A unifying framework for the definition of syntactic measures over conceptual schema diagrams (extended version)

There are many approaches that propose the use of measures for assessing the quality of conceptual schemas. Many of these measures focus purely on the syntactic aspects of the conceptual schema diagrams, e.g. their size, their shape, etc. Similarities among different measures may be found both at the intra-model level (i.e., several measures over the same type of diagram are defined following the same layout) and at the inter-model level (i.e., measures over different types of diagrams are similar considering an appropriate metaschema correspondence). In this paper we analyse these similarities for a particular family of diagrams used in conceptual modelling, those that can be ultimately seen as a combination of nodes and edges of different types. We propose a unifying measuring framework for this family and illustrate its application on a particular type, namely business process diagrams.Preprin

Research on NLP for RE at UPC: a report

[Team Overview] The Software and Service Engineering Group (GESSI) of UPC has traditionally conducted research in many fields of software engineering. [Research Plan on NLP] As a result of our participation in the OpenReq project, natural language processing (NLP) has become one of our highest priority research fields. We are using NLP for interdependency detection and requirements reuse, being the center piece of both tasks the identification of similar requirements.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

How tertiary studies perform quality assessment of secondary studies in software engineering

Best Paper Award a l’Experimental Software Engineering Track (ESELAW) de la XXIV Ibero-American Conference on Software Engineering, CIbSE 2021Context: Tertiary studies are becoming increasingly popular in software engineering as an instrument to synthesise evidence on a research topic in a systematic way. In order to understand and contextualize their findings, it is important to assess the quality of the selected secondary studies. Objective: This paper aims to provide a state of the art on the assessment of secondary studies’ quality as conducted in tertiary studies in the area of software engineering, reporting the frameworks used as instruments, the facets examined in these frameworks, and the purposes of the quality assessment. Method: We designed this study as a systematic mapping responding to four research questions derived from the objective above. We applied a rigorous search protocol over the Scopus digital library, resulting in 47 papers after application of inclusion and exclusion criteria. The extracted data was synthesised using content analysis. Results: A majority of tertiary studies perform quality assessment. It is not often used for excluding studies, but to support some kind of investigation. The DARE quality assessment framework is the most frequently used, with customizations in some cases to cover missing facets. We outline the first steps towards building a new framework to address the shortcomings identified. Conclusion: This paper is a step forward establishing a foundation for researchers in two different ways. As authors of tertiary studies, understanding the different possibilities in which they can perform quality assessment of secondary studies. As readers, having an instrument to understand the methodological rigor upon which tertiary studies may claim their findings.Peer ReviewedAward-winningPostprint (author's final draft

QuESo: A quality model for open source software ecosystems

© 2014 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Open source software has witnessed an exponential growth in the last two decades and it is playing an increasingly important role in many companies and organizations leading to the formation of open source software ecosystems. In this paper we present a quality model that will allow the evaluation of those ecosystems in terms of their relevant quality characteristics such as health or activeness. To design this quality model we started by analysing the quality measures found during the execution of a systematic literature review on open source software ecosystems and, then, we classified and reorganized the set of measures in order to build a solid quality model.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Open source software ecosystems : a systematic mapping

Context: Open source software (OSS) and software ecosystems (SECOs) are two consolidated research areas in software engineering. OSS influences the way organizations develop, acquire, use and commercialize software. SECOs have emerged as a paradigm to understand dynamics and heterogeneity in collaborative software development. For this reason, SECOs appear as a valid instrument to analyze OSS systems. However, there are few studies that blend both topics together. Objective: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the current state of the art in OSS ecosystems (OSSECOs) research, specifically: (a) what the most relevant definitions related to OSSECOs are; (b) what the particularities of this type of SECO are; and (c) how the knowledge about OSSECO is represented. Method: We conducted a systematic mapping following recommended practices. We applied automatic and manual searches on different sources and used a rigorous method to elicit the keywords from the research questions and selection criteria to retrieve the final papers. As a result, 82 papers were selected and evaluated. Threats to validity were identified and mitigated whenever possible. Results: The analysis allowed us to answer the research questions. Most notably, we did the following: (a) identified 64 terms related to the OSSECO and arranged them into a taxonomy; (b) built a genealogical tree to understand the genesis of the OSSECO term from related definitions; (c) analyzed the available definitions of SECO in the context of OSS; and (d) classified the existing modelling and analysis techniques of OSSECOs. Conclusion: As a summary of the systematic mapping, we conclude that existing research on several topics related to OSSECOs is still scarce (e.g., modelling and analysis techniques, quality models, standard definitions, etc.). This situation calls for further investigation efforts on how organizations and OSS communities actually understand OSSECOs.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Protocol for a SLR on software ecosystems: technical report

Open Source Software (OSS) and Ecosystems (SECO) are two emergent research areas in software engineering. We are interested on the published works that join these two topics, to do it we used a well-known technique called Systematic Literature Review (SLR).Preprin

Needs and challenges for a platform to support large-scale requirements engineering: a multiple-case study

Background: Requirement engineering is often considered a critical activity in system development projects. The increasing complexity of software as well as number and heterogeneity of stakeholders motivate the development of methods and tools for improving large-scale requirement engineering. Aims: The empirical study presented in this paper aim to identify and understand the characteristics and challenges of a platform, as desired by experts, to support requirement engineering for individual stakeholders, based on the current pain-points of their organizations when dealing with a large number requirements. Method: We conducted a multiple case study with three companies in different domains. We collected data through ten semi-structured interviews with experts from these companies. Results: The main pain-point for stakeholders is handling the vast amount of data from different sources. The foreseen platform should leverage such data to manage changes in requirements according to customers' and users' preferences. It should also offer stakeholders an estimation of how long a requirements engineering task will take to complete, along with an easier requirements dependency identification and requirements reuse strategy. Conclusions: The findings provide empirical evidence about how practitioners wish to improve their requirement engineering processes and tools. The insights are a starting point for in-depth investigations into the problems and solutions presented. Practitioners can use the results to improve existing or design new practices and toolsPeer ReviewedPostprint (published version

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

Validation of the iStar2ca guidelines: variables, hypotheses, instrumentation and statistical results

This technical report presents the variables, hypotheses, instrumentation and statistical results corresponding to a controlled experiment performed for the evaluation of the iStar2ca guidelines.Preprin