article

Replicating the CREWS Use Case Authoring Guidelines Experiment

Authors:

Keith PhalpAuthors Info & Claims

Empirical Software Engineering, Volume 5, Issue 3

Pages 245 - 267

https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026542700033

Published: 01 November 2000 Publication History

Abstract

Use cases have become an important tool in software engineering. There has been much focus on the diagram notation but relatively little on use-case descriptions. As part of a welcome and important research project into the use of scenarios in requirements engineering, the CREWS (Co-operative Requirements Engineering With Scenarios, an EU funded ESPRIT project 21903) team has proposed a set of guidelines for writing use-case descriptions. This paper describes the replication of a CREWS project experiment that suggests CREWS use-case authoring guidelines improve the completeness of use-case descriptions. Our results show that the CREWS guidelines do not necessarily improve the use-case descriptions, only that the subjects implemented varying numbers of guidelines in their use-case descriptions. Subjects in the control group implemented a significant percentage of the guidelines by `chance.' To further justify our results, we also apply a different marking scheme to compare with the CREWS approach. The results from the alternative marking approach show that there was no significant difference between the qualities of the use-case descriptions across the various groups.

References

[1]

Ben Achour, C. 1998. Guiding scenario authoring. Proc. 8th European-Japanese Conference on Information Modeling and Knowledge Bases. Finland, 181-200.

[2]

Ben Achour, C., Rolland, C., Maiden, N., and Souveyet, C. 1998. Guiding use case authoring: Results of an empirical study. Proc. Fourth IEEE Int. Symposium on Requirements Engineering University of Limerick, Ireland. Version taken from the CREWS web site: http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/CREWS/reports.htm. Report Number: 93-31.

[3]

Ben Achour, C., and Maiden, N. 1999. Empirical study of use case authoring: Experimental material. Internal Report. Centre de Recherche en Informatique, Universite de Paris 1-Sorbonne. http://panoramix.univ- paris1.fr/CRINFO/users/benachour/ESEM/.

[4]

Booch, G., Rumbaugh, J., and Jacobson, I. 1999. The Unified Modelling Language User Guide. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Digital Library

[5]

Cockburn, A. 1997. Using goal-based use cases. Journal of Object-Oriented Programming Nov-Dec.

[6]

Cockburn, A. 2000. Writing Effective Use Cases: Part One. In Print. Addison-Wesley.

[7]

Cox, K., and Phalp, K.T. 2000. Acase study implementing the unified modeling language use-case notation version 1.3. Proc. Sixth Int. Workshop on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality. Stockholm, Sweden.

[8]

Ericksson, H., and Penker, M. 1993. UML Toolkit. Wiley.

[9]

Fowler, M., and Scott, K. 2000. UML Distilled Second Edition: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modelling Language. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

[10]

Greene, J., and D'Oliveira, M. 1982. Learning to Use Statistical Tests in Psychology: A Student's Guide. Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk: Open University Press.

[11]

Harwood, R. 1997. Use case formats: Requirements, analysis and design. Journal of Object-Oriented Programming January: 54-66.

[12]

Jacobson, I. 1987. Object-oriented development in an industrial environment. Proc. OOPSLA'87. Special Issue of SIGPPLAN NOTICES 22(12): 183-197.

Digital Library

[13]

Jacobson, I., Christerson, M., Jonsson, P., and Oevergaard, G. 1992. Object-Oriented Software Engineering: A Use Case Driven Approach. Addison Wesley.

[14]

Jarke, M., Pohl, K., Haumer, P., Weidenhaupt, K., Dubois, E., Heymans, P., Rolland, C., Ben Achour, C., Cauvet, C., Ralyte, J., Sutcliffe, A., Maiden, N., and Minocha, S. 1997. Scenario use in European software organisations--Results from the site visits and questionnaires. Taken from the CREWS web site: http://sunsite. informatik.rwth-aachen.de/CREWS/reports.htm. Report Number: 97-10.

[15]

Nardi, B. 1992. The use of scenarios in design. SIGCHI Bulletin 24(4): 13-14.

Digital Library

[16]

Pooley, R., and Stevens, P. 1999. Using UML: Software Engineering with Objects and Components. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

[17]

Rational Software Corporation. 1997. UML notation version 1.1. http://www.rational.com/uml

[18]

Robson, C. 1993. Real World Research. Blackwell.

[19]

Rosenberg, G., with Scott, K. 1999 Use Case Driven Object Modeling with UML: A Practical Approach. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.

[20]

Swan, M. 1980. Practical English Usage. Oxford University Press.

[21]

Weidenhaupt, K., Pohl, K., Jarke, M., and Haumer, P. 1998. Scenarios in System Development: Current practice. IEEE Software March/April: 34-45.

Digital Library

Cited By

Sarmiento-Calisaya Edo Prado Leite J(2024)Early analysis of requirements using NLP and Petri-netsJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2023.111901208:COnline publication date: 1-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jss.2023.111901
Sarmiento-Calisaya ECárdenas ECornejo-Aparicio VAlzamora GHung CCerny TShin DBechini A(2020)Towards the improvement of natural language requirements descriptionsProceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing10.1145/3341105.3374028(1405-1413)Online publication date: 30-Mar-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3341105.3374028
Khan YEl-Attar M(2016)Using model transformation to refactor use case models based on antipatternsInformation Systems Frontiers10.1007/s10796-014-9528-z18:1(171-204)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10796-014-9528-z
Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Why use case driven approach?
ICCOMP'07: Proceedings of the 11th WSEAS International Conference on Computers

Inadequate requirements specifications not understandable to users are one of the predominant causes of failure in the development of software systems today. The aim is to find a technique understandable to users in order for them to be able to validate ...
Supporting use case based requirements engineering

Use cases that describe possible interactions involving a system and its environment are increasingly being accepted as effective means for functional requirements elicitation and analysis. In the current practice, informal definitions of use cases are ...
Conceptualizing Requirements Using User Stories and Use Cases: A Controlled Experiment
Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality
Abstract
[Context and motivation] Notations for expressing requirements are often proposed without explicit consideration of their suitability for specific tasks. Consequently, practitioners may choose a sub-optimal notation, thereby affecting task ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Empirical Software Engineering

Empirical Software Engineering Volume 5, Issue 3

November 2000

126 pages

ISSN:1382-3256

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © Copyright © 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Publisher

Kluwer Academic Publishers

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 November 2000

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Article

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

16
Total Citations
View Citations
0
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)0
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 13 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Sarmiento-Calisaya Edo Prado Leite J(2024)Early analysis of requirements using NLP and Petri-netsJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2023.111901208:COnline publication date: 1-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jss.2023.111901
Sarmiento-Calisaya ECárdenas ECornejo-Aparicio VAlzamora GHung CCerny TShin DBechini A(2020)Towards the improvement of natural language requirements descriptionsProceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing10.1145/3341105.3374028(1405-1413)Online publication date: 30-Mar-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3341105.3374028
Khan YEl-Attar M(2016)Using model transformation to refactor use case models based on antipatternsInformation Systems Frontiers10.1007/s10796-014-9528-z18:1(171-204)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10796-014-9528-z
Pittke FLeopold HMendling J(2015)Automatic Detection and Resolution of Lexical Ambiguity in Process ModelsIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2015.239689541:6(526-544)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TSE.2015.2396895
Tiwari SGupta A(2015)A systematic literature review of use case specifications researchInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2015.06.00467:C(128-158)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.infsof.2015.06.004
Parachuri DSajeev AShukla RJalote PBriand LHoek A(2014)An empirical study of structural defects in industrial use-casesCompanion Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/2591062.2591174(14-23)Online publication date: 31-May-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2591062.2591174
Tiwari SGupta AJanakiram DSen KKulkarni V(2014)Does increasing formalism in the use case template help?Proceedings of the 7th India Software Engineering Conference10.1145/2590748.2590754(1-10)Online publication date: 19-Feb-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2590748.2590754
Lauesen SKuhail M(2011)Use cases versus task descriptionsProceedings of the 17th international working conference on Requirements engineering: foundation for software quality10.5555/1987360.1987378(106-120)Online publication date: 28-Mar-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1987360.1987378
Stålhane TSindre GDu Bousquet L(2010)Comparing safety analysis based on sequence diagrams and textual use casesProceedings of the 22nd international conference on Advanced information systems engineering10.5555/1883784.1883803(165-179)Online publication date: 7-Jun-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1883784.1883803
Mendling JReijers HRecker J(2010)Activity labeling in process modelingInformation Systems10.1016/j.is.2009.03.00935:4(467-482)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.is.2009.03.009
Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents