Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Rigorous identification and encoding of trace-links in model-driven engineering

  • Regular Paper
  • Published:
Software & Systems Modeling Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Model-driven engineering (MDE) involves the construction and manipulation of many models of different kinds in an engineering process. In principle, models can be used in the product engineering lifecycle in an end-to-end manner for representing requirements, designs and implementations, and assisting in deployment and maintenance. The manipulations applied to models may be manual, but they can also be automated—for example, using model transformations, code generation, and validation. To enhance automated analysis, consistency and coherence of models used in an MDE process, it is useful to identify, establish and maintain trace-links between models. However, the breadth and scope of trace-links that can be used in MDE is substantial, and managing trace-link information can be very complex. In this paper, we contribute to managing the complexity of traceability information in MDE in two ways: firstly, we demonstrate how to identify the different kinds of trace-links that may appear in an end-to-end MDE process; secondly, we describe a rigorous approach to defining semantically rich trace-links between models, where the models themselves may be constructed using diverse modelling languages. The definition of rich trace-links allows us to use tools to maintain and analyse traceability relationships.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Aizenbud-Reshef N., Nolan B., Rubin J., Shaham-Gafni Y.: Model traceability. IBM Syst. J. 45(3), 515–526 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Aizenbud-Reshef, N., Paige, R., Rubin, J., Shaham-Gafni, Y., Kolovos, D.: Operational semantics for traceability. In: Proceedings of the ECMDA Workshop on Traceability (2005)

  3. Alencar, F., Castro, J., Cysneiros, G., Mylopoulos, J.: From early requirements modeled by i* technique to later requirements modeled in precise UML. In: Proceedings of the III Workshop de Engenharia de Requisitos, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil (2000)

  4. Alexander, I.: Towards automatic traceability in industrial practice. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Traceability in Emerging Forms of Software Engineering (2002)

  5. Antoniol G., Canfora G., Casazza G., De Lucia A., Merlo E.: Recovering traceability links between code and documentation. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 28(10), 970–983 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Asuncion, H., François, F., Taylor, R.: An end-to-end industrial software traceability tool. In: ESEC-FSE, pp. 115–124. ACM, New York (2007)

  7. Atran S.: Cognitive Foundations of Natural History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Nentwich C., Capra L., Emmerich W., Finkelstein A.: XLinkit: a consistency checking and smart link generation service. ACM Trans. Internet Technol. 2(2), 151–185 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Chan, Z.E., Paige, R.F.: Designing a domain-specific contract language. In: ECMDA. LNCS, vol. 3748. Springer, Berlin (2005)

  10. Cleland-Huang, J., Change, C., Wise, J.: Supporting event-based traceability with high-level recognition of change events. In: COMPSAC. Springer, Berlin (2002)

  11. Cysneiros, G., Zisman, A., Spanoudakis, G.: A traceability approach for i* and uml models. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Software Engineering for Large-Scale Multi-Agent Systems (2003)

  12. Dick, J.: Rich traceability. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Traceability in Emerging Forms of Software Engineering (2002)

  13. Kolovos, D.S., Paige, R.F., Polack, F.: On the evolution of OCL for capturing structural constraints in modelling languages. In: Proceedings of the Dagstuhl Workshop on Rigorous Methods for Software Construction and Analysis (2007)

  14. Egyed, A., Gruenbacher, P.: Automatic requirements traceability. In: ASE. ACM, New York (2003)

  15. Espinoza, A., Alarcón, P., Garbajosa, J.: Analyzing and systematizing current traceability schemas. In: SEW. IEEE, USA (2006)

  16. Didonet Del Fabro M., Valduriez P.: Towards the efficient development of model transformations using model weaving and matching transformations. Softw. Syst. Model. 8(3), 305–324 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Eclipse Foundation. Eclipse model-to-model transformation. http://www.eclipse.org/m2m/. Last accessed: June 2009

  18. Giese, H., Wagner, R.: Incremental model synchronization with triple graph grammars. In: MoDELS. LNCS, vol. 4199. Springer, Berlin (2006)

  19. Gotel, O., Finkelstein, A.: An analysis of the requirements traceability problem. In: RE. ACM, New York (1994)

  20. Gotel, O., Finkelstein, A.: Contribution structures (requirements artifacts). In: RE. ACM,New York (1995)

  21. Grau, G., Cares, C., Franch, X., Navarrete, F.J.: A comparative analysis of i* agent-oriented modelling techniques. In: SEKE, pp. 657–663 (2006)

  22. IEEE. IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology. IEEE Standard 610.12-1990 (2004)

  23. Jouault, F.: Loosely coupled traceability for ATL. In: Proc. ECMDA Workshop on Traceability (2005)

  24. Jouault, F., Allilaire, F., Bézivin, J., Kurtev, I., Valduriez, P.: ATL: a QVT-like transformation language. In: OOPSLA Companion, pp. 719–720 (2006)

  25. Kolovos, D.S., Paige, R.F.: Extensible Platform for Specification of Integrated Languages for mOdel maNagement (Epsilon). http://www.eclipse.org/gmt/epsilon

  26. Kolovos, D.S., Paige, R.F., Polack, F.: On-demand merging of traceability links with models. In: Proceedings of the ECMDA Workshop on Traceability (2006)

  27. Kolovos, D.S., Paige, R.F., Polack, F.: Detecting and repairing inconsistencies across heterogeneous models. In: ICST. ACM, New York (2008)

  28. Kolovos, D.S., Paige, R.F., Polack, F.: The Epsilon Transformation Language. In: ICMT. LNCS, vol. 5063. Springer, Berlin (2008)

  29. Kurtev, I., Dee, M., Goknil, A., van den Berg, K.: Traceability-based change management in operational mappings. In: Proceedings of the ECMDA Workshop on Traceability (June 2007)

  30. Limon, A., Garbajosa, J.: The need for a unifying traceability scheme. In: Proceedings of the ECMDA Workshop on Traceability (2005)

  31. Mäder, P., Gotel, O., Philippow, I.: Enabling automated traceability maintenance through the upkeep of traceability relations. In: ECMDA. LNCS, vol. 5562. Springer, Berlin (2009)

  32. Malone J.: The Science of Linguistics in the Art of Translation. State of New York University Press, New York (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Mussulman, L., White, D.: Human factors analysis and classification system. http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/ (2004)

  34. Drivalos, N., Kolovos, D.S., Paige, R., Fernandes, K.: Engineering a domain-specific language for software traceability. In: Software Language Engineering. LNCS, vol. 5452. Springer, Berlin (2008)

  35. Acceleo Pro Traceability. http://www.acceleo.org/pages/additionnal_products/en (2009)

  36. Object Management Group. UML 2.0 OCL specification. OMG Document. http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?ptc/03-10-14 (2003)

  37. Object Management Group. UML 2.0 infrastructure specification. OMG Document. http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?ptc/04-10-14 (2004)

  38. Object Management Group. MOF models to text transformation language; final adopted specification. OMG Document 08-01-16, http://www.omg.org/spec/MOFM2T/1.0/PDF (2006)

  39. Object Management Group. MOF QVT draft specification. OMG Document ptc/2007/07/07, http://www.omg.org/cgibin/doc?ptc/2007-07-07 (2007)

  40. Oldevik, J., Neple, T., Gronmo, R., Aagedal, J., Berre, A.: Toward standardised model-to-text transformations. In: ECMDA. LNCS, vol. 3748. Springer, Berlin (2005)

  41. Olsen, G., Oldevik, J.: Scenarios of traceability in model-to-text transformations. In: ECMDA. LNCS, vol. 4530. Springer, Berlin (2007)

  42. Paige, R.F., Olsen, G.K., Kolovos, D.S., Zschaler, S., Power, C.: Building model-driven engineering traceability classifications. In: Proc. ECMDA Workshop on Traceability (2008)

  43. Power, C., Petrie, H., Swallow, D., Paige, R.F.: Pre-requirements traceability in universally accessible e-learning systems (under review) (2009)

  44. Ramesh B., Jarke M.: Toward reference models of requirements traceability. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 27(1), 58–93 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Rose, L.M., Paige, R.F., Kolovos, D.S., Polack, F.: The Epsilon Generation Language. In: ECMDA. LNCS, vol. 5095. Springer, Berlin (2008)

  46. Rummler, A., Grammel, B., Pohl, C.: Improving traceability in model-driven development of business applications. In: Proceedings of the ECMDA Workshop on Traceability (2007)

  47. Schmidt D.C.: Guest editor’s introduction: model-driven engineering. IEEE Comput. 39(2), 25–31 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  48. Sousa, A., Kulesza, U., Rummler, A., Anquetil, N., Mitschke, R., Moreira, A., Amaral, V., Araújo, J.: A model-driven traceability framework to software product line development. In: Proceedings of the ECMDA Workshop on Traceability (2008)

  49. Spanoudakis, G., Zisman, A.: Software traceability: a roadmap. In: Handbook of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, vol. III. World Scientific Publishing, Singapore (2005)

  50. Strens, A., Sugden, R.: Change analysis: a step towards meeting the challenge of changing requirements. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Engineering Computer-Based Systems (1996)

  51. Tisi, M., Jouault, F., Fraternali, P., Ceri, S., Bézivin, J.: On the use of higher-order model transformations. In: ECMDA. LNCS, vol. 5562. Springer, Berlin (2009)

  52. Vojtisek, D.: Traceability MDK for KerMeta. http://www.kermeta.org/mdk/traceability/. Last accessed: June 2009

  53. Walderhaug, S., Johansen, U., Stav, E., Aagedal, J.: Towards a generic solution for traceability in MDD. In: Proceedings of the ECMDA Workshop on Traceability (2006)

  54. Yu, E.: Towards modeling and reasoning support for early-phase requirements engineering. In: RE. ACM, New York (1997)

  55. Zirn, C., Nastase, V., Strube, M.: Distinguishing between instances and classes in the wikipedia taxonomy. In: ESWC (2008)

  56. Zschaler, S., Kolovos, D.S., Drivalos, N., Paige, R.F., Rashid, A.: Domain-specific metamodelling languages for software language engineering. In: Software Language Engineering, LNCS. Springer, Berlin (2009)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of York, York, UK

    Richard F. Paige, Nikolaos Drivalos, Dimitrios S. Kolovos, Kiran J. Fernandes & Christopher Power

  2. SINTEF, Oslo, Norway

    Goran K. Olsen

  3. Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Steffen Zschaler

Authors
  1. Richard F. Paige
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Nikolaos Drivalos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Dimitrios S. Kolovos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Kiran J. Fernandes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Christopher Power
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Goran K. Olsen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Steffen Zschaler
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Richard F. Paige.

Additional information

Communicated by Dr. Perdita Stevens.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Paige, R.F., Drivalos, N., Kolovos, D.S. et al. Rigorous identification and encoding of trace-links in model-driven engineering. Softw Syst Model 10, 469–487 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-010-0158-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-010-0158-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation