Marília Aranha Freire

A Model-Driven Approach to Specifying and Monitoring Controlled Experiments in Software Engineering

This paper presents a process-oriented model-driven approach that supports the conduction of controlled experiments in software engineering. The approach consists of: (i) a domain specific language (DSL) for process specification and statistical design of controlled experiments; (ii) model-driven transformations that allow workflow models generations specific to each experiment participant and according to the experiment statistical design; and (iii) a workflow execution environment that allows the monitoring of participant activities in the experiment, besides gathering participants feedback from the experiment. The paper also presents the results of an exploratory study that analyzes the feasibility of the approach and the expressivity of the DSLs in the modeling of a non-trivial software engineering experiment.

Automating the Variability Management, Customization and Deployment of Software Processes: A Model-Driven Approach

This paper presents a model-driven and integrated approach to variability management, customization and execution of software processes. Our approach is founded on the principles and techniques of software product lines and model-driven engineering. Model-driven engineering provides support to the specification of software processes and their transformation to workflow specifications. Software product lines techniques allows the automatic variability management of process elements and fragments. Additionally, in our approach, workflow technologies enable the process execution in workflow engines. In order to evaluate the approach feasibility, we have implemented it using existing model-driven technologies. The software processes are specified using Eclipse Process Framework (EPF). The automatic variability management of software processes has been implemented as an extension of an existing product derivation tool. Finally, ATL and Acceleo transformation languages are adopted to transform EPF process to jPDL workflow language specifications in order to enable the deployment and execution of software processes in the JBoss BPM workflow engine.

A Comparative Study of Compositional and Annotative Modelling Approaches for Software Process Lines

This paper presents a comparative study of compositional and annotative modeling approaches for software process lines. In our comparative study, Open UP and Scrum based software process lines extracted from existing projects are modeled and implemented using an existing compositional approach -- EPF Composer, and an annotative approach -- GenArch-P, with the main aim to address a systematic variability management and automatic process derivation. In order to promote the analysis of the approaches were adapted some comparison criteria previously adopted in other studies. Our study results show that the annotative approach can bring many advantages to the modeling of software process lines considering our comparison criteria. On the other hand, our study also concludes that many existing compositional mechanisms should also be integrated with annotative approaches in order to improve the modularity of process elements associated to specific kinds of process variabilities.

An Approach to Manage and Customize Variability in Software Processes

This paper presents an approach to the management and customization of variabilities in software processes. It supports the automatic handling of variations occurring in process specifications, and promotes the automatic derivation of specific customizations of these processes. In order to validate and demonstrate the approach benefits and feasibility, the paper presents an implementation that allows the customization of processes specified in the Eclipse Process Framework (EPF).

Assessing and Evolving a Domain Specific Language for Formalizing Software Engineering Experiments: An Empirical Study

The research about the formalization and conduction of controlled experiments in software engineering has reported important insights and guidelines for their organization. However, the computational support to formalize and execute controlled experiments still requires deeper investigation. In this context, this paper presents an empirical study that evaluates a domain-specific language (DSL) proposed to formalize controlled experiments in software engineering. The language is part of a model-driven approach that allows the generation of executable workflows for the experiment participants, according to the statistical design of the experiment. Our study involves the modeling of 16 software engineering experiments to analyze the completeness and expressiveness of the investigated DSL when specifying different controlled experiments. The results highlight several limitations of the DSL that affect the formalization and execution of experiments. These outcomes were used to extend and improve the evaluated DSL. Finally, the improved version of the language was used to model the same experiments in order to illustrate the benefits of the proposed improvements.

Driving Academic Spin-off by Software Development Process: A Case Study in Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte - Brazil

This paper presents, as a case study, the experience of Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte (IFRN) in using software process, as a means to create institutional ambience for technological innovation and new start-ups formation. As a professional qualification institution, IFRN has succeeded during its century-old existence in providing good job opportunities for its students. However, the same educational model has proved not to be as adequate to give the students the same opportunity to run their own businesses. Having this in mind, significant institutional arrangements and curriculum innovations were made, mainly related to software development disciplines, in order to support the gradual transition of academic requirements (e.g. knowledge acquisition and best practices) into business and more market-oriented ones. This paper reports this trajectory, the main lessons learned, and the new challenges ahead.

A Generative Development Method with Multiple Domain-Specific Languages

This paper investigates approaches proposed in the literature to compose domain-specific languages (DSLs) and mechanisms to integrate DSLs with feature models (FMs) in product line engineering. We propose a method for the development of generative approaches based on existing related work, which provides guidelines for the systematic development of DSL composition integrated with FMs during domain and application engineering. The proposed method is evaluated through an exploratory study of development of a generative approach for the experimental software engineering domain.

A Process-Oriented Environment for the Execution of Software Engineering Experiments

Over the last decade, the software engineering community has been discussing how to better support the planning, execution and analysis of controlled experiments. There is a growing interesting in this topic because it is a mean to meet empirical evidence facilitating the work of researchers. In this paper, we present a process-oriented environment proposed to support the conduction of controlled experiments in software engineering. We describe the desired requirements for such kind of experimental supporting environment and analyze how our experimental environment addresses these requirements.