CRII: SHF: RUI: Representing and Merging Diverse Goal Models in Requirements Engineering

面向目标的需求工程(Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering，GORE)是一种已建立的方法，用于帮助相关方(“利益相关者”)捕获和确定新的或修改后的软件产品的早期上下文。通过一个称为目标模型的中心构件，工程师可以可视化所考虑的系统和项目涉众的目标和依赖关系。通过创建目标模型，工程师可以对项目权衡以及涉众目标和依赖关系可能如何演变进行推理。以前的工作假设只有一个人创建目标模型。本项目有两个研究目标。首先，该项目旨在使多个建模者能够分别从利益相关者那里收集特征，并将它们合并到单个模型中进行分析。通过合并目标模型，实践者可以协作并捕获其他视角，从而更完整地表示项目，并在过程中解决不一致和冲突。其次，该项目旨在提高权衡分析的可用性，并使利益攸关方更容易获得分析技术。通过为利益相关者提供更现实的模型，从业者可以做出更明智的决策，这反过来又为社会提供更高质量的软件。该项目将有助于戈尔建模的教学，这是软件工程教育的重要组成部分。在这个项目中，调查人员的目标是支持利益相关者在戈尔活动中进行合作的能力，特别是创建和分析大型目标模型。研究人员通过合并模型语法和模型语义来研究如何将多个利益相关者对模型的观点与时序信息相结合。在第二个研究活动中，调查人员改进了对分析结果的解释，并定义了一种应用戈尔推理的方法，以支持利益相关者进行决策。例如，该项目将彩色可视化与过滤分析结果相结合，以缩小潜在解决方案的状态空间。该项目将为模型管理功能提供工具支持，例如验证合并操作来源的可追溯性链接。研究团队将通过对模型师的经验观察来验证合并操作和分析可视化的有效性。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering (GORE) is an established method to help involved parties ("stakeholders") capture and determine the early-context for a new or modified software product. Through a central artifact called a goal model, engineers visualize the goals and dependencies of both the system under consideration and the project stakeholders. By creating goal models, engineers can reason about project trade-offs and how stakeholder goals and dependencies may evolve. Prior work assumes that only a single individual creates a goal model. This project has two research objectives. First, the project aims to enable multiple modelers to gather features from stakeholders separately and merge them into a single model for analysis. By merging goal models, practitioners may collaborate and capture additional perspectives leading to a more complete representation of the project, with inconsistencies and conflicts being resolved in the process. Second, the project aims to improve the usability of trade-off analysis and make analysis techniques more accessible to stakeholders. By providing stakeholders with more realistic models, practitioners can make better informed decisions, which in turn provides society with higher quality software. The project will contribute to the teaching of GORE modeling, an important part of software-engineering education. In this project, the investigators aim to support stakeholders' ability to collaborate in GORE activities, specifically the creation and analysis of large goal models. Researchers investigate integrating the viewpoints of multiple stakeholders for models with timing information by merging model syntax and model semantics. In a second research activity, the investigators improve the interpretation of analysis results and define a methodology for applying GORE reasoning, which supports stakeholders in decision making. For example, this project combines color visualizations with filtering analysis results to narrow the state-space of potential solutions. The project will provide tool support for model-management features, such as traceability links to validate the provenance of the merge operation. The research team will validate the effectiveness of the merge operation and analysis visualization through empirical observations of modelers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.