Jovanovic, Vladan

Mrdalj, Stevan

Stevan Mrdalj

Vladan Jovanovic

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Volume V, No 1, 2004                                                233                                                Issues in Information Systems UML COVERAGE IN SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN TEXTBOOKS  Stevan Mrdalj, Eastern Michigan University, stevan.mrdalj@emich.edu Vladan Jovanovic, Georgia Southern University, vladan@georgiasouthern.edu  ABSTRACT This paper extends previous research by the authors into the usage of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) in the Systems Analysis and Design (SAD) curriculum. This research builds on previous research findings indicating the necessity to include UML into the Systems Analysis and Design courses. The opportunity to transition to object-oriented analysis and design using UML, in the CIS curriculum, is based on the available UML coverage in textbooks. An empirical analysis of the available systems analysis and design textbooks revealed the incidence, level, completeness and relative quality of the available coverage for individual UML diagrams. This research might be valuable to textbook authors intending to update or revise their textbooks to include UML. It is also helpful to instructors looking to adapt UML into their Systems Analysis and Design courses. Keywords: UML, Systems Analysis and Design, Object-oriented, Textbook.  INTRODUCTION In April of 2003 the Object Management Group revealed its UML 2.0 (7, 3) standard. UML has clearly become the specification language of choice for systems analysis and design in the industry (1, 3). A previous research (6) demonstrated the necessity to use UML diagrams in designing web applications. Another research (5) exhibits the use of UML diagrams for description of software components. These and many other papers indicate that as the industry continues to adapt web applications and component based application development, it will actively recruit students who have received training in UML. For this reason, CIS and related programs should actively pursue to incorporate UML into their curricula. The ability to make this transition successfully highly depends on the available UML coverage in textbooks. This paper examines the commonly available System Analysis and Design textbooks with the intention to determine the incidence, level, completeness and relative quality of available coverage for individual UML diagrams.  RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHOD  Our previous informal examination of SAD textbooks indicated that only a few UML diagrams are covered in those textbooks. Based on our previous findings, the following general research question is proposed:  Q1:  Do SAD textbooks provide an adequate source for teaching UML?  In order to answer this general question, this study attempts to provide the detailed analysis of the topical coverage of SAD textbooks by answering the following research questions:  UML Coverage in Systems Analysis and Design Textbooks   Volume V, No 1, 2004                                                234                                                Issues in Information Systems Q2:  Which UML diagrams are covered and how extensively are they covered? Q3:  How well are the diagrams illustrated and incorporated into a continuing case study? Q4:  Are the terms and concepts explained?  This study was conducted during the fall of 2003. The research instrument included examination copies of 13 textbooks. The study sample was selected using the facultyONLINE web site (2), web sites of textbook publishers and a previous survey of SAD textbooks (8). Table 1 summarizes the bibliographical data of the textbooks, sorted in alphabetical order by their first author. This table also contains the number of faculty using that textbook, where available, provided by facultyONLINE (2). This may indicate a relative popularity of the textbooks.  Id  Author  Title  Publisher  Ed.  Pub Date Usage* BRO Brown  An Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis: Objects and UML in Plain English John Wiley & Sons  2  2001  DW  Dennis & Wixom  Systems Analysis and Design: An Applied Approach John Wiley & Sons  2  2002  106 DWT Dennis,  Wixom, Tegarden Systems Analysis and Design: An Object Oriented Approach with UML John Wiley & Sons    2002  DEW  Dewitz  Systems Analysis and Design and the Transition to Objects McGraw-Hill, Inc.  1  1996  27  GBVH George,  Batra, Valacich,. Hoffer Object-Oriented System Analy-sis and Design Prentice Hall    2004   HGV Hoffer,George, Valacich Modern Systems Analysis and Design Prentice Hall  3  2002  9 KK  Kendall, K. Kend-all, J. Systems Analysis and Design  Prentice Hall  5  2002  9 MAR  Marakas  Systems Analysis and Design: An Active Approach  Prentice Hall    2001   SCH Schach  Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with UML CD McGraw-Hill, Inc.    2004  SJB Satzinger,  Jack-son, Burd Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World Course Technology/ Thomson Learning 2 2002  37 SCR Shelly,  Cashman, Rosenblatt Systems Analysis and Design  Course Technology/ Thomson Learning 4 2003  63 VGH Valacich,  George, Hoffer Essentials of Systems Analysis & Design Prentice Hall  2  2004  45 WBD Whitten,  Bentley, Dittman Systems Analysis and Design Methods w/Project Cases CD McGraw-Hill, Inc.  6  2004  151 * Number of faculty using this book Table 1: Bibliographical data of the SAD textbooks. Empirical studies of an evolving topic are always limited; we deliberately excluded professional books not widely known to be used in SAD courses by CIS programs. At least one such book deserves an honorable mention here. A popular text by Larman (4) is in its second edition and UML Coverage in Systems Analysis and Design Textbooks  Volume V, No 1, 2004                                                235                                                Issues in Information Systems has been used for years at numerous CIS programs, but as far as the authors are aware, it is more popular in CS and Software Engineering programs.   Textbooks were closely examined to determine their size in terms of the total number of pages, chapters and appendices. The textbooks were further examined according to their overall UML coverage. Next, we performed a detailed examination of the textbooks in terms of quantity level, completeness and usage of the individual UML diagram coverage. The completeness of coverage is measured be examining if all the necessary terms and concepts for a given UML diagram, listed in Table 2, are covered.    Type of Diagram   Use Case  Activity  Class  Sequence  Collabora-tion Statechart  Compo-nent Deploy-ment Use case  Activity  Class   Object  Object  State  Compo-nent Node Actor Initial  ac-tivity Attributes Lifeline  Link  Initial state  Package  Connec-tions Associa-tion Final activ-ity Associa-tions Operation region Message Final  state  Interface Depend-encies Include Transition  Roles  Creation  Message direction Transition Depend-ency  Extend Concurrent fork Multiplic-ities Destruc-tion Sequenc-ing Event Realization   Generali-zation Concurrent join Generali-zation Control structure  Super state    Branching  Aggrega-tion Message   Concurrent sub states    Guard expression Composi-tion Return   Sequential sub states    Swim lanes Associa-tion class   Guard condition   Terms and Concepts   Operations    Self  transi-tion   Table 2: Necessary terms and concepts for UML diagrams.  RESEARCH RESULTS  Our findings are reported in the following two tables. Table 3 summarizes the total number of pages, total number of chapters and appendices, if textbook is object-oriented or not, as well as number of pages, chapters and appendices devoted to UML. These findings are used to determine for which books to perform the detailed analysis.  The textbook by Dewitz does not cover UML and is not included in the detailed analysis. It is important to mention that this book uses a structured SAD approach and uses the term “object” instead of “entity” calling the extended entity-relationship-diagram an “object relationship model”. The textbooks by DW, HGV, KK, MAR, SCR and VGH cover all UML diagrams in one chapter as an alternative approach and therefore, do not represent an adequate source for teaching UML. These textbooks are not included in the detailed analysis.   UML Coverage in Systems Analysis and Design Textbooks   Volume V, No 1, 2004                                                236                                                Issues in Information Systems Only six out of thirteen examined textbooks provide a somewhat comprehensive coverage of UML diagrams. Table 4 provides data about the detailed topical coverage for each UML diagram in terms of: a) number of dedicated chapters; b) number of dedicated pages; c) list of unex-plained terms and concepts; d) number of illustrations; and e) is UML used in the ongoing case study.    BRO  DW  DWT  DEW  GBVH  HGV  KK  MAR  SCH  SJB  SCR  VGH  WBD Number of pages  668 544 515  555  500  733 944 483  385  704  656  460  780 Number of chapters/ appendi-ces 17 15 16 13  14  20 22  14/2  20/5 15/4 12/4 10/2  20 Is it Object-Oriented  Yes No  Yes No  Yes  No  No  No Yes  Both  No No Both UML chapters/ appendices  8 1 4 0  3  1 1 /1  8/2 4  1 /1 3 UML pages  349  41  120 0  89  49 22 15 181 99  38  18  86 Table 3: Overall UML coverage in SAD textbooks.  Several books talk about packages and system architecture, but only two textbooks (SCH and WBD) mention Component and Deployment diagrams with single illustrations. Therefore, we did not include these two diagrams in Table 4. The DWT and SJB textbooks have Package Diagrams. Since the Package Diagram becomes an official UML diagram in version 2.0 (7, 3), we did not include it in our detailed analysis. It is important to mention that UML 2.0 also introduced the Object Diagram and renamed the Collaboration into the Communication diagram.  The SJB textbook covers both traditional and object-oriented approaches in parallel throughout the book instead of having UML as one chapter at the end. That created difficulties for us in counting chapters dedicated to UML diagrams. Thus, we counted all the chapters with complete dual coverage as if they were dedicated to UML.  DISCUSSION  Our overall findings support our initial observations. The BRO, DTW and GBVH textbooks looks like real object-oriented textbooks using UML at first sight. After deeper examination, we realized that those textbooks replaced the data-flow diagrams with Use Case diagrams, and ER diagrams with Class diagrams. All other behavior related diagrams are covered in one or two chapters without a sufficient level of detail to use them in students’ projects. Among these three textbooks, Brown’s textbook has an above average coverage of Class diagrams. The SJB and WBD are books that cover both traditional and object-oriented approaches. While WBD only successfully incorporated Use Case diagrams, the SJB textbook is an example of successful coverage of both approaches in parallel. This leads us to two textbooks (SCH and SJB) that have adequate coverage of six types of diagrams.   UML Coverage in Systems Analysis and Design Textbooks  Volume V, No 1, 2004                                                237                                                Issues in Information Systems Which UML diagrams are covered and how extensively are they covered?   The Use Case, Statechart Diagram, Class, and Sequence Diagrams are covered in all six textbooks. The Collaboration and Activity Diagrams are covered in four textbooks. There are only three books (GBVH, SCH and SJB) that cover all six types of diagrams. As we mentioned before, the Component and Deployment diagrams are not sufficiently covered in any of the textbooks.      BRO  DWT  GBVH  SCH  SJB  WBD Chapters  1 1 1 2 1 1 Pages  31 35 25 52 9  33 Unexplained   Include Extend   Use  case generaliza-tion Generaliza-tion Use case generaliza-tion Illustrations  6 4 6 52  10  7 Use Case Diagram Used in case study Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Chapters        Pages      3 2 4 5 Unexplained      Guard  ex-pression   Illustrations      1 2 5 1 Activity Diagram Used in case study     No No No No Chapters  3 2 1 2 1  Pages  176  61 29 41 6  17 Unexplained   Association Class Composition     Association class Illustrations  39 10 26 56 9  14 Class Diagram Used in case study Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Chapters  1        Pages  26 4  6  17 13 1 Unexplained   Creation Destruction Return Many    Destruction  Creation Destruction Illustrations  3 1 3 12  8 1 Sequence Dia-gram Used in case study No Yes  No Yes  Yes  No Chapters        Pages    5 1 6 3  Unexplained         Illustrations    1 1 8 3  Collaboration Diagram Used in case study   Yes No  Yes Yes  Chapters  1        Pages  39 5  1  10 15 2 Unexplained   Super state Sequential Sub state Super state  Sub state Many   Sequential sub state Super state Sub state Illustrations  11  1 1 8 13  1 Statechart Diagram Used in case study Yes Yes No  Yes Yes No Table 4: Detailed topical coverage for each UML diagram.  UML Coverage in Systems Analysis and Design Textbooks   Volume V, No 1, 2004                                                238                                                Issues in Information Systems Only Use Case and Class diagrams are sufficiently covered in all six textbooks. Both diagrams have separate chapters and extensive page coverage. The Sequence and Statechart diagrams are appropriately covered in four textbooks and lightly covered in the other two textbooks. The Activity and Collaboration diagrams are lightly covered in four textbooks and not mentioned in the remaining two textbooks.  How well are the diagrams illustrated and incorporated into a continuing case study?  Similarly, the Use Case and Class diagrams are sufficiently illustrated and are incorporated into a continuing case study in all six textbooks. The Sequence diagrams are well illustrated in four textbooks and lightly illustrated in two textbooks. They are incorporated into case studies in three books. The Statechart diagrams are well illustrated in three textbooks and used in case studies in four textbooks. The Collaboration diagrams are well illustrated in three textbooks and included into case studies of those three textbooks. The Activity diagrams are well illustrated only in one textbook, lightly illustrated in three textbooks, but are not included in a continuing case study in any of the textbooks.  Are the terms and concepts explained?  Almost all books explain the majority of the concepts for the diagrams that they cover. The most frequently unexplained concept for Use Case diagrams is use case generalization, for Class diagrams it is association class, for Sequence diagrams it is object creation and destruction and for Statechart diagrams it is super and sub-states.   CONCLUSIONS  This study reviewed the most frequently used System Analysis and Design textbooks with the intention to answer the following question. Do SAD textbooks provide an adequate source for teaching UML? This study is not intended to favor any of the textbooks. The intention was primarily to provide a comprehensive review for instructors, authors and publishers.  The result of our study indicated that current SAD textbooks provide some, but not a sufficient, source for teaching UML. Only six out of thirteen textbooks provide more than one chapter about UML. Among those six textbooks, only two provide adequate coverage of all six commonly used UML diagrams. In terms of diagram coverage, only Use Case and Class diagrams are extensively covered and included into case studies of all textbooks. The diagrams for detailed behavior specification are considerably deemphasized. Specifically, the Collaboration and Activity diagrams are inadequately covered. In addition, the Component and Deployment diagrams are not covered in any of the reviewed textbooks.   With the fast growing outsourcing and “offshore” development, the emphasis on detailed design and component design will be more and more important. That will require a significantly better coverage of those diagrams which are now deemphasized in the SAD textbooks.  The good news is that this study shows a significant trend towards the use of UML in SAD among newer books. Three out of four textbooks published this year are using UML. We may UML Coverage in Systems Analysis and Design Textbooks  Volume V, No 1, 2004                                                239                                                Issues in Information Systems proclaim 2004 as a year of UML’s victory in SAD textbooks. Now instructors have significantly more choices in selecting a SAD textbook. At the same time, the authors are updating popular titles to embrace UML as a lingua franca of SAD.  REFERENCES 1.  Booch, G., Rumbaugh, J. and Jacobson, I. (1998). The Unified Modeling Language User Guide, Addison-Wesley. 2.  facultyONLINE, www.facultyONLINE.com 3.  Fowler, M. (2004). UML Distilled, (3rd ed.) Addison Wesley. 4.  Larman, C. (2002). Applying UML and Patterns: An Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis and Design, (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall. 5.  Jovanovic, V. and Mrdalj, S. (2003). Design Description for Software Components, Issues in Information Systems, Volume IV(2), 178-184. 6.  Mrdalj, S. and Jovanovic, V. (2003).  Advancing the Systems Analysis and Design Curriculum, Issues in Information Systems, Volume IV(2),  611-617. 7.  Object Management Group, Inc. (2003). UML 2.0 Superstructure Final Adopted Specification, Document -- ptc/03-08-02, http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?ptc/2003-08-02. 8.  Reif, H. and Mitri, M. (2003). A Survey of Project Management Coverage within Undergraduate Information Systems’ Systems Analysis Textbooks, Issues in Information Systems, Volume IV(2),  291-295.  

UML coverage in systems analysis and design textbooks

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