A conceptual framework for requirements engineering

A framework for assessing research and practice in requirements engineering is proposed. The framework is used to survey state of the art research contributions and practice. The framework considers a task activity view of requirements, and elaborates different views of requirements engineering (RE) depending on the starting point of a system development. Another perspective is to analyse RE from different conceptions of products and their properties. RE research is examined within this framework and then placed in the context of how it extends current system development methods and systems analysis techniques.     

A requirements engineering framework for cross-organizational ERP systems

The development of cross-organizational enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions is becoming increasingly critical to the business strategy of many networked companies. The major function of cross-organizational ERP solutions is to coordinate work in two or more organizations. However, how to align ERP application components and business requirements for coordination and cooperation is hardly known. This paper reports on the outcomes of applying a coordination theory perspective to an analysis of the ERP misalignment problem. We present a conceptual framework for analyzing coordination and cooperation requirements in inter-organizational ERP projects. The framework makes explicit the undocumented built-in assumptions for coordination and cooperation that may have significant implications for the ERP adopters and incorporates a library of existing coordination mechanisms supported by modern ERP systems. We use it to develop a proposal for how to achieve a better alignment between ERP implementations and supported business coordination processes in inter-organizational settings. We report on some early assessments of the implications of our framework for practicing requirements engineers. Both our framework and library rest on a literature survey and the first author’s experience with ERP implementation. In future empirical research, we will further validate and refine our framework.     

A goal-driven and agent-based requirements engineering framework*

The paper presents a requirements engineering framework (REF), where advanced requirements engineering techniques are combined with software quality modelling approaches to provide an environment within which the stakeholders and the analysts can easily cooperate to discover, organise, reconcile and validate the requirements for a new system. By adopting a basic and essential graphical notation, and a clear top-down methodology, REF allows for an effective involvement of the stakeholders, assisting and driving them to an early definition of the desired system's functionalities and quality attributes, while supporting the redesign of the encompassing organisational context to better exploit the new system's capabilities. As a case study, REF is applied to support the requirements engineering process for a complex software-intensive simulation system. Results demonstrate the feasibility of REF and the benefits it offers to the requirements engineering process, but also to the subsequent system development phases. As illustrated through the case study REF can, in fact, be usefully applied as a forerunner for unified modelling language (UML)-based approaches.*Part of this work was completed while the author was Senior Research Fellow with the Computing Information Systems Engineering Group, at the Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University (UK)     

Stakeholder viewpoints in requirements definition: A framework for understanding viewpoint development approaches

Requirements definition is a critical activity within information systems development. It involves many stakeholder groups: managers, various end-users and different systems development professionals. Each group is likely to have its own viewpoint representing a particular perspective or set of perceptions of the problem domain. To ensure as far as possible that the system to be implemented meets the needs and expectations of all involved stakeholders, it is necessary to understand their various viewpoints and manage any inconsistencies and conflicts. Viewpoint development during requirements definition is the process of identifying, understanding and representing different viewpoints. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for understanding and investigating viewpoint development approaches. Results of the use of the framework for a comparison of viewpoint development approaches are discussed and some important issues and directions for future research are identified.     

A framework for the operationalization of monitoring in business intelligence requirements engineering

Business intelligence (BI) is perceived as a critical activity for organizations and is increasingly discussed in requirements engineering (RE). RE can contribute to the successful implementation of BI systems by assisting the identification and analysis of such systems’ requirements and the production of the specification of the system to be. Within RE for BI systems, we focus in this paper on the following questions: (i) how the expectations of a BI system’s stakeholders can be translated into accurate BI requirements, and (ii) how do we operationalize specifically these requirements in a system specification? In response, we define elicitation axes for the documentation of BI-specific requirements, give a list of six BI entities that we argue should be accounted for to operationalize business monitoring, and provide notations for the modeling of these entities. We survey important contributions of BI to define elicitation axes, adapt existing BI notations issued from RE literature, and complement them with new BI-specific notations. Using the i* framework, we illustrate the application of our proposal using a real-world case study.     

A measurement framework for assessing the maturity of requirements engineering process

Because requirements engineering (RE) problems are widely acknowledged as having a major impact on the effectiveness of the software development process, Sommerville et al. have developed a requirements maturity model. However, research has shown that the measurement process within Sommerville’s model is ambiguous, and implementation of his requirements maturity model leads to confusion. Hence, the objective of our research is to propose a new RE maturity measurement framework (REMMF) based on Sommerville’s model and to provide initial validation of REMMF. The main purpose of proposing REMMF is to allow us to more effectively measure the maturity of the RE processes being used within organisations and to assist practitioners in measuring the maturity of their RE processes. In order to evaluate REMMF, two organisations implemented the measurement framework within their IT divisions, provided us with an assessment of their requirements process and gave feedback on the REMMF measurement process. The results show that our measurement framework is clear, easy to use and provides an entry point through which the practitioners can effectively judge the strengths and weakness of their RE processes. When an organisation knows where it is, it can more effectively plan for improvement.

A soft computing approach for privacy requirements engineering: The PriS framework

Soft computing continuously gains interest in many fields of academic and industrial domain; among the most notable characteristics for using soft computing methodological tools is the ability to handle with vague and imprecise data in decision making processes. Similar conditions are often encountered in requirements engineering. In this paper, we introduce the PriS approach, a security and privacy requirements engineering framework which aims at incorporating privacy requirements early in the system development process. Specifically, PriS provides a set of concepts for modelling privacy requirements in the organisation domain and a systematic way-of-working for translating these requirements into system models. The conceptual model of PriS uses a goal hierarchy structure. Every privacy requirement is either applied or not on every goal. To this end every privacy requirement is a variable that can take two values [0,1] on every goal meaning that the requirements constraints the goal (value 1) or not (value 0). Following this way of working PriS ends up suggesting a number of implementation techniques based on the privacy requirements constraining the respective goals. Taking into account that the mapping of privacy variables to a crisp set consisting of two values [0,1] is constraining, we extend also the PriS framework so as to be able to address the degree of participation of every privacy requirement towards achieving the generic goal of privacy. Therefore, we propose a fuzzification of privacy variables that maps the expression of the degree of participation of each privacy variable to the [0,1] interval. We also present a mathematical framework that allows the concurrent management of combined independent preferences towards the necessity of a privacy measure; among the advantages of the presented extended framework is the scalability of the approach in such a way that the results are not limited by the number of independent opinions or by the number of factors considered while reasoning for a specific selection of privacy measures.     

Secure Tropos framework for software product lines requirements engineering

Security and requirements engineering are two of the most important factors of success in the development of a software product line (SPL). Goal-driven security requirements engineering approaches, such as Secure Tropos, have been proposed as a suitable paradigm for elicitation of security requirements and their analysis on both a social and a technical dimension. Nevertheless, goal-driven security requirements engineering methodologies are not appropriately tailored to the specific demands of SPL, while on the other hand specific proposals of SPL engineering have traditionally ignored security requirements. This paper presents work that fills this gap by proposing “SecureTropos-SPL” framework.     

A framework for virtual organization requirements

Virtual organizations (VOs) are formed by an alliance of organizations linked by a partnership for dealing with emerging challenges. Information and communication technologies play a fundamental role facilitating cooperation, communication and collaboration among the VO members. The formal identification and representation of Requirements Engineering (RE) for one organization have been researched to a large extent along with several elicitation techniques. However, these techniques are not adequate for covering the major challenges of RE for VO. We explore the work done in the management and RE fields to propose a model-based framework for eliciting VOs’ requirements. The goal is to analyze the VO from two points of view: border (intra-organizational, inter-organizational and extra-organizational) and abstract (intentional, organizational and operational). This article includes the framework validation with a case study and a transformation process to develop partial Business Process Diagram from the intentional models.     

A framework to integrate design knowledge reuse and requirements management in engineering design

This paper presents a framework to integrate requirements management and design knowledge reuse. The research approach begins with a literature review in design reuse and requirements management to identify appropriate methods within each domain. A framework is proposed based on the identified requirements. The framework is then demonstrated using a case study example: vacuum pump design. Requirements are presented as a component of the integrated design knowledge framework. The proposed framework enables the application of requirements management as a dynamic process, including capture, analysis and recording of requirements. It takes account of the evolving requirements and the dynamic nature of the interaction between requirements and product structure through the various stages of product development.     

A requirements engineering process for control engineering software

This paper presents a novel approach for the specification of control engineering software. The proposal is based on software engineering techniques which have improved the performance and quality of software processes. Some of the best practices for the building of software products are included. An example of the proposal is given for the requirements specification of the 1992 ACC robust control benchmark.     

A requirements monitoring framework for enterprise systems

Requirements compliant software is becoming a necessity. Fewer and fewer organizations will run their critical transactions on software that has no visible relationship to its requirements. Businesses wish to see their software being consistent with their policies. Moreover, partnership agreements are pressuring less mature organizations to improve their systems. Businesses that rely on web services, for example, are vulnerable to the problems of their web service providers. While electronic commerce has increased the speed of on-line transactions, the technology for monitoring requirements compliance—especially for transactions—has lagged behind. To address the requirements monitoring problem for enterprise information systems, we integrate techniques for requirements analysis and software execution monitoring. Our framework assists analysts in the development of requirements monitors for enterprise services. The deployed system raises alerts when services succeed or fail to satisfy their specified requirements, thereby making software requirements visible. The framework usage is demonstrated with an analysis of ebXML marketplace specifications. An analyst applies goal analysis to discover potential service obstacles, and then derives requirements monitors and a distributed monitoring system. Once deployed, the monitoring system provides alerts when obstacles occur. A summary of the framework implementation is presented, along with analysis of two monitor component implementations. We conclude that the approach implemented in the framework, called ReqMon, provides real-time feedback on requirements satisfaction, and thereby provides visibility into requirements compliance of enterprise information systems.

A vulnerability-centric requirements engineering framework: analyzing security attacks, countermeasures, and requirements based on vulnerabilities

Many security breaches occur because of exploitation of vulnerabilities within the system. Vulnerabilities are weaknesses in the requirements, design, and implementation, which attackers exploit to compromise the system. This paper proposes a methodological framework for security requirements elicitation and analysis centered on vulnerabilities. The framework offers modeling and analysis facilities to assist system designers in analyzing vulnerabilities and their effects on the system; identifying potential attackers and analyzing their behavior for compromising the system; and identifying and analyzing the countermeasures to protect the system. The framework proposes a qualitative goal model evaluation analysis for assessing the risks of vulnerabilities exploitation and analyzing the impact of countermeasures on such risks.     

A framework for application systems engineering

Interactive Application Systems (IAS) attend to the information needs of application experts, i.e. problem-solving end-users within particular application environments. As such, IAS must be customized functionally and behaviourally toward both user and environment. Such customizing must be feasible in an economical fashion. The study claims that this objective is met by appropriate IAS development tools and by a basic IAS architecture that consists of the following main building blocks: a general-purpose dialogue processor that is controlled by a particular user interface specification, called information net; a library of software modules and packages for providing system functions on the basis of reusable software; and a data management system that may, just like the library elements, be procured from outside, perhaps even including an already existing information base. The paper discusses the approach in detail with particular emphasis on information nets and on the integration of reusable software into a total system. The paper argues that the approach is flexible enough to accommodate (rapid) prototyping, i.e. procuring of first versions of an IAS, that may be used during requirements analysis to refine the user wishes, or operationally during an interim period until the final system becomes available.     

A Bayesian network-based framework for semantic image understanding

Current research in content-based semantic image understanding is largely confined to exemplar-based approaches built on low-level feature extraction and classification. The ability to extract both low-level and semantic features and perform knowledge integration of different types of features is expected to raise semantic image understanding to a new level. Belief networks, or Bayesian networks (BN), have proven to be an effective knowledge representation and inference engine in artificial intelligence and expert systems research. Their effectiveness is due to the ability to explicitly integrate domain knowledge in the network structure and to reduce a joint probability distribution to conditional independence relationships. In this paper, we present a general-purpose knowledge integration framework that employs BN in integrating both low-level and semantic features. The efficacy of this framework is demonstrated via three applications involving semantic understanding of pictorial images. The first application aims at detecting main photographic subjects in an image, the second aims at selecting the most appealing image in an event, and the third aims at classifying images into indoor or outdoor scenes. With these diverse examples, we demonstrate that effective inference engines can be built within this powerful and flexible framework according to specific domain knowledge and available training data to solve inherently uncertain vision problems.     

A framework for understanding learning from management simulations

Article proposes a framework for understanding certain aspects of learning from computer‐based management simulations. The framework is developed as a result of small‐scale, exploratory research amongst postgraduate students at three European Business Schools. An overview from the general literature on management learning is provided and claims made in the specific literature regarding student learning from management simulations are considered. There is reference to the methodological problems associated with establishing learning outcomes. The need to conduct research into the learning experience from the student perspective is argued. A framework for mapping student perceptions of management simulation learning is developed using the established notions of learning style and depth of learning. Data from the exploratory research are used as illustration for the framework.