Research on NLP for RE at Utrecht University: A Report

[Team Overview] The Requirements Engineering Lab at Utrecht University conducts research on techniques and software tools that help people express better requirements in order to ultimately deliver better software products. [Past Research] We have focused on natural language processing-powered tools that analyze user stories to identify defects, to extract conceptual models that deliver an overview of the used concepts, and to pinpoint terminological ambiguity. Also, we studied how reviews for competing products can be analyzed via natural language processing (NLP) to identify new requirements. [Research Plan] The gained knowledge from our experience with NLP in requirements engineering (RE) triggers new research lines concerning the synergy between humans and NLP, including the use of intelligent chatbots to elicit requirements, the automated synthesis of creative requirements, and the maintenance of traceability via linguistic tooling.

[1]  John Mylopoulos,et al.  The Next Release Problem Revisited: A New Avenue for Goal Models , 2018, 2018 IEEE 26th International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE).

[2]  Sjaak Brinkkemper,et al.  Improving User Story Practice with the Grimm Method: A Multiple Case Study in the Software Industry , 2017, REFSQ.

[3]  Sjaak Brinkkemper,et al.  Detecting terminological ambiguity in user stories: Tool and experimentation , 2019, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[4]  Sjaak Brinkkemper,et al.  Visualizing User Story Requirements at Multiple Granularity Levels via Semantic Relatedness , 2016, ER.

[5]  Fabiano Dalpiaz,et al.  RE-SWOT: From User Feedback to Requirements via Competitor Analysis , 2019, REFSQ.

[6]  Sjaak Brinkkemper,et al.  The Use and Effectiveness of User Stories in Practice , 2016, REFSQ.

[7]  Björn Regnell,et al.  Market-Driven Requirements Engineering for Software Products , 2005 .

[8]  Sjaak Brinkkemper,et al.  Refinement of User Stories into Backlog Items: Linguistic Structure and Action Verbs - Research Preview , 2019, REFSQ.

[9]  Fabiano Dalpiaz,et al.  Pinpointing Ambiguity and Incompleteness in Requirements Engineering via Information Visualization and NLP , 2018, REFSQ.

[10]  Björn Regnell,et al.  A linguistic-engineering approach to large-scale requirements management , 2005, IEEE Software.

[11]  Sjaak Brinkkemper,et al.  Extracting conceptual models from user stories with Visual Narrator , 2017, Requirements Engineering.

[12]  Sjaak Brinkkemper,et al.  Intranet Facilitated Knowledge Management: A Theory and Tool for Defining Situational Methods , 1997, CAiSE.

[13]  Yuanyuan Zhang,et al.  An Empirical Study of Meta- and Hyper-Heuristic Search for Multi-Objective Release Planning , 2018, ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol..

[14]  Sjaak Brinkkemper,et al.  Gamified Requirements Engineering: Model and Experimentation , 2016, REFSQ.

[15]  Sjaak Brinkkemper,et al.  Improving agile requirements: the Quality User Story framework and tool , 2016, Requirements Engineering.

[16]  Sjaak Brinkkemper,et al.  Deterministic Modelling Procedures for Automatic Analysis and Design Tools , 1988, Computerized Assistance During the Information Systems Life Cycle.

[17]  Anna Perini,et al.  Crowdsourcing for Software Engineering The Crowd in Requirements Engineering The Landscape and Challenges , 2017 .

[18]  Francisco De Sousa Webber,et al.  Semantic Folding Theory-White Paper , 2015 .

[19]  Frederik Simon Bäumer,et al.  CORDULA: Software Requirements Extraction Utilizing Chatbot as Communication Interface , 2018, REFSQ Workshops.

[20]  Sjaak Brinkkemper,et al.  The Interactive Narrator Tool: Effective Requirements Exploration and Discussion through Visualization , 2018, REFSQ Workshops.