Short Seminars on MDE Technologies
International Experiences
Miłosz Marek and Plechawska-Wojcik Malgorzata
Institute of Computer Science, Lublin University of Technology, Nadbystrzycka 36B, Lublin, Poland
Keywords: MDE, Short Seminars, WebML.
Abstract: Model Driven Engineering (MDE) gives new insights into software engineering and software development.
This approach is quite new and it still is the subject of discussion concerning its efficiency and usefulness.
However, MDE approach becomes more and more popular among researchers and developers. That is why
it is being introduced into curricula by many universities. MDE proposes a new way of software modelling.
This causes a need for introduction of new ways of teaching and sharing knowledge. One of such method is
short seminars dedicated to MDE technologies. The paper discusses their idea, describes three seminars
conducted under three different frames and its usefulness. Some lessons learnt from this seminars are
highlighted.
1 INTRODUCTION
Software engineering is well developed area of
computer science which has stable position in the
university education programmes. However,
education in the software engineering area is focused
mainly on traditional way of projects development
based on UML diagrams and paper documentation.
Popular approach is also dedicated to agile
methodologies. Also additional online courses are
available for students in those two areas.
Education of Model Driven Engineering (MDE)
(Balasubramanian, 2009) is a challenge because
MDE is quite new area in the scope of software
engineering (Gómez-López, 2011). Software
engineering is seen as a well defined branch with
stable background. This opinion is supported also by
the industry. Model Driven Engineering, however,
gains more and more popularity among both
universities and enterprises. MDE gives new insights
into software engineering and defines new way of
software development (Kent, 2002; Żyła, 2011).
New notations and model definitions, however,
requires from academic teachers and students
understanding new approach of application
modelling (Almendros-Jimenez, 2009). Moreover,
there are some confusions among researchers and
developers concerning MDE efficiency and
usefulness in practise. On the other hand more and
more universities introduce to their curricula MDE
related courses. That is why new ways of teaching
and spreading knowledge about MDE is needed.
MDE is quite new approach. That is why it is
recommended to share knowledge in this scope in
international consortia and projects. It is important
to share knowledge about MDE in projects,
especially international because it gives opportunity
to gain new experiences in MDE education and
research.
International seminars are examples of such
activity. As a part of internalization process, they
play a significant role in the modern higher
education. What is more, they provide also the way
of complementing a study program.
Students and teachers participating in such
activities have opportunity to develop and spread
knowledge, discuss their ideas, start new projects,
taking part in different education and research
programs. Such meetings usually have light,
students friendly form of lecturers, laboratories and
discussion panels.
Participation in classes gives opportunity to
familiarize with new technologies, tools and
research. What is more, it enables to discuss ideas,
share observations and confront different kind of
approaches applied in foreign countries.
International seminars, as a part of
internalization programs, constitutes also an
occasion to improve soft skills. Participants check
their language skills, improve it and break cultural
132
Marek M. and Malgorzata P..
Short Seminars on MDE Technologies - International Experiences.
DOI: 10.5220/0004876101320137
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Model-Driven Engineering and Software Development (MODELSWARD-2014), pages 132-137
ISBN: 978-989-758-007-9
Copyright
c
 2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

barriers. They can also experience new ways of
teaching.
2 SEMINARS BACKGROUND
Short seminars on MDE technology was realized in
three different frames:
 ERAMIS EU Tempus project – ERAMIS project
means the European-Russian-Central Asian
Network of Master’s degrees “Informatics as a
Second Competence”. The project is aimed into
increasing cooperation between European and
Russian and Central Asian partners (Adam, 2012).
The project was realized between January 2010
and June 2013. The list of partners contains 18
institutions (mainly universities) from France,
Poland, Spain, Germany, Finland, Kyrgyzstan,
Kazakhstan and Russia (Miłosz, 2013). One of
them is the Lublin University of Technology
(LUT).
 Seminar SYRCoSE – the international seminar:
7th Spring/Summer Young Researchers’
Colloquium on Software Engineering held in
Kazan, Russia on May 30 and May 31, 2013
(SYRCoSE, 2013). The main goals of the
colloquium are to help young researches to meet
each other, to get more information on work of
their colleagues, to exchange experience and to
practice in presenting their results at international
forum. The topics of the colloquium include
modelling of computer systems, software
development, testing and verification, parallel and
distributed systems, information search and data
mining, image and speech processing, software
engineering education. The SYRCoSE 2013
colloquium is organized by Institute for System
Programming of Russian Academy of Science,
Saint-Petersburg State University and Kazan State
Technical University named after A.N. Tupolev.
 Bilateral cooperation between Lublin University of
Technology, Lublin, Poland and al-Farabi Kazakh
National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Realizing the agreement were organized scientific
internships for Master students from Kazakhstan in
LUT. More than 30 students had such internships.
One of tasks in ERAMIS project was training
sessions for academic teachers from Russia and
Central Asia universities. This training sessions were
organized by EU countries universities in Russia and
Central Asia. During this seminars different courses
were provided (Mercelon, 2013).
During the SYRCoSE the invited lecture on the
MDE subject has been presented by Dr. Marek
Miłosz (SYRCoSE, 2013).
Seminars are the one of very important activities
performed during the two weeks long scientific
internship for Master students from al-Farabi
Kazakh National University in LUT. Other activities
of internships are: working with scientific databases
for preparing state of the art in Master thesis subject,
preparation papers for publication, taking part (with
presentation) in seminars of Computer Science
Institute of LUT, and consultations with LUT
professors.
The same seminars on MDE technology were
provided in different conditions, projects and for
different receivers. This allowed accumulated the
rich international experience of the seminars
providing.
3 PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH
During seminars two complementary courses on
MDE approach were conducted. They were titled:
“Model Driven Engineering and WebML” and
“WebML in practice. Using the WebRatio”.
Both courses were conducted in English with
translation to Russian if needed. They were
dedicated to university students and academics
teachers. Students were able to gain new knowledge
in the area of software engineering and MDE. For
academic teachers courses were occasion to share
and discuss new subject and teaching techniques
including courses structure, content as well as tools
and software.
3.1 Courses Structure
The goal of the course “Model Driven Engineering
and WebML” is to provide knowledge about MDE
as a way to develop software by creating and
transformation models on different level of
abstractions and areas. The last transformation is
a code generation. General idea of MDE and domain
specific language – Web Modelling Language
(WebML) – to it implementation in practice are
introduced.
Main objectives of the MDE course are:
 to show students the fundamentals of MDE and
WebML.
 to show students the layer of web application
modelling and developing.
 to show students the methodology of web
applications developing using the WebML.
Students’ background needed contains requirements
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regarding:
 basic knowledge about web application and its
developing,
 knowledge about relational databases and Entity
Relationship Diagrams.
The goal of the course “WebML in practice.
Using the WebRatio” is to provide students
theoretical and practical skills in WebRatio
modelling. It was designed to present students the
main components which may be used to create a
project and the use of best practices for the
implementation of application features. The course
describes the WebML which is graphical notation
useful in designing Web application. It provides a
way of expressing the complete structure of the
application including content, navigation and
presentation. The developing environment WebRatio
is also presented and trained. The complete web
application is also developed by students during the
course.
Main objectives of the course are:
 to show students the fundamentals of web
applications development based on WebML using
WebRatio,
 to present students models used in WebRatio,
 to show students how to use WebML units in
practice,
 to present students how to develop complete web
application and integrate it with database.
Students’ background needed contains requirements
regarding:
 programming in general.
 object oriented programming;
 web applications modelling;
 relational databases designing and using, entity
relationship diagrams;
 some knowledge about HTML and CSS.
The course is composed of two parts: theoretical
lecture and practical lessons.
3.2 Courses Content
The content of the course “Model Driven
Engineering and WebML” has provided as lessons,
in the following areas:
 MDE as a general idea, models and
transformations, standards.
 WebML as a language of MDE of web
applications.
 Structure of web application.
 Web Data Modelling - data patterns, derivation,
WebML Object Query Language (OQL).
 Web application development model.
The Model Driven Architecture (MDA, 2013) is
the standard presented by the Object Management
Group. It has been presented in details as a initial
idea of MDE. Three different models: Computation
Independent Model (CIM), Platform Independent
Model (PIN) and Platform Specific Model (PSM), as
well as transformations between modes discusses in
the course. Some needs, specifics features and
advantages of the web applications development are
discussed. The solution is appointed: the WebML –
a language for high-level design and develop of web
application intensive using of data (WebML, 2013).
WebML and WebRatio tool are a very good
example of the practical application of the MDE
idea.
The five models used by WebML (ie.: structure,
derivation, composition, navigation, presentation
and personalisation) and its transformation are
explained in details. The data model, its structure
design and development, as well as data structure
patterns and Object Query Language are presented
during the lessons.
The “WebML in practice. Using the WebRatio”
course is divided into two sections. The first one
contains theoretical lecture introducing basics of
web applications development with WebRatio, using
of WebRatio including data model and application
model and features of web application developed
with WebML and BPMN (White, 2009). The course
discusses also using of WebML operation units and
links as well as managing data with content units
(webml.org, webratio.com).
WebML models and units are also explained,
presenting usage of particular unit sets
(page/alternative, links, content units, operation
units, session units, service units, control flow units,
utility units, BPMN units). The lecture gives
students also orientation in data managing rules
including database connection and data model
construction. What is more, the lecture introduces
students into usage and features of WebRatio –
a modelling and software developing tool.
The second part of the course is dedicated to
practical activities using WebRatio (Brambilla,
2010; Kęsik, 2011). Students run example
applications and develop their own. They learn to
use WebML operation units and links in practice as
well as managing data with content units. Students
also design and create a database and fill it with
data. Database connection is also established using
WebRatio. Managing application users and their
views is also performed.
The example application students develop is
small CRM - Customer Relationship Management
system. It is an application dedicated to the
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registration and control of the company's customers,
especially dealing with:
 a registry of client companies,
 the contacts within the company,
 the responsible commercial sales manager
operators,
 history of the purchases made by customers,
 the events organized by sales managers.
A database is designed for the application (fig. 1).
The application contains data of all client companies
and their known staff employees (contact
information). Single company can have may
contacts registered as well as it has its products and
purchase details stored. What is more, events
including description, date and contact details is
managed.
The application regards two types of users, with
the following features:
 Commercial officer. He manages companies
details and its contacts, defines relationships
between them, organize purchases as well as
views, creates and edits events.
 Administrator. He can search, view, insert, edit,
delete companies, contacts and events. He also
manages products and the product list.
Main functionalities of the application regards:
 Company Search - user can search for one or
several companies using one or more attributes
(such as name, nationality, address, sales manager
reference).
 Create new or modify existing company - user can
select particular company from a list and modify
its data or he can insert and save all data related to
the new company.
 Contact search - user can search multiple contacts
with defined attributes (name, phone, role in
company).
 Create new or modify existing contact – user can
modify one or more contact after selecting them
from a list and changing data. He can also insert
data of new contact and save it in the application.
 Login - this functionality is required for each user,
they are identified by username and password and
they will have access to features related to their
category
Examples models of the application is presented at
the fig. 2.
3.3 Software Used
Software used during the course “WebML in
practice. Using the WebRatio” includes:
 WebRatio Enterprise or Personal - a WebML
CASE tool supporting Agile development and
design of data-intensive Web applications.
WebRatio supports the automatic generation of
code and it bases on Entity Relationship and
WebML specifications. It is integrated in the
Eclipse IDE and it is complementary with the
Java/JSP 2.0.
 PostgreSQL database – a package and GUI tools
dedicated to relational database PostgreSQL.
 Database connection drivers – needed to establish
connection between the WebRatio environment
and PostgreSQL database.
Figure 1: The database model of the application.
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Figure 2: The fragment of the hypertext model of the application.
4 LESSONS LEARNED
FROM MDE SEMINARS
Experiences from MDE contain a set of observations
and conclusions.
One of the most important aspects is background
of participates. Seminars are non-regular lessons and
often knowledge and skills of participants are
diversified. This causes necessity of maintaining an
appropriate balance and adjusting the level of
difficulty. Despite the previously defined minimal
requirements students had different levels of
knowledge.
Non-adjusted knowledge level and different area
of interests in computer science were often directly
connected with low motivation problems.
Language problem is another important factor
which needs to be regarded during preparing and
conducting international seminars. Different,
diversified level of language skills makes seminars
much more difficult to conduct. Language
difficulties can also be connected with insufficient
knowledge background. What is more, students who
know every-day English can face a language
problems if they do not know technical expressions.
If translation is needed, the time consumed during
a seminar is nearly doubled. This problem was
addressed previously (Miłosz, 2012; Merceron,
2013).
Cultural problems also need to be faced. It is
easier to force cultural barriers if seminar
participants are similar aged students. It is much
harder to break such problems if in a seminar
participate both, students and teachers. In such case
formal academic relations are clearly visible. They
make participants to feel less comfortable and
casually.
Seminars conducted abroad, in Russia and
Central Asia, faced also software configuration
problem. General software requirements are
demanding, it needs WebRatio environment
working, web server and database needs o be
configuring and working. Administration
requirements are usually needed to run all tools –
this also might be a problem.
5 CONCLUSIONS
Short seminars on MDE technology is a promising
way of sharing knowledge about MDE among
students and academic teachers. This approach
shows the ability of rapid web application
development based on WebML and BPMN.
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Although traditional programming methods of
software development gives more freedom to
develop and manage the content, WebRatio gives
great alternative to develop database application.
However, short seminars on MDE are useful and
fulfill its role well only if some basic requirements
are met. First of all proper preparation is needed,
including software, teaching materials and exercises.
What is more, students selection should be
performed to standardize the level of students skills
and knowledge.
Our experiences show that short seminars
constitutes a great opportunity do start education on
MDE scope.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work is supported with the scholarship under
the project "Qualifications for the labour market -
employer friendly university", cofinanced by
European Union from European Social Fund.
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