Aggregating Expert-Driven Causal Maps for Web Effort Estimation

Reliable Web effort estimation is one of the cornerstones of good Web project management. Hence the need to fully understand which factors affect a project’s outcome and their causal relationships. The aim of this paper is to provide a wider understanding towards the fundamental factors affecting Web effort estimation and their causal relationships via combining six different Web effort estimation causal maps from six independent local Web companies, representing the knowledge elicited from several domain experts. The methodology used to combine these maps extended previous work by adding a mapping scheme to handle complex domains (e.g. effort estimation), and the use of an aggregation process that preserves all the causal relations in the original maps. The resultant map contains 67 factors, and also commonalities amongst Web companies relating to factors and causal relations, thus providing the means to better understand which factors have a causal effect upon Web effort estimation.

[1]  Pankaj Jalote,et al.  An Experimental Evaluation of the Effectiveness and Efficiency of the Test Driven Development , 2007, ESEM 2007.

[2]  Serafín Moral,et al.  Qualitative combination of Bayesian networks , 2003, Int. J. Intell. Syst..

[3]  Alain Abran,et al.  Software Process and Product Measurement, International Conference, IWSM-Mensura 2007, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, November 5-8, 2007. Revised Papers , 2008, IWSM/Mensura.

[4]  Peter J. F. Lucas,et al.  Markov Equivalence in Bayesian Networks , 2004 .

[5]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Further comparison of cross-company and within-company effort estimation models for Web applications , 2004 .

[6]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Comparison of Web size measures for predicting Web design and authoring effort , 2002, IEE Proc. Softw..

[7]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Measurement, prediction and risk analysis for Web applications , 2001, Proceedings Seventh International Software Metrics Symposium.

[8]  Emilia Mendes.  Predicting Web Development Effort Using a Bayesian Network , 2007, EASE.

[9]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Investigating Tabu Search for Web Effort Estimation , 2010, 2010 36th EUROMICRO Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications.

[10]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Investigating Web size metrics for early Web cost estimation , 2005, J. Syst. Softw..

[11]  Donald J. Reifer,et al.  Web Development: Estimating Quick-to-Market Software , 2000, IEEE Softw..

[12]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Web Cost Estimation: An Introduction , 2005 .

[13]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Towards the prediction of development effort for hypermedia applications , 2001, Hypertext.

[14]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Exploring case-based reasoning for web hypermedia project cost estimation , 2005, Int. J. Web Eng. Technol..

[15]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  A Comparative Study of Cost Estimation Models for Web Hypermedia Applications , 2003, Empirical Software Engineering.

[16]  Bernice B Brown,et al.  DELPHI PROCESS: A METHODOLOGY USED FOR THE ELICITATION OF OPINIONS OF EXPERTS , 1968 .

[17]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  The application of case-based reasoning to early Web project cost estimation , 2002, Proceedings 26th Annual International Computer Software and Applications.

[18]  Luciano Baresi,et al.  An empirical study on the design effort of Web applications , 2002, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Web Information Systems Engineering, 2002. WISE 2002..

[19]  R. Brook,et al.  Consensus methods: characteristics and guidelines for use. , 1984, American journal of public health.

[20]  Filomena Ferrucci,et al.  Applying support vector regression for web effort estimation using a cross-company dataset , 2009, ESEM 2009.

[21]  Woojong Suh.  Web Engineering: Principles And Techniques , 2005 .

[22]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  A replicated assessment of the use of adaptation rules to improve Web cost estimation , 2003, 2003 International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering, 2003. ISESE 2003. Proceedings..

[23]  Ali S. Hadi,et al.  Combining multiple directed graphical representations into a single probabilistic model , 1997 .

[24]  Emilia Mendes.  A Comparison of Techniques for Web Effort Estimation , 2007, ESEM 2007.

[25]  Gustavo Rossi,et al.  Web Engineering , 2001, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[26]  Finn V. Jensen,et al.  Bayesian Networks and Decision Graphs , 2001, Statistics for Engineering and Information Science.

[27]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Bayesian Network Models for Web Effort Prediction: A Comparative Study , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

[28]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Does the linear size adjustment to estimated effort improve web applications effort estimation accuracy? , 2005, J. Comput. Methods Sci. Eng..

[29]  Wang Shuo,et al.  Using Expert's Knowledge to Build Bayesian Networks , 2007, 2007 International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Security Workshops (CISW 2007).

[30]  Kevin B. Korb,et al.  Parameterising Bayesian Networks , 2004, Australian Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

[31]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Using an engineering approach to understanding and predicting Web authoring and design , 2001, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[32]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Building an Expert-based Web Effort Estimation Model using Bayesian Networks , 2009, EASE.

[33]  Roberto Paiano,et al.  MMWA: a software sizing model for Web applications , 2003, Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Web Information Systems Engineering, 2003. WISE 2003..

[34]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Web Metrics-Estimating Design and Authoring Effort , 2001, IEEE Multim..

[35]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Further investigation into the use of CBR and stepwise regression to predict development effort for Web hypermedia applications , 2002, Proceedings International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering.

[36]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Web hypermedia cost estimation: further assessment and comparison off cost estimation modelling techniques , 2002, New Rev. Hypermedia Multim..

[37]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Web development effort estimation using analogy , 2000, Proceedings 2000 Australian Software Engineering Conference.

[38]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Early Web size measures and effort prediction for Web costimation , 2003, Proceedings. 5th International Workshop on Enterprise Networking and Computing in Healthcare Industry (IEEE Cat. No.03EX717).

[39]  Emilia Mendes.  The Use of a Bayesian Network for Web Effort Estimation , 2007, ICWE.

[40]  E. Rajabally,et al.  Aids to Bayesian belief network construction , 2004, 2004 2nd International IEEE Conference on 'Intelligent Systems'. Proceedings (IEEE Cat. No.04EX791).

[41]  Simon Baker,et al.  Towards the construction of large Bayesian networks for web cost estimation , 2009 .

[42]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Using Support Vector Regression for Web Development Effort Estimation , 2009, IWSM/Mensura.

[43]  Emilia Mendes,et al.  Comparing Size Measures for Predicting Web Application Development Effort: A Case Study , 2007, ESEM 2007.

[44]  P. Bartels,et al.  How to develop and use a Bayesian Belief Network. , 1996, Journal of clinical pathology.

[45]  D. Ross Jeffery,et al.  Cost estimation for web applications , 2003, 25th International Conference on Software Engineering, 2003. Proceedings..

[46]  Luciano Baresi,et al.  Estimating the design effort of Web applications , 2003, Proceedings. 5th International Workshop on Enterprise Networking and Computing in Healthcare Industry (IEEE Cat. No.03EX717).