Gemma Grau

PRiM: An i * -based process reengineering method for information systems specification

Information system development can often be addressed as a business process reengineering practice, either because it automates some human-based processes or because it replaces an existing legacy system. Therefore, observing and analysing current processes can enable analysts to converge on the specification of the new system, generating and evaluating new system alternatives throughout. In this paper, we propose a method to support this reengineering process that analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the current process; considers the strategic needs of the organization; provides guidelines for the prescriptive construction of i^* models; and drives the systematic generation and evaluation of alternative technological and organizational solutions for the new system.

DesCOTS: a software system for selecting COTS components

Selection of commercial-off-the-shelf software components (COTS components) has a growing importance in software engineering. Unfortunately, selection projects have a high risk of ending up into abandonment or yielding an incorrect selection. The use of some software engineering practices such as the definition of quality models can reduce this risk. We defined a process for COTS components selection based on the use of quality models and we started to apply it in academic and industrial cases. The need of having a tool to support this process arose and, although some tools already exist to partially support the involved activities, none of them was suitable enough. Because of this we developed DesCOTS, a software system that embraces several tools that interact to support the different activities of our process. The system has been designed taking into account not only functional concerns but also nonfunctional aspects such as reusability, interoperability and portability. We present in this paper the different subsystems of DesCOTS and discuss about their applicability.

J-PRiM: A Java Tool for a Process Reengineering i* Methodology

The i* approach is a consolidated modelling technique that has proven to be useful in the requirements engineering phases of software development. Using i* requires the adoption of a methodology for defining the models and tool support for manipulating them. For addressing those aspects, we propose J-PRiM, a tool that allows to define i* models by applying PRiM, our process reengineering i* methodology

COSTUME: a method for building quality models for composite COTS-based software systems

The use of quality models during the selection of commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) products provides a framework for the description of the domains which the COTS products belong to. Descriptions of COTS products and user quality requirements may be translated into the quality concepts defined in the model, making selection more efficient and reliable. We propose a method for the construction of quality models for composite COTS-based software systems (CCSS), defined as systems that are composed by several interconnected COTS products. Selection processes carried out when procuring a CCSS require not a single COTS product to be selected but a set of them. As a consequence, instead of a classical quality model, we need a more elaborated one, defined as the composition of those models that belong to the domains of the COTS products that form the CCSS.

Towards a Catalogue of Patterns for Defining Metrics over i* Models

Metrics applied at the early stages of the Information Systems development process are useful for assessing further decisions. Agent-oriented models provide descriptions of processes as a network of relationships among actors and their analysis allows discerning whether a model fulfils some required properties, or comparing models according to some criteria. In this paper, we adopt metrics to drive this analysis and we propose the use of patterns to design these metrics, with emphasis in their definition over i* models. Patterns are organized in the form of a catalogue structured along several dimensions, and expressed using a template. The patterns and the metrics are written using OCL expressions defined over a UML conceptual data model for i*. As a result, we promote reusability improving the metrics definition process in terms of accuracy and efficiency of the process.

SYSTEMATIC CONSTRUCTION OF i STRATEGIC DEPENDENCY MODELS FOR SOCIO-TECHNICAL SYSTEMS

Goal- and agent-oriented models have become a consolidated type of artifact in various software and knowledge engineering activities. Several languages exist for representing such type of models but there is a lack of associated methodologies for guiding their construction up to the necessary level of detail. In this paper we present RiSD, a method for building Strategic Dependency (SD) models in the i* notation. RiSD is defined in a prescriptive way to reduce uncertainness when constructing the model. RiSD tackles three fundamental issues: (1) it tends to reduce the average size of the resulting models; (2) it defines some traceability relationships among model elements; (3) it provides some lexical and syntactical conventions. As a result, we may say that RiSD supports the construction process of goal- and agent-oriented models whilst increasing their understanding.

A goal-oriented approach for the generation and evaluation of alternative architectures

There is a recognized gap between requirements and architectures. There is also evidence that architecture evaluation, when done at the early phases of the development lifecycle, is an effective way to ensure the quality attributes of the final system. As quality attributes may be satisfied at a different extent by different alternative architectural solutions, an exploration and evaluation of alternatives is often needed. In order to address this issue at the requirements level, we propose to model architectures using the i* framework, a goal-oriented modelling language that allows to represent the functional and non-functional requirements of an architecture using actors and dependencies instead of components and connectors. Once the architectures are modelled, we propose guidelines for the generation of alternative architectures based upon existing architectural patterns, and for the definition of structural metrics for the evaluation of the resulting alternative models. The applicability of the approach is shown with the Home Service Robot case study.

A framework for the definition of metrics for actor-dependency models

The authors define actor-dependency models as a restricted class of goal-oriented models in which we focus on the actors and dependencies that exist in a system. An example of actor-dependency models are i* strategic dependency (SD) models (Yu, 1995). The structural analysis of actor-dependency models with respect some properties considered of interest for the modelled system (such as security, accuracy or efficiency), using some adequate metrics defined in terms of the elements of the model.

On the adequacy of i* models for representing and analyzing software architectures

In order to work at the software architecture level, specification languages and analysis techniques are needed. There exist many proposals that serve that purpose, but few of them address architecture and requirements altogether, leaving a gap between both disciplines. Goal-oriented approaches are suitable for bridging this gap because they allow representing architecture-related concepts (components, nodes, files, etc.) and more abstract concepts (goals, non-functional requirements, etc.) by using the same constructs. In this paper we explore the suitability of the i* goal-oriented approach for representing software architectures. For doing so, we check its properties against the ones suitable for Architecture Description Languages and we define some criteria for solving the unfulfilled aspects in representing the architectures. This paper assumes basic notions on i*.

ReeF: defining a customizable reengineering framework

During their life span, organizations must adapt continuously to an always evolving context and so have to do their Information Systems and the processes around them. The scope of these changes ranges from small-scale maintenance modifications or the redefinition of some business processes to the full deployment of a new system. In all cases, the resulting Information System will seldom be built from the scratch; as even when deploying it for the first time, we may consider that it starts from the description of the current human processes. For that reason, we may consider Information System development and its evolution as a reengineering process. In this paper, we present a framework that defines the generic activity of reengineering using Method Engineering techniques. The framework is built upon existing reengineering methods from different disciplines and provides six generic phases that can be instantiated with the purpose of defining new reengineering methods.