CAREER: Requirements at Development Time

在创建或维护软件系统时，开发人员必须确保工作系统符合用户的需求。这些需求被记录为系统的“需求”。因此，需求工程（RE）是用来描述技术和方法部署捕获和具体定义用户的需求。软件业专家和学者一致认为，准确和明确的需求是开发高质量软件的关键;然而，从业人员采用可再生能源技术的比例仍然很低，可再生能源仍然与软件设计和开发分开考虑。该项目的目标之一是建立一个框架，将可再生能源技术与发展活动结合起来（例如，编码、测试）。 通过将需求与开发活动的文档联系起来，研究人员使开发人员更容易参与项目的需求，以确保软件开发人员忠实于其用户群的原始目标和需求。虽然该框架将适用于所有软件开发，但该项目侧重于小型独立软件公司的低计算需求。此外，该项目旨在同时改善可再生能源的教学和实践，因为即使软件劳动力扩大，也没有足够的人接受可再生能源培训。该项目的第二个目标是创建教育方法，将要求嵌入课堂的发展活动中。通过授权未来的软件开发人员更好地访问他们实现的需求，该奖项旨在增加从业者和学生对可再生能源的采用。通过这个项目，将通过支持和指导20-30名女大学生来增加妇女对计算机科学的参与，这个奖项的科学目标是探索在多大程度上将需求管理简化到现有的开发工作流程中，将提高学生在课堂上对需求的参与，并在软件劳动力中更多地采用可再生能源方法。研究人员将创建一个框架，将软件需求集成到正常的软件开发活动中。这个框架将通过开发一个基于git的开源解决方案来实现，该解决方案包括三个功能：导入和解析自然语言需求，在需求和git问题和pull请求之间创建可追溯性链接，以及让开发人员参与反馈循环以评估需求跟踪。 由此产生的工具将创建适当的轻推，用于规范文档的及时检查和软件更改的验证。该项目致力于通过寻求一种计算效率高的方法来增量地创建需求和git开发工件之间的可追溯性链接，从而改进需求可追溯性和解析领域的实践。该项目将通过在课堂上的开发活动中嵌入需求来推进需求工程教育领域。研究人员将衡量需求考虑因素在学生开发过程中的影响，以及学生自愿使用需求的比率，以确定可再生能源活动的有效性及其对软件质量的影响。通过反复研究课程项目，研究人员将微调基于git的框架，并减轻任何弱点。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

When creating or maintaining software systems, developers must ensure that the working system aligns with the needs of users. These needs are documented as the "requirements" for the system. Thus, requirements engineering (RE) is the term used to describe the techniques and methods deployed to capture and concretely define users' needs. Software industry experts and academics agree that accurate and well-defined requirements are essential for the development of quality software; however, the rate of adoption of RE techniques is still low among practitioners and RE is still considered separately from software design and development. One of the objectives of this project is to create a framework that integrates RE techniques with development activities (e.g., coding, testing). By linking requirements with the documentation of development activities, researchers make it easier for developers to engage with the requirements for their project, to ensure that software developers remain faithful to the original goals and needs of their user base. While this framework will apply to all software development, this project focuses on the low-computation needs of small and independent software companies. Further, the project is designed to simultaneously improve both the teaching and practice of RE, as there are not enough individuals trained in RE, even with the expansion of the software workforce. A second objective of this project is to create educational methods that embed requirements within development activities in the classroom. By empowering future software developers with better access to the requirements they implement, this award aims to increase the adoption of RE by practitioners and students. Through this project, the participation of women in computer science will be increased by supporting and mentoring 20-30 female undergraduates.The scientific objective of this award is to explore to what extent streamlining requirements management into existing development workflows will improve students' engagement with requirements in the classroom and achieve greater adoption of RE approaches among the software workforce. Researchers will create a framework that integrates software requirements into normal software development activities. This framework will be realized through the development of an open-source git-based solution consisting of three functions: importing and parsing natural language requirements, creating traceability links between requirements and git issues and pull requests, and engaging developers in a feedback loop to evaluate the requirement traces. The the resulting tool will create appropriate nudges for just-in-time checking of specification documents and validation of software changes. This project promises to improve practices in the field of requirements traceability and parsing by seeking a computationally efficient approach for incrementally creating traceability links between requirements and git development artifacts. The project will advance the field of requirements engineering education by embedding requirements within development activities in the classroom. Researchers will measure the impact of requirements considerations in the students' development process and the rate of students’ voluntary use of requirements to establish the effectiveness of RE activities and their impacts on software quality. By iteratively studying course projects, researchers will fine tune the git-based framework and mitigate any weaknesses.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.