Claudia A. López

Bridging the gap between software architecture rationale formalisms and actual architecture documents: An ontology-driven approach

Documenting software architecture rationale is essential to reuse and evaluate architectures, and several modeling and documentation guidelines have been proposed in the literature. However, in practice creating and updating these documents rarely is a primary activity in most software projects, and rationale remains hidden in casual and semi-structured records, such as e-mails, meeting notes, wikis, and specialized documents. This paper describes the TREx (Toeska Rationale Extraction) approach to recover, represent and explore rationale information from text documents, combining: (1) pattern-based information extraction to recover rationale; (2) ontology-based representation of rationale and architectural concepts; and (3) facet-based interactive exploration of rationale. Initial results from TRExs application suggest that some kinds of architecture rationale can be semi-automatically extracted from a projects unstructured text documents, namely decisions, alternatives and requirements. The approach and some tools are illustrated with a case study of rationale recovery for a financial securities settlement system.

NDR Ontology: Sharing and Reusing NFR and Design Rationale Knowledge

Understanding non-functional requirements (NFR) and their solutions is a key architecture task, and reusing past solutions is an effective and efficient way to satisfy NFRs. NFR catalogues have been proposed to store and reuse NFR knowledge descriptions, yet identification of reusable knowledge inside catalogues remains quite hard and tedious. This article introduces the NDR ontology to describe NFR and design rationale knowledge, thus making it reusable and shareable via human and machine-readability. The ontology is the basis for several semantics-based applications currently under development, including view-based NFR/rationale exploration, facet-based search, and comparison of alternative solutions. Also, some approach extensions are explored, including model merging and high-end visualization of NFR knowledge.

Consequences of content diversity for online public spaces for local communities

While there is significant potential for social technologies to strengthen local communities, creating viable online spaces for them remains difficult. Maintaining a reliable content stream is challenging for local communities with their bounded emphases and limited population of potential contributors. Some systems focus on specific information types (e.g. restaurant, events). Others allow many different information types. This paper reports our findings about the consequences of content diversity from a study of neighborhood-oriented Facebook groups. The findings raise questions about the viability of designs for local online communities that focus narrowly on single topics, goals, and audiences.

Visualization and comparison of architecture rationale with semantic web technologies

Deciding how to operationalize non-functional requirements (NFR) is a complex task, and several formalisms have been proposed to represent design decisions and their rationale. Unfortunately, these models can become complex (even unreadable) for designs with many alternatives and/or a well-documented rationale, which makes very hard to review and compare rationale. This paper introduces a Semantic Web-based technique to visualize and compare architecture rationale, combining Softgoal Interdependency Graphs (SIGs) with ontologies reified as named graphs. Reuse of rationale is thus facilitated by allowing architects to understand rationale of previous decisions and/or projects, though automated reuse remains unfeasible until extensive automated capture rationale happens. The approach is illustrated with a case study of Contexta, a museum integration project, using Toeska/Review, a Semantic Web-based tool.

The Tutelkan SPI Framework for Small Settings: A Methodology Transfer Vehicle

Software organizations aim to improve their processes to increase their productivity, competitiveness and performance. Although numerous standards and models have been proposed, their adoption among small organizations is hard due to some size mismatches and to lack of experienced process engineers, which forces them to hire (expensive) external consultants. This article describes the Tutelkan SPI Framework, which proposes a three-fold approach to this problem: (1) providing a library of reusable process assets, (2) offering composition tools to describe small organizations processes using these assets, and (3) systematically training small organization focused consultants for these library and toolset. The framework has been successfully piloted with several Chilean small companies, and the library and tools are open and freely available.

Linking information and people in a social system for academic conferences

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the feasibility of maintaining a social information system to support attendees at an academic conference. The main challenge of this work was to create an infrastructure where users’ social activities, such as bookmarking, tagging, and social linking could be used to enhance user navigation and maximize the users’ ability to locate two important types of information in conference settings: presentations to attend and attendees to meet. We developed Conference Navigator 3, a social conference support system that integrates a conference schedule planner with a social linking service. We examined its potential and functions in the context of a medium-scale academic conference. In this paper, we present the design of the system’s socially enabled features and report the results of a conference-based study. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of social information systems for supporting academic conferences. Despite the low number of potential users and the short timeframe in which conferences took place, the usage of the system was high enough to provide sufficient data for social mechanisms. The study shows that most critical social features were highly appreciated and used, and provides direction for further research.

Explicit architectural policies to satisfy NFRs using COTS

Software architecture decisions hinge more on non-functional requirements (NFRs) than on functional ones, since the architecture stipulates which software to build. Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) aims to automate the derivation/generation of software from high level architectural specifications, but most current MDA implementations start from software design (i.e. how to build a software piece) rather than software architecture. This article presents an approach to extend MDA through the concepts of architectural policies and mechanisms. The key ideas are representation of NFRs through architectural concerns using architectural policies, systematic reification of policies into mechanisms, and multi-dimensional description of components as implementations of mechanisms. A detailed illustrative example is provided. Azimut framework realizes these ideas, supports larger-scale work through catalogs of policies, mechanisms and components, and allows traceability and reuse of architecture by enabling these architecture-level descriptions and reasoning using incomplete characterizations of requirements and COTS.

Multidimensional Catalogs for Systematic Exploration of Component-Based Design Spaces

Most component-based approaches to elaborate software require complete and consistent descriptions of components, but in practical settings components information is incomplete, imprecise and changing, and requirements may be likewise. More realistically deployable are approaches that combine exploration of candidate architectures with their evaluation vis-a-vis requirements, and deal with the fuzzy ness of available component information. This article presents an approach to systematic generation, evaluation and re-generation of component assemblies, using potentially incomplete, imprecise, unreliable and changing descriptions of requirements and components. The key ideas are representation of NFRs using architectural policies, systematic reification of policies into mechanisms and components that implement them, multi-dimensional characterizations of these three levels, and catalogs of them. The Azimut framework embodies these ideas and enables traceability of architecture by supporting architecture-level reasoning, and allows architects to engage into systematic exploration of design spaces. A detailed illustrative example illustrates the approach.

Identifying “interesting” component assemblies for NFRs using imperfect information

Component-based software elaboration becomes unwieldy for some practical situations with large numbers of components for which information is imperfect (incomplete, imprecise and/or uncertain). This article addresses the problem of identifying “interesting” component sets for some given non-functional requirements (NFRs), using imperfect information about large number of components. Rather than providing completely specified solutions, this approach allows architects to identify and compare whole assemblies, and focus eventual information- improvement efforts only on those components that are part of candidate assemblies. The proposed technique builds on the Azimut layered architectural abstractions, adapting an algorithmic approach used to mine association rules, and taking three parameters: a minimal “support score” that candidate assemblies must meet, and two credibility-value thresholds about the catalog themselves. An example illustrates the approach.

Supporting Cities, Neighborhoods, and Local Communities with Information and Communication Technologies

Challenges of the local context such as encouraging civic engagement and facilitating collaboration to address local issues have motivated researchers and practitioners to explore the role of technologies in supporting life in cities, neighborhoods, and local communities. The goal of this workshop is to open a discussion on how to design, build and study ICT infrastructures and infrastructuring processes that contributes to this effort. We aim to create a publicly accessible repository of infrastructuring tools and to facilitate the cross-pollination of ideas about technology in local contexts among the researchers, practitioners, and residents interested in this area. At the workshop, participants will collaborate with Vancouvers residents and technology practitioners in order to explore the past, present, and future of research in this space; co- construct an infrastructuring tools repository; discuss key information challenges of local communities; and brainstorm solutions and opportunities to address them. Discussion and ideas generated will be archived online to be available to the larger research community and to local community advocates and activists.