A Framework to Support Non-Functional Requirements Knowledge Reuse

支持非功能性需求知识重用的框架

• 批准号: RGPIN-2018-05833
• 负责人: Cysneiros, LuizMarcio
• 金额: $ 1.68万
• 依托单位: York University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2019-01-01 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=679135
• 关键词: Framework; Support; Non; Functional; Requirements

Requirements engineers have to address both functional and non-functional requirements (NFR) to develop software systems. Functional requirements are responsible for representing what the system is capable of in terms of available features, while non-functional requirements are known to represent quality attributes. Some common NFRs include privacy, performance, usability, availability and other similar aspects related to the quality of a software system. The proposed research aims at providing an environment that will facilitate a software development process that will favor the reuse of knowledge on satisficing NFRs associated with functional requirements.***The first challenge for eliciting NFRs lies on the fact that they are fuzzy in nature and are often missed by both software engineers and stakeholders. Furthermore, choosing one solution to implement one NFR might bring synergies and, perhaps most important, conflicts to other NFRs.***Some works have proposed the use of catalogues for capturing knowledge on alternatives to achieve an NFR as a way of helping not only to elicit NFRs but also to reason about the complexity involved in choosing among alternatives. These catalogues are implemented using Softgoal Interdependency Graphs (SIG). SIGs catalogues promote a graphical representation of essential quality characteristics for satisficing a given non-functional requirement. In fact, empirical works have suggested that the use of catalogues can contribute to avoiding omissions and missed conflicts, despite the fact that SIGs do not scale too well.***I have recently proposed to use an ontology for NFR supported by semantic web techniques for storing and retrieving alternative solutions for one or more NFR, allowing software engineers to visualise the impacts of each solution. A prototype tool to support this activity was recently finished, and it is prepared to be available in a cloud environment to facilitate a broad use of it in the future. ***My long-term goal is to engineer the Non-Functional and Design Rationale (NDR) framework to help software engineers to elicit and model non-functional requirements empowered by a knowledge that has previously been elicited. I believe that the use of a well-defined knowledge base can play a major role to achieve this goal. Therefore, the NDR Framework will emerge as the result of further developing our ontology and create methods, techniques and tools to store and retrieve knowledge on implementing non-functional requirements. The framework will also provide methods to integrate NFRs into functional specifications. ***The NDR Framework will be first made available to the academic community to evaluate it and to later contribute to the knowledge repository. After the framework is stable and mature, we will also allow members from the industry to query the knowledge base and, in the long run, to submit contributions to be added to the knowledge base.***********

需求工程师必须同时处理功能和非功能需求（NFR）来开发软件系统。功能性需求负责表示系统在可用特性方面的能力，而非功能性需求则已知表示质量属性。一些常见的nfr包括隐私、性能、可用性、可用性和其他与软件系统质量相关的类似方面。建议的研究旨在提供一个环境，该环境将促进软件开发过程，该过程将有利于满足与功能需求相关的nfr的知识的重用。引出nfr的第一个挑战在于它们本质上是模糊的，并且经常被软件工程师和涉众忽略。此外，选择一个解决方案来实现一个NFR可能会带来协同作用，也许最重要的是，会给其他NFR带来冲突。***一些作品建议使用目录来获取关于备选方案的知识，以实现NFR，这不仅有助于引发NFR，而且有助于推理在备选方案中选择所涉及的复杂性。这些目录是使用Softgoal相互依赖图（SIG）实现的。sig目录促进基本质量特征的图形表示，以满足给定的非功能需求。事实上，实证研究表明，尽管sigg不能很好地扩展，但使用目录可以有助于避免遗漏和错过的冲突。***我最近提出使用语义web技术支持的NFR本体来存储和检索一个或多个NFR的替代解决方案，允许软件工程师可视化每个解决方案的影响。支持此活动的原型工具最近已经完成，并且准备在云环境中可用，以促进将来的广泛使用。***我的长期目标是设计非功能和设计原理（NDR）框架，以帮助软件工程师通过先前获得的知识来引出和建模非功能需求。我相信使用定义良好的知识库可以在实现这一目标方面发挥重要作用。因此，NDR框架将作为进一步发展我们的本体并创建存储和检索实现非功能需求的知识的方法、技术和工具的结果而出现。该框架还将提供将nfr集成到功能规范中的方法。*** NDR框架将首先提供给学术界进行评估，然后贡献给知识库。在框架稳定成熟后，我们还将允许行业成员查询知识库，并在长期内提交要添加到知识库中的贡献。***********