Relationship analysis in requirements engineering

This research addresses a major shortcoming in today’s requirements analysis techniques—the lack of a rigorous and comprehensive process to explicitly capture the relationship structure of the problem domain. Whereas other analysis techniques lightly address the relationship discovery process, relationship analysis (RA) is a systematic, domain-independent analysis technique focusing exclusively on a domain’s relationship structure. This paper describes RA’s taxonomy of relationship types and corresponding brainstorming questions for eliciting the relationship structure from a domain expert. A preliminary case study analysis of online bookstores using RA as well as a formal experiment have both confirmed RA’s effectiveness in helping the analyst produce significantly higher quality requirements. RA should become an invaluable tool for analysts, irrespective of the software engineering approach taken during systems analysis.

[1]  Michael L. Brodie.  Association: A Database Abstraction for Semantic Modelling , 1981, ER.

[2]  Nicholas J. Belkin,et al.  Retrieval techniques , 1987 .

[3]  Emmon W. Bach,et al.  Universals in Linguistic Theory , 1970 .

[4]  Edward Yourdon,et al.  Object-oriented analysis (2nd ed.) , 1991 .

[5]  James Martin,et al.  Object-oriented methods : a foundation , 1995 .

[6]  Grady Booch,et al.  Object-oriented development , 1986, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

[7]  Ronald J. Brachman,et al.  What IS-A Is and Isn't: An Analysis of Taxonomic Links in Semantic Networks , 1983, Computer.

[8]  Frederick E. Petry,et al.  Modeling Spatial Relationships within a Fuzzy Framework , 1998, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[9]  Joseph Catanio,et al.  Ubiquitous Metainformation and the WYWWYWI Principle , 2006, J. Digit. Inf..

[10]  Sergio Bandinelli,et al.  Modeling and Improving an Industrial Software Process , 1995, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[11]  Stephen J. Mellor,et al.  Object lifecycles: modeling the world in states , 1992 .

[12]  Max J. Egenhofer,et al.  Asessing Semnatic Similarities among Geospatial Feature Class Definitions , 1999, INTEROP.

[13]  Keng Siau,et al.  Theoretical Foundation for Relationship Construct in Information Modeling --Relation Element Theory , 1997 .

[14]  William E. Lorensen,et al.  Object-Oriented Modeling and Design , 1991, TOOLS.

[15]  DianeC . P. Smith,et al.  Database Abstractions: Aggregation and Generalization , 1989 .

[16]  Grady Booch.  UML in action , 1999, CACM.

[17]  Brian Henderson-Sellers,et al.  OPEN Relationships - Associations, Mappings, Dependencies, and Uses , 1998, J. Object Oriented Program..

[18]  Keng Leng Siau,et al.  Empirical studies in information modeling : interpretation of the object relationship , 1996 .

[19]  Veda C. Storey,et al.  Modelling of set Membership: The Notion and the Issues , 1995, Data Knowl. Eng..

[20]  Brian Henderson-Sellers.  OPEN Relationships - Compositions and Containments , 1997, J. Object Oriented Program..

[21]  J. Rogers.  Chaos , 1876 .

[22]  Dennis de Champeaux,et al.  A comparative study of object-oriented analysis methods , 1992 .

[23]  Ivar Jacobson,et al.  Object-Oriented Software Engineering , 1991, TOOLS.

[24]  Joonhee Yoo,et al.  Finding linking opportunities through relationship-based analysis , 2000, HYPERTEXT '00.

[25]  Peter P. Chen.  Entity-Relationship Approach to Information Modeling and Analysis, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Entity-Relationship Approach (ER'81), Washington, DC, USA, October 12-14, 1981 , 1981 .

[26]  Cris Kobryn,et al.  Modeling components and frameworks with UML , 2000, CACM.

[27]  Gill Smith,et al.  Object-oriented analysis , 1988, WADAS '88.

[28]  W. R. Powell.  The Case for Cases , 1978 .

[29]  Yair Wand,et al.  Theoretical foundations for conceptual modelling in information systems development , 1995, Decis. Support Syst..

[30]  Donald Firesmith.  Object-oriented requirements analysis and logical design - a software engineering approach , 1993, Wiley professional computing.

[31]  James F. Allen.  Maintaining knowledge about temporal intervals , 1983, CACM.

[32]  Ivar Jacobson,et al.  Object-oriented software engineering - a use case driven approach , 1993, TOOLS.

[33]  John Mylopoulos,et al.  Information Modeling in the Time of the Revolution , 1998, Inf. Syst..

[34]  A. Neelameghan,et al.  Non-hierarchical associative relationships among concepts : identification and typology . Semi-automatic method of preparing thesaurus for a specific subject-field , 1978 .

[35]  M. Egenhofer.  Categorizing Binary Topological Relations Between Regions, Lines, and Points in Geographic Databases , 1998 .

[36]  Caryl P. Freeman,et al.  The Case for Cases. , 1965, Canadian Medical Association journal.

[37]  David W. Embley,et al.  Object-oriented systems analysis - a model-driven approach , 1991, Yourdon Press Computing series.

[38]  Joonhee Yoo,et al.  Relationship analysis , 2000 .

[39]  강문설.  [서평]「The Unified Modeling Language User Guide」 , 1999 .

[40]  Max J. Egenhofer,et al.  Reasoning about Binary Topological Relations , 1991, SSD.

[41]  John Mylopoulos,et al.  Generalization/Specialization as a Basis for Software Specification , 1982, On Conceptual Modelling.

[42]  Joonhee Yoo,et al.  Towards a relationship navigation analysis , 2000, Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[43]  Douglas T. Ross,et al.  Structured Analysis (SA): A Language for Communicating Ideas , 1977, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

[44]  Ulrike Becker-Kornstaedt.  Towards Systematic Knowledge Elicitation for Descriptive Software Process Modeling , 2001, PROFES.