Q-Rapids: Quality-Aware Rapid Software Development: an H2020 Project

This work reports the objectives, current state, and outcomes of the Q-Rapids H2020 project. Q-Rapids (Quality-Aware Rapid Software Development) proposes a data-driven approach to the production of software following very short development cycles. The focus of Q-Rapids is on quality aspects, represented through quality requirements. The Q-Rapids platform, which is the tangible software asset emerging from the project, mines software repositories and usage logs to identify candidate quality requirements that may ameliorate the values of strategic indicators like product quality, time to market or team productivity. Four companies are providing use cases to evaluate the platform and associated processes.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The notion of specialization in the i*framework

This thesis provides a formal proposal for the specialization relationship in the i* framework that allows its use in a well-defined manner. I root my proposal over existing works in different areas that are interested in representing knowledge: knowledge representation from Artificial Intelligence and conceptual modeling and object-oriented programming languages from Software Development. Also, I use the results of a survey conducted in the i* community that provides some insights about what i* modelers expect from specialization. As a consequence of this twofold analysis, I identify three specialization operations: extension, refinement and redefinition. For each of them, I: - motivate its need and provide some rationale; - distinguish the several cases that can occur in each operation; - define the elements involved in each of these cases and the correctness conditions that must be fulfilled; - demonstrate by induction the fulfilment of the conditions identified for preserving satisfaction; - provide some illustrative examples in the context of an exemplar about travel agencies and travelers. The specialization relationship is offered by the i* framework through the is-a construct defined over actors (a subactor is-a superactor) since it was first released. Although the overall meaning of this construct is highly intuitive, its effects at the level of intentional elements and dependencies are not always clear, hampering seriously its appropriate use. In order to be able to reason about correctness and satisfaction, I define previously the conditions that must be preserved when a specialization takes place. In addition, I provide a methodology with well-defined steps that contextualize the formal aspects of this thesis in a development process. As a conclusion, this thesis is making possible the use of the specialization relationship in i* in a precise, non-ambiguous manner

Towards iStarML 2.0: Closing gaps from evolved requirements

iStarML is an XML-based format for enabling interoperability among i* tools. Its main design focus was to support data interchange even when involved tools implement different i* variants. In this paper we analyse required changes to the format from two main sources (i) the evolution of i* into a consistent and clear set of core concepts expressed in the new iStar 2.0 specification and (ii) recurrent necessities due to a wide use of i* modelling. In order to address these requirements, we propose new XML elements to be considered in a new version of iStarML: iStarML2.0Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Applying business strategy models in organizations

Increasing adoption of Open Source Software (OSS) in information system engineering has led to the emergence of different OSS business strate-gies that affect and shape organizations’ business models. In order to obtain the specific organizational model for a concrete organization that is adhering to a specific OSS business strategy, we need to instantiate the general knowledge included in this business strategy. This paper describe the process in which this general knowledge is instantiated and define a set of operations over i* models to implement the instantiation concept. Although conceived in the field of OSS, the approach is generalizable to any kind of business strategy.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The i* framework for goal-oriented modeling

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39417-6i* is a widespread framework in the software engineering field that supports goal-oriented modeling of socio-technical systems and organizations. At its heart lies a language offering concepts such as actor, dependency, goal and decomposition. i* models resemble a network of interconnected, autonomous, collaborative and dependable strategic actors. Around this language, several analysis techniques have emerged, e.g. goal satisfaction analysis and metrics computation. In this work, we present a consolidated version of the i* language based on the most adopted versions of the language. We define the main constructs of the language and we articulate them in the form of a metamodel. Then, we implement this version and a concrete technique, goal satisfaction analys is based on goal propagation, using ADOxx. Throughout the chapter, we used an example based on open source software adoption to illustrate the concepts and test the implementation.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

iStarJSON : a lightweight data-format for i* models

JSON is one of the most widely used data-interchange format. There is a large number of tools open for modelling with i*. However, none of them provides supporting for JSON. In this paper we propose iStarJSON language, a JSON-based proposal for interchanging i* models. We also, present an open source software that transforms XML-based format models to JSON models that expose a set of web services for mining iStarJSON models.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A software service supporting software quality forecasting

Software repositories such as source control, defect tracking systems and project management tools, are used to support the progress of software projects. The exploitation of such data with techniques like forecasting is becoming an increasing need in several domains to support decision-making processes. However, although there exist several statistical tools and languages supporting forecasting, there is a lack of friendly approaches that enable practitioners to exploit the advantages of creating and using such models in their dashboard tools. Therefore, we have developed a modular and flexible forecasting service allowing the interconnection with different kinds of databases/data repositories for creating and exploiting forecasting models based on methods like ARIMA or ETS. The service is open source software, has been developed in Java and R and exposes its functionalities through a REST API. Architecture details are provided, along with functionalities’ description and an example of its use for software quality forecasting.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Algebraic definition of iStar2.0 models

iStar2.0 was delivered in 2016 with the intention of becoming a standard de facto for the i* community. It includes a lightweight definition of the language adorned with a metamodel (in the form of a UML class diagram) that is useful for most purposes. However, in some contexts, a more precise algebraic definition including a notion of satisfaction is needed. This paper presents such elements. First, an algebraic definition of iStar2.0. Then, some auxiliary operations. Last, the notion of satisfaction over i* models using first order logic. Satisfaction is still defined mainly in a syntactic form, relying upon the satisfaction of the individual intentional elements comprising the model.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

HiME: Hierarchical i* Modeling Editor

In this paper, we present HiME, a tool for editing i* models. The distinguishing characteristic of HiME is its ability to deal with inheritance. It includes specific operations for declaring an actor as heir of another and then stating the relationships between the intentional elements of both actors.Peer ReviewedPostprint (updated version

Specialization in i* strategic rationale diagrams

ER 2012 Best Student Paper AwardThe specialization relationship is offered by the i* modeling language through the is-a construct defined over actors (a subactor is-a superactor). Although the overall meaning of this construct is highly intuitive, its semantics when it comes to the fine-grained level of strategic rationale (SR) diagrams is not defined, hampering seriously its appropriate use. In this paper we provide a formal definition of the specialization relationship at the level of i* SR diagrams. We root our proposal over existing work in conceptual modeling in general, and object-orientation in particular. Also, we use the results of a survey conducted in the i* community that provides some hints about what i* modelers expect from specialization. As a consequence of this twofold analysis, we identify, define and specify two specialization operations, extension and refinement, that can be applied over SR diagrams. Correctness conditions for them are also clearly stated. The result of our work is a formal proposal of specialization for i* that allows its use in a well-defined mannerPeer ReviewedAward-winningPostprint (author’s final draft