NDT-GLOSSARY

A MDE Approach for Glossary Generation

J. A. García-García, M. J. Escalona, C. R. Cutilla and M. Alba

Department of Computer Languages and Systems, University of Seville, Spain

Keywords: Model-Driven Engineering, Glossary Generation, NDT, Technical Validation of Requirements.

Abstract: This research paper is contextualized within the paradigm of Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) and it is

specifically related to NDT. NDT is a methodology included within the MDE paradigm. The aim of this

paper is to present a software tool to facilitate the work of requirements engineers during the requirements

validation in a software project. The requirements validation activity takes place within the requirements

phase of the life cycle in a software project. The developed tool is called NDT-Glossary and it implements

an automatic procedure to generate, from the requirements defined in a project developed with the NDT

methodology, the first example of the glossary of terms for this project.

1 MDE INTRODUCTION

The Model Driven Engineering paradigm (MDE)

came up in order to tackle the complexity of

platforms and the inability of third generation

languages to relief this complexity and effectively

express the domain concepts of the problem. This

new paradigm, apart from raising the level of

abstraction, intends to increase automation during

the life cycle of software development.

Web Engineering works in a field which allows

the successful implementation of this paradigm. The

application of MDE in this domain is called Model-

Driven Web Engineering, MDWE. In fact, the

Model-Driven Engineering paradigm is being

assumed by several research groups to improve the

methodological proposals oriented to the Web. UWE

(UML Web Engineering) (Koch, 2001), WebML

(Web Modelling Languages) (Ceri, 2000) and OOH

(Chubb, 2003) are some of the examples.

Model-Driven Engineering works, as the primary

form of expression, with definitions of models and

transformation rules among these models which

entail the production of other models. Every model

corresponds to a phase of the life cycle and is

generally specified by means of UML modelling

language.

Standardization was necessary in order to

implement this new paradigm in real projects. OMG

presented MDA, which stands for Model-Driven

Architecture (MDA, 2003), as a platform to support

the paradigm of Model-Driven Engineering.

MDA proposes to base the software development

on models which make transformations be

performed to generate code or another model with

characteristics of a particular technology (or lowest

level of abstraction). As transformations go on, it

may be noticed that the models become more

concrete and the abstract model changes into another

one compatible with a particular technology or

platform. MDA is based on four types of levels or

models:

The CIM level (Computation-Independent

Model) is considered the highest level of

business model and the most abstract level. It

focuses on requirements specification and

intends that anyone who knows the business and

its processes can understand a CIM model, as

this avoids any contact with the specific system.

The PIM level (Platform-Independent Model)

represents the business process model and

system structure, without any reference to the

platform on which the application will be

implemented. It is usually the entry point for all

the support tools for MDA.

The PSM level (Platform-Specific Model)

specifically relates to the platform where the

system will be implemented, for example, with

170

A. García-García J., J. Escalona M., R. Cutilla C. and Alba M..

NDT-GLOSSARY - A MDE Approach for Glossary Generation.

DOI: 10.5220/0003462401700175

In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS-2011), pages 170-175

ISBN: 978-989-8425-55-3

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

operating systems, programming languages or

middleware platforms, among others.

Finally, the Code level refers to the codification

and suitable implementation of the system.

MDWE offers important advantages in software

development. It specifically provides relevant results

in Web-oriented projects.

The systematic generation of models based on

previous models assures traceability of levels and

can potentially reduce development time. In

addition, if suitable tools were defined, this process

could even be automatic.

However, for a full development of MDWE in

real projects, it requires software tools that may

ensure the quality of the results when using this

paradigm.

2 NDT – NAVIGATIONAL

DEVELOMENT TECNIQUES

The proposed methodology NDT (Escalona &

Aragon, 2008), acronym for Navigational

Development Techniques, belongs to the paradigm

of Model-Driven Engineering, MDE.

Initially, NDT dealt with the definition of a set

of formal metamodels for the requirements and

analysis phases. In addition, NDT defined a set of

derivation rules, stated with the standard QVT

(Query-View-Transformation) (OMG, 2008), which

generates the analysis models from requirements

model. QVT standard defines a declarative and

imperative language proposed by the OMG for

model transformation in the context of Model-

Driven Engineering.

Nowadays, NDT defines a set of metamodels for

every phase of the life cycle of software

development: the feasibility study phase, the

requirements phase, the analysis phase, the design

phase, the implementation phase, the testing phase,

and finally, the maintenance phase. Besides, it states

new transformation rules to systematically generate

models.

Although the life cycle is represented

sequentially, the NDT process is not sequential, as

many of its parts can be reviewed to correct errors

previously detected.

The first phases are briefly described below.

The first main phase is the Requirements phase.

Its main goal deals with defining the requirements

phase in order to list the catalogue of requirements

which contains the needs of the system to be

developed. It is divided into a series of activities:

capture, definition and validation of requirements.

See Figure 1.

NDT classifies project requirements according to

their nature: information storage requirements

(storage requirements and new natures), functional

requirements, actor requirements, interaction

requirements, and non-functional requirements.

In order to define them, NDT provides special

patterns and UML techniques (UML, 2005), such as

the use cases technique for functional requirements

specification. The use of patterns or templates to

define every condition offers a structured and in-

depth description. Moreover, the fact that some

fields of such patterns only admit particular values

makes results be obtained systematically in the

remaining life cycle process of NDT.

Once the requirements specification phase has

been completed and the catalogue of system

requirements has been drafted and validated, NDT

defines derivation rules to generate the system test

model and the analysis phase models. Figure 1

shows all these transformations through the

stereotype «QVTTransformation».

NDT conceives the next phase, the Testing

phase, as an early phase of software life cycle and

proposes to carry it out together with the remaining

phases.

The testing phase is divided into the following

activities: drawing up the test plan, a parallel activity

to the analysis phase; environment specification and

test plan design a parallel activity to the design

phase; and implementation of test plan, a parallel

activity to the system construction and

implementation phase.

NDT proposes three models in this phase (see

Figure 1): implementation tests model, system tests

model and acceptance tests model. Every model is

described by means of the use case diagrams of UML.

The system tests model is the only one that can

be generated systematically.

NDT proposes derivation rules to generate the

basic model of system tests from the functional

requirements defined in the requirements phase. The

team of analysts can perform transformations in

order to enrich and complete this basic model.

The following phase, the Analysis phase, will

include the resulting products from the analysis,

definition and organization of requirements in the

previous phase.

At Analysis phase, NDT proposes four models

(see Figure 1): the conceptual model, which

represents the static structure of the system; the

NDT-GLOSSARY - A MDE Approach for Glossary Generation

171

Figure 1: NDT Transformations from Requirements to Analysis and from Requirements to Testing model.

process model, which represents the functional

structure of the system; the navigation model, which

shows how users can navigate through the system

and the abstract interface model, a set of prototypes

of the system interface.

The transition between the requirements model

and the analysis model is standardized and

automated and it is based on QVT transformations,

which change the concepts of requirements

metamodels to design the first versions of the

analysis models. These models are known in NDT as

basic models of analysis. For example, the basic

conceptual model of analysis is obtained from the

storage requirements defined during the

requirements phase.

Thereafter, the team of analysts can transform

these basic models to enrich and complete the final

model of analysis. As this process is not automatic,

the expertise of an analyst is required.

Transformations are represented in Figure 1 through

the stereotype «NDTSupport». To ensure

consistency between requirements and analysis

models, NDT controls these transformations by

means of a set of defined rules and heuristics.

To sum up, NDT offers an environment

conducive to the development of Web systems,

completely covering life cycle of software

development. In fact, NDT has been applied in many

practical environments and has succeeded due to the

application of transformations among models, which

has reduced development time (Escalona, 2007).

3 NDT-GLOSSARY

The application of MDWE and, particularly, the

application of transformations among models may

become monotonous and very expensive if there are

no software tools that automate the process.

To meet this need, NDT has defined a set of

supporting tools called NDT-Suite.

In this suite is

included NDT-Glossary. Currently, the suite of NDT

comprises the following free Java tools:

NDT-Profile is a specific profile for NDT,

developed using Enterprise Architect

(Enterprise Architect, 2010). This tool offers

the chance of having all the artifacts that define

NDT easily and quickly as they are integrated

within the tool Enterprise Architect.

NDT-Quality is a tool that automates most of

the methodological review of a project

developed with NDT-Profile. It checks both,

the quality of using NDT methodology in each

phase of software life cycle and the quality of

traceability of MDE rules of NDT.

NDT-Driver implements a set of automated

procedures that enables to perform all

transformations MDE among the different

models of NDT that were described in the

previous section.

NDT-Prototype generates a set of XHTML

prototypes from the navigation models,

described in the analysis phase, of a project

developed with NDT-Profile.

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NDT-Glossary implements an automated

procedure that generates the first instance of the

glossary of terms of a project developed by means of

NDT-Profile tool. The glossary of terms is generated

from the requirements defined in the project.

Among the different types of requirements that

define NDT, the only ones that are necessary to

include in the glossary are both, the storage and

actor requirements:

a. Storage requirements should be registered in

the glossary because they set the relevant and

inherent concepts for the domain of the system

being modelled.

b. Actor requirements must be registered in the

glossary because they indicate the roles that

each user can play within the business being

modelled. Thus, the project team would have a

clear definition of each of the possible roles

that a user can play.

3.1 The Necessity of NDT-Glossary

In Software Engineering and in Web Engineering

specifically, it is very important to carry out an

exhaustive work of elicitation of requirements that

meets the needs of end users and customers and

ensures the quality of the developed system.

In the information system development process,

led or not to the Web, the development team faces

up the arduous task of defining the system

requirements. It is a complex process since it must

identify the requirements the system must meet in

order to guarantee the fulfilment of the end users and

customers’ requests.

The requirements specification process is divided

into three main activities: requirements elicitation,

requirements definition and requirements validation.

The process begins with the completion of the

activity of capturing or elicitation of requirements.



In this activity, the analyst team extracts the needs,

both explicit and implicit, of customers and users

and their expectations for the system which will be

developed.



System requirements are taken out from the

information provided by users and customers. From

this information, the analyst team elaborate the

preliminary requirements catalogue. Subsequently,

the process enters an iterative validation sub-process

of the requirements catalogue. The validation

process ends with the final version of the

requirements catalogue.

During the project development, some

terminology problems may take place mainly due to

the different people participating in it: customers,

end users, project managers, designers or engineers,

among others. This problem is highlighted in Web

information systems projects since their

development teams are usually more

multidisciplinary.

This problem is becoming more present during

the validation of the requirements catalogue. One of

the most common techniques for this activity, and

also one of the easiest to apply, is the glossaries

technique, which allows registering the knowledge

acquired on the problem domain or universe of

discourse. In addition, glossaries allow this

knowledge is shared by all participants in the

project. Basically, the glossary is a dictionary which

defines and collects the most important and critical

concepts to be used during the software project

development. The objective pursued is to avoid

ambiguities when using concepts of problem domain

during the different phases of life cycle in the

software project.

Each term is represented in the glossary with a

couple of values: Name and Description. To

preserve the integrity, the glossary cannot contain

two terms with the same Name.

The technical glossary is not a full technical

validation of requirements in itself, but it is useful

for finding inconsistencies in vocabulary during the

requirements phase.

All glossaries of terms must verify

simultaneously two rules (Leite, 1993): the Principle

of Circularity and the Principle of Minimum

Vocabulary. The former establishes that a glossary

should be as AutoContent as possible. Therefore, it

ensures that all terms are related and does not

exclude knowledge of the universe problem from the

glossary.

Nevertheless, the latter points out those

requirements should mainly be expressed by means

of concepts included in the proper glossary. Thus,

the glossary will be as understandable as possible.

In conclusion, it is necessary for engineers to

gather and define the more relevant and critical

concepts in the system. Furthermore, the use of a

common language reduces the risk of ambiguities

and facilitates communication between users and

analysts.

3.2 The Interface of NDT-Glossary

The interface of NDT-Glossary is quite simple and

intuitive. Figure 2 shows the main interface of the

tool. In the «EAP Project» Section, you must

indicate the path to a project developed using NDT-

Profile tool. Once the project is selected, the tool

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173

automatically suggested both the name of the project

(Section «Name Project») and the path where the

reports generated later are saved by the tool (Section

«Report Output Directory»). If appropriate, the user

may change the data manually before carrying out

the expected operation.

Then, after entering the above data, the user can

generate both, the glossary of terms and a report

with the terms already stored in an NDT-Profile

project, by only clicking either on «Build Glossary»

or «Build Report».

Figure 2: NDT-Glossary main interface.

3.3 The Architecture of NDT-Glossary

Enterprise Architect is based on the database model

entity relationship. This model is implemented on

different management systems databases: Microsoft

Access, Oracle or MySQL. Thus, every element

defined in a project developed with the NDT-Profile

tool is stored in the database project.

NDT-Glossary tool was designed according to

the MVC design pattern. MVC is an acronym for

Model-View-Controller. This design pattern

suggests that development should be divided into

three layers: the presentation layer, corresponding to

the graphical user interface; the business layer,

which implements all the business logic of the tool,

for instance, all transformations between NDT

models, and data access layer. Additionally, some

other patterns are used; the strategy pattern, the

Template Method Pattern, and the combination of

Data Access Object Pattern (DAO) with the

Singleton Pattern.

Finally, the data access layer was implemented

by means of the API provided by the company that

developed Enterprise Architect, SparxSystems.

3.4 Enterprise Experiences

In the last ten years, NDT and NDT-Suite acted in a

high number of real projects. In fact, they are

currently used in several projects carried out by

different companies either public or private and big

or small.

Particularly,

NDT was also widely applied in the

e-health environment. In 2006, Alcer Foundation

(Alcer) used it within the system to manage the

degree of handicap. In this project, NDT-Suite was

not fully developed and we used a previous tool,

named NDT-Tool (Escalona, 2007).

However, this project is mentioned because it

was the seed for detecting the necessity of NDT-

Glossary. The medical systems environment works

with a very specific terminology and the project

caused a high number of inconsistence that could

only be solved by elaborating a glossary manually.

Some years later, NDT-Suite was used in other

e-health system, named Diraya (Escalona, 2008)

which is a very complex system. The requirements

phase was developed by a group of six companies

with a high number of analysts. Each company was

expert in a concrete aspect of Diraya.

The use of NDT-Profile and NDT-Glossary was

essential to guarantee the unification of criteria in

this multidisciplinary development team.

4 RELATED WORK

There are many papers related to technical validation

of requirement on the Web or in the Literature.

However, the validation techniques presented in

these publications are applied manually. In fact,

although MDWE is being assumed by several

methodologies focused on Web Engineering, the use

of tools to facilitate validation of requirements

captured during the different interviews with clients

and users in the first phase of a software life cycle is

very low.

From a practical standpoint, the glossary of

terms technique is an effective and efficient

technique to complete the vocabulary of a project,

although sometimes it requires a more complex

glossary and even ontologies or thesaurus must be

defined. Both, the glossaries technique and the

ontologies or thesaurus technique not only allow

defining concepts of the problem domain, but also

relationships among concepts.

In the research (Escalona, 2005) technique called

fuzzy thesaurus (Mirbel, 1995) (Mirbel, 1997) has

been adapted to get the benefits of the definition of a

thesaurus in NDT.

The use of this technique offers the possibility of

finding similarities and semantic conflicts in

different class diagrams with the aim to integrate

them into a unique class diagram.

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5 CONCLUSIONS

In Web Engineering in particular, it is very

important to carry out an exhaustive work of

elicitation of requirements that meet the needs of

end users and customers in order to ensure the

quality of the developed system.

With this aim, the technical team should be able

to identify the customers and clients’ needs, both

explicit and implicit, and their expectations about

the system under development. System requirements

are taken out from the information provided by users

and customers.

The nature of the problems associated with this

activity is primarily social and psychological rather

than technological. For example, among others,

there are communicative problems caused by using

different vocabularies, or even motivated by a

different culture, or problems due to cognitive

limitations for not knowing the problem domain.

There are several specific techniques to mitigate

these problems substantially during the different

activities related to the specification of the project

requirements. For the activity of requirements

capture, there are techniques such as interviews. For

example, Joint Application Development is a

popular exploratory technique that includes users as

active participants in the development process. Some

others are brainstorming or questionnaires.

The most common techniques for requirements

validation activity in Web Engineering are

interviews or walk-through, audits and glossaries.

The research work presented in this document is

framed in this context. Particularly, this paper

focuses on the glossary of terms technique as a

suitable technique to carry out the validation

requirements of a project developed by means of

NDT methodology.

This paper presents NDT-Glossary: A tool that

implements a set of QVT transformations to

systematically generate the glossary of terms of a

project which deals with Web information system

developed using the NDT methodology. All of it is

focused on the perspective of the paradigm of

Model- Driven Engineering.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research has been supported by the project

QSimTest (TIN2007-67843-C06_03) and by the

Tempros project (TIN2010-20057-C03-02) of the

Ministry of Education and Science, Spain.

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