Improving Access to Software Architecture Knowledge An Ontology-based Search Approach

Every software has an architecture, but in most cases it is poorly documented. That’s especially true in virtual community for software development, where creating and updating documents is not a high priority activity and architectural knowledge remain hidden in informal and semi-structured artifacts, such as e-mails, meeting notes and Wikis. We propose a framework that enables the search for software architecture information in the artifacts generated in virtual communities environments. An ontology-based semantic search mechanism is used in the framework to retrieve not only architecture properties, but also the rationale behind decisions taken during the construction of the software. The ontologies defined are also used in the visualization of the search results, providing an interactive environment for users to explore, discover, and analyze the information. The framework is preliminary validated in the Brazilian Public Software Community context.

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