers the design, implementation, and evaluation of a model, a method, and a software tool comprising a flexible software development analysis framework. These design artifacts use a rule-based natural language processing approach and are built to meet the specifics of a requirements-based analysis of software development projects in the open-source domain. This research follows the principles of design science research as defined by Hevner et. al. and includes stages of problem awareness, suggestion, development, evaluation, and results and conclusion (Hevner et al. 2004; Vaishnavi and Kuechler 2007). The long-term goal of the research stream stemming from this dissertation is to propose a flexible, customizable, requirements-based natural language processing software analysis framework which can be adapted to meet the research needs of multiple different types of domains or different categories of analyses

MECAREQ : una herramienta para el cálculo y afinamiento de métricas de calidad en requisitos

La meta que se persigue es llevar requisitos almacenados en documentos word y pdf a una base de datos que permita el tratamiento automático de dichos requisitos. El objetivo del trabajo es la obtención de los datos de referencia (requisitos) a partir de los proyectos realizados por los alumnos de las asignaturas Ingeniería del Software I y II de la Universidad Carlos III entre los años académicos 2004/2005 y 2006/2007. La autoría de dichos proyectos no quedará registrada en la base de datos. Los requisitos están almacenados en archivos de formato doc y pdf, por lo que para su tratamiento en el proyecto fin de carrera deben ser trasladados a una base de datos. Con este gran conjunto de requisitos agrupados en proyectos será posible afinar las métricas tomando una medida de calidad independiente como patrón de referencia, concretamente la calificación académica de cada uno de los proyectos. Por tanto, en los siguientes apartados, se describirá con mayor profundidad el problema, estudiando las diversas formas de abordarlo en función de las ventajas en inconvenientes de cada una de las alternativas propuestas. Posteriormente se detallarán aspectos relacionados con la base de datos diseñada para almacenar los requisitos, reglas en común de los archivos originales de requisitos, diseño de la herramienta para realizar la migración de datos, etc. Finalmente el documento lleva adjunto un manual de usuario en el que se explica las principales funcionalidades de la herramienta.Ingeniería en Informátic

equirements Studio Plus : una herramienta para la organización y control de calidad de los requisitos del software

Este proyecto busca inicialmente la corrección y mejora de la herramienta MeCaReq con el fin de superar las limitaciones detectadas tras un uso intensivo de la misma. Posteriormente, se buscó la integración de las funcionalidades de dicha aplicación con la herramienta Requirements Studio, lo que hizo conveniente rehacer también esta segunda herramienta y tratar de mejorar algunos aspectos tanto de implementación como de funcionalidades, aunque en este caso conservando en mayor medida su concepción original. Este Proyecto Fin de Carrera hace referencia a la organización de requisitos así como al estudio de las métricas de evaluación de calidad en los mismos. La ingeniería de requisitos es la rama de la ingeniería del software que se ocupa de una de las primeras etapas en el proceso de desarrollo del software: la comprensión de las necesidades del cliente y su definición en forma de conjunto estructurado de requisitos que debe satisfacer un sistema informático.Ingeniería en Informátic

A data-driven approach for a project management methodology for R&D Projects.

267 p.The thesis is based on the proposal of an R&D project management methodology based on the Earned Quality Method (EQM) and data analysis to improve the efficiency of R&D projects in a near-real production environment in a TRL 5 to 7. The thesis relies upon published papers that propose measuring and improving the management of R&D projects. The methodology leans on the formulation and gradual and recurrent evaluation of quality criteria as a performance indicator of the work carried out. The thesis stands on the concept that quality is a measurable quantity that accumulates throughout the project. The proposed project management methodology is built on three main aspects: Collaboration between the University and Industry; The correct interpretation of the TRL where research projects are developed; The study of different metrics for project management, such as the measurement of the success of projects, the KPIs of a project-based organisation, and the EQM. The methodology has been tested with three actual use cases with different characteristics in terms of project size, funding and team members; and validated on an R&D Centre in Advanced Manufacturing in Aeronautics. The pillars of the thesis are focused on the analysis of the mentioned components and their integration for the development of a methodology to improve the efficiency in the use of resources and the quality of obtained results in the R&D projects' framework. The key findings of these studies demonstrate the effectiveness of using quality criteria for measuring progress in the management of R&D projects, as well as providing a better understanding of several critical aspects of the realisation of these projects