1.2.3 Towards a semantic‐based representation and computation of quantitative indexes for quality management of requirements

Abstract

Quality management of requirements has seen a dramatic increase of the amount of applications, management platforms, data, etc. gaining momentum in the Systems Engineering area and more specifically in the deployment of the next wave of critical system. In this context, one of the next big things lies in the creation of quality functions that can automatically detect and make decisions according to natural‐language based requirements specifications and models. In this sense quality indicator of requirements seeks for providing an intelligent environment for detecting values of such as correctness, consistency and completeness based on domain knowledge in which both functional and nonfunctional properties of system components can be validated and verified easing the transition to a smart system environment. Thus the testing of critical systems based on requirements quality can be seen as a special kind of policy‐making strategy that must compile several key indicators to summarize data and information and obtain an objective quantitative measure. Nevertheless the quantitative analysis of several quality indicators is becoming a challenging task due to natural language ambiguities and a tangled/heterogeneous environment of data, providers, etc. Existing tools and techniques based on traditional processes of quality assessment are preventing a proper use of the new dynamic and data environment avoiding more timely, adaptable and flexible (on‐demand) quantitative index creation and, as a consequence, more accurate decisions. On the other hand, semantic‐based technologies emerge to provide the adequate building blocks to represent domain‐knowledge and process data in a flexible fashion using a common and shared data model. That is why the present paper introduces a Resource Description Framework (RDF) vocabulary to semantically represent and compute quantitative indexes as part of the implementation of the Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration initiative (OSLC) Quality Management specification. Finally some discussion, conclusions and future work are also outlined.

OSLC‐KM: A knowledge management specification for OSLC‐based resources

“…25 th Annual INCOSE International Symposium (IS2015) Seattle, July 13-16, 2015 As an example of use, let's suppose that a vocabulary has been created to compile all terms used in the development of a product (a "car"), see Listing 1. Although some initial attempts can be found (Alvarez-Rodríguez, Fuentes, et al 2014) to represent such knowledge, OSLC does not define yet any particular vocabulary. That is why the RHSP model is used to represent these concepts and their relationships.…”

“…Let's also suppose that a requirements management tool is used to create requirements generating an OSLC-based requirement, see Listing 2. Since some tools (Génova et al 2011) can be found to check the quality of requirements and export them as OSLC (Alvarez-Rodríguez, Fuentes, et al 2014), these metrics can be used to enrich the description of the requirements, see Listing 3. Finally, the under development "car" must be depicted as a Product Breakdown Structure (PBS), see Figure 5.…”

“…Although some initial attempts can be found (Alvarez-Rodríguez, Fuentes, et al 2014) to represent such knowledge, OSLC does not define yet any particular vocabulary. That is why the RHSP model is used to represent these concepts and their relationships.…”

Semantic‐based representation, enrichment and computation of product breakdown structures

“…The OSLC, as an integration bus, is expected to be the next big thing in systems development elevating the meaning of information resources through semantic-based technologies. That is why, authors present a model to represent, validate and compute a product breakdown structure using RDF-based vocabularies, see Figure 1 and Figure 2, extending the previous work in (J. M. Alvarez-Rodríguez, Fuentes, et al 2014). …”

“…Classes and properties to model the elements in the PBS as an OSLC Resource. Since the structure and the computation processes can be built on the top of an existing RDF vocabulary it is then possible to make a translation to a generic SPARQL query (includes the basic OWA operator), see Listing 1 and the extended explanation of the computation in (J. M. Alvarez-Rodríguez, Fuentes, et al 2014 This definition of a PBS contains two major implications:…”