M. J. Escalona

Visualization of Use Cases through Automatically Generated Activity Diagrams

Functional requirements are often written using use cases formatted by textual templates. This textual approach has the advantage to be easy to adopt, but the requirements can then hardly be processed for further purposes like test generation. In this paper, we propose to generate automatically through a model transformation an activity diagram modeling the use case scenario. Such an activity diagram allows us to guess in a glimpse the global behavior of a use case, and can easily be processed. The transformation is defined using the QVT-Relational language, and is illustrated on a case study using a supporting tool.

Metamodeling the Requirements of Web Systems

A detailed requirements analysis is best practice in the development of traditional software. Conversely, the importance of requirements engineering for Web systems is still underestimated. Only few Web methodologies provide an approach for the elicitation of requirements and techniques for their specification. This paper focuses on specification through requirements models of Web systems. We present a metamodel, which contains the key concepts needed for the requirements specification of Web systems. The benefit of such a metamodel is twofold: (1) The key concepts are used for the definition of a common modeling language: a UML profile for Web requirements. (2) The elements of the metamodel are mapped to the modeling constructs of the different Web methodologies. In this way the prerequisite for model-to-model transformations is given, which allows to build different views of the requirements of a Web system using different Web methodologies.

Software process modeling languages: A systematic literature review

Context: Organizations working in software development are aware that processes are very important assets as well as they are very conscious of the need to deploy well-defined processes with the goal of improving software product development and, particularly, quality. Software process modeling languages are an important support for describing and managing software processes in software-intensive organizations. Objective: This paper seeks to identify what software process modeling languages have been defined in last decade, the relationships and dependencies among them and, starting from the current state, to define directions for future research. Method: A systematic literature review was developed. 1929 papers were retrieved by a manual search in 9 databases and 46 primary studies were finally included. Results: Since 2000 more than 40 languages have been first reported, each of which with a concrete purpose. We show that different base technologies have been used to define software process modeling languages. We provide a scheme where each language is registered together with the year it was created, the base technology used to define it and whether it is considered a starting point for later languages. This scheme is used to illustrate the trend in software process modeling languages. Finally, we present directions for future research. Conclusion: This review presents the different software process modeling languages that have been developed in the last ten years, showing the relevant fact that model-based SPMLs (Software Process Modeling Languages) are being considered as a current trend. Each one of these languages has been designed with a particular motivation, to solve problems which had been detected. However, there are still several problems to face, which have become evident in this review. This let us provide researchers with some guidelines for future research on this topic.

An overview on test generation from functional requirements

Despite the fact that the test phase is described in the literature as one of the most relevant for quality assurance in software projects, this test phase is not usually developed, among others, with enough resources, time or suitable techniques. To offer solutions which supply the test phase, with appropriate tools for the automation of tests generation, or even, for their self-execution, could become a suitable way to improve this phase and reduce the cost constraints in real projects. This paper focuses on answering a concrete research question: is it possible to generate test cases from functional requirements described in an informal way? For this aim, it presents an overview of a set of relevant approaches that works in this field and offers a set of comparative analysis to determine which the state of the art is.

The treatment of navigation in web engineering

This paper aims at giving a global vision of the most popular web engineering approach. Web systems have woken up a high interest in companies and in the research community in the last years. Thus, techniques and methods are being proposed in order to offer a suitable framework to deal with the special characteristics of the web. For these reasons, some years ago a new line in the software engineering appeared. This line, then named web engineering, has grown in the last years, proving that web systems have special characteristics that require a special treatment. One of the most treated characteristic is the navigation. Navigation is a critical aspect in web systems and its suitable development in the life cycle is a basic need to guarantee the project quality. This survey shows how navigation is treated in 15 web proposals, which are the most referenced ones, and it analyses the available techniques, models and the possible gaps in the treatment.

Agile Requirements Engineering: A systematic literature review

Abstract Nowadays, Agile Software Development (ASD) is used to cope with increasing complexity in system development. Hybrid development models, with the integration of User-Centered Design (UCD), are applied with the aim to deliver competitive products with a suitable User Experience (UX). Therefore, stakeholder and user involvement during Requirements Engineering (RE) are essential in order to establish a collaborative environment with constant feedback loops. The aim of this study is to capture the current state of the art of the literature related to Agile RE with focus on stakeholder and user involvement. In particular, we investigate what approaches exist to involve stakeholder in the process, which methodologies are commonly used to present the user perspective and how requirements management is been carried out. We conduct a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) with an extensive quality assessment of the included studies. We identified 27 relevant papers. After analyzing them in detail, we derive deep insights to the following aspects of Agile RE: stakeholder and user involvement, data gathering, user perspective, integrated methodologies, shared understanding, artifacts, documentation and Non-Functional Requirements (NFR). Agile RE is a complex research field with cross-functional influences. This study will contribute to the software development body of knowledge by assessing the involvement of stakeholder and user in Agile RE, providing methodologies that make ASD more human-centric and giving an overview of requirements management in ASD.

A quality management based on the Quality Model life cycle

Managing quality is a hard and expensive task that involves the execution and control of processes and techniques. For a good quality management, it is important to know the current state and the objective to be achieved. It is essential to take into account with a Quality Model that specifies the purposes of managing quality. QuEF (Quality Evaluation Framework) is a framework to manage quality in MDWE (Model-driven Web Engineering). This paper suggests managing quality but pointing out the Quality Model life cycle. The purpose is to converge toward a quality continuous improvement by means of reducing effort and time.

An approach to generate test cases from use cases

The system testing allows to verify the behaviour of the systemunder test and to guarantee the satisfaction of its requirements.This work describes a complete process to generate test casesfrom use cases for web applications. This process also resolves the lacks detected in existing approaches.

Open source tools for measuring the Internal Quality of Java software products. A survey

Collecting metrics and indicators to assess objectively the different products resulting during the lifecycle of a software project is a research area that encompasses many different aspects, apart from being highly demanded by companies and software development teams. Focusing on software products, one of the most used methods by development teams for measuring Internal Quality is the static analysis of the source code. This paper works in this line and presents a study of the state-of-the-art open source software tools that automate the collection of these metrics, particularly for developments in Java. These tools have been compared according to certain criteria defined in this study.

NDT-Suite: a model-based suite for the application of NDT

In general, a methodology needs to be empowered by appropriate tool support. Despite MDE paradigm does not result friendly enough in enterprise environments, particularly, the application of transformations among models may become complex, monotonous and very expensive if there are no software tools automating the process. In this context, this research paper presents NDT-Suite. Nowadays, NDT-Suite is composed by a wide set of free Java tools which gives support to enterprises that are using NDT (Navigational Development Techniques) methodology in their projects. All of them support different aspects in NDT usage: quality assurance, exit generation or code checking, among others. These seeds set the environment for NDT usage for both research and practical use.