Accessibility Variability Model: The UTPL MOOC Case Study

Several approaches to define Variability Models (VM) of non-functional requirements or quality attributes have been proposed. However, these approaches have focused on specific quality attributes rather than more general non-functional aspects established by standards such as ISO/IEC 25010 for software evaluation and quality. Thus, developing specific software products by selecting features and at the same time measuring the level of compliance with a standard/ guideline is a challenge. In this work, we present the definition of an accessibility VM based on the web content accessibility guides (WCAG) 2.1 W3C recommendation, to obtain a quantitative measure to improve or construct specific SPL products that require to be accessibility-aware. This paper is specially focused on illustrating the experience of measuring the accessibility in a software product line (SPL) in order to check if it is viable measuring products and recommending improvements in terms of features before addressing the construction of accessibility-aware products. The adoption of the VM accessibility has been putted into practice through a pilot case study, the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) initiative of the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja. The conduction of this pilot case study has allowed us to illustrate how it is possible to model and measure the accessibility in SPL using accessibility VM, as well as to recommend accessibility configuration improvements for the construction of new or updated MOOC platforms.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad TIN2016- 79726-C2-1-RMinisterio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades RTI2018-101204-B-C22Agencia Estatal de Investigación TIN2017-90644-RED

Towards a New Repository for Feature Model Exchange

Feature models are one of the most important contributions to the field of software product lines, feature oriented software develop ment or variability intensive systems. Since their invention in 1990, many feature model dialects appeared from less formal to more formal, from visual to textual, integrated in tool chains or just as a support for a concrete research contribution. Ten year ago, S.P.L.O.T. a feature model online tool was presented. One of its most used features has been the ability to centralise a feature model repository with its own feature model dialect. As a result of MODEVAR, we hope to have a new simple textual feature model language that can be shared by the community. Having a new repository for that language can help to share knowledge. In this paper we present some ideas about the characteristics that the future feature model repository should have in the future. The idea is to discuss those characteristics with the communityMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad RTI2018-101204-B-C22 (OPHELIA)Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades MCIU-AEI TIN2017-90644-REDT (TASOVA

Variability Modelling Challenges from the Trenches of an Open Source Product Line Re-Engineering Project

Variability models, feature diagrams ahead, have become commonplace in the software product lines engineering literature. Whereas ongoing research keeps improving their expressiveness, formalisation and automation, more experience reports on their usage in real projects are needed. This paper describes some challenges encountered during the re-engineering of PloneMeeting, an Open Source software family, into a software product line. The main challenging issues we could observe were (i) the ambiguity originating from implicit information (missing definitions of feature labels and unclear modelling viewpoint), (ii) the necessity of representing spurious features, (iii) the difficulty of making diagrams and constraints resistant to change, and (iv) the risks of using feature attributes to represent large sets of subfeatures. Our study reveals the limitations of current constructs, and calls for both language and methodological improvements. It also suggests further comparative evaluations of modelling alternatives.Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2006-0047

Variability Management in an unaware software product line company: An experience report

Software product line adoption is a challenging task in software development organisations. There are some reports in the literature of how software product line engineering has been adopted in several companies using di erent variabil-ity management techniques and patterns. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no empirical reports on how variability management is handled in companies that do not know about software product line methods and tools. In this paper we present an experience report observing variability management practices in a software development company that was unaware of software product line approaches. We brie y report how variability management is performed in di erent areas ranging from business architecture to software assets management. From the observation we report some open research opportunities for the future and foster further similar and more structured empirical studies on unaware software product line companies.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2012-32273Junta de Andalucía TIC-5906Junta de Andalucía P12-TIC-186

Applying System Families Concepts to Requirements Engineering Process Definition

In this paper, some experiences gained during the definition of a unified, common software development process for several companies in Telvent are presented. Last year, Telvent made the decision of developing a unique software development process which was flexible enough to be adapted to specific practices and needs of the different companies. In this paper we focus mainly on the experiences gained during the definition of the requirements engineering process, al-though many of them are also applicable to other software development processes. One of the most interesting experiences from our point of view is that, al-though the definition process was started using a top-down approach and well-know techniques like data flow diagrams, we eventually end up applying requirements engineering techniques like glossaries, scenarios or conflict resolu-tion for the definition of the requirements engineering process itself. On the other hand, the need of having adaptable processes for the different companies in Tel-vent made us adopt a process family approach, i.e. adopting an approach similar to the system families development, thus defining a core process that could be adapted to specific needs of specific companies in a predefined, controlled man-ner. The experiences gained in the definition of the process family were applied to the definition of requirements engineering process for product line development, which is briefly presented in this paper.Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC 2000–1106–C02–01Ministerio de Energía, Turismo y Agenda Digital ITEA ip00004Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad Eureka Σ! 202

Automated analysis of feature models: challenges ahead

Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC 2003-02737-C02-01Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2006-0047

Automated analysis of feature models: challenges ahead

Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC 2003-02737-C02-01Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2006-0047

The Triple Schizophrenia of the Software Engineering Researcher

In this paper we question the problem of a software engineering researcher, who in his daily work, has to deal with researching, teaching and learning activities at the same time. Likewise, we suggest the Action Research as the way to disentagle from that triple schizophrenia

Automated Analysis of Orthogonal Variability Models Using Constraint Programming.

Software Product Line (SPL) Engineering is about producing a family of products that share commonalities and variabilities. The variability models are used for variability management in SPLs. Currently, the automated analysis of variability models has become an active research area. in this paper we focus on the automated analysis of Orthogonal Variability Model (OVM), which is a modelling language for representing variability. The automated analysis of OVMs deals with the computer-aided extraction of information from OVMs. The automated analysis of OVMs has been hardly explored and currently has no tooling support. Considering our know-how to analyse feature models, which are the most popular variability models in SPLs, we propose to automate the analysis of OVMs by means of constraint programming. in addition, we propose to extend OVMs with attributes, allowing to add extra-functional information to OVMs. With this proposal we contribute with a step forward toward a tooling support for analysing OVMs

Functional Testing of Feature Model Analysis Tools. A First Step

The automated analysis of Feature Models (FMs) focuses on the usage of different logic paradigms and solvers to implement a number of analysis operations on FMs. The implementation of these operations using a specific solver is an error-prone and time-consuming task. To improve this situation, we propose to design a generic set of test cases to verify the functionality and correctness of the tools for the automated analysis of FMs. These test cases would help to improve the reliability of the existing tools while reducing the time needed to develop new ones. As a starting point, in this position paper we overview some of the classifications of software testing methods reported in the literature and study the adequacy of each approach to the context of our proposal.CICYT TIN2006-00472Junta de Andalucía TIC-253