tion for transparency modeling. The auto-generated
modeling editor is used to test both the language spec-
ification and the metamodel.
During the metamodeling process, we needed to
make some decisions. In many cases, the decision
making process was straightforward and supported
by literature. But, in a few occasions we needed to
try all alternatives and choose the best option. For
example, making all relation types as different con-
nection classes was initially seemed to be irrelevant.
However, after some tests and modeling exercises we
preferred this approach rather than defining a type at-
tribute for the base class. Because with specific con-
nections, the resulting modeling editor became more
usable and we could easily identify the type of the el-
ements. In this way, we could decorate different line
types associated with different relation types such as
dashed or solid, empty or arrow headed, etc.
Additionally, we would like to mention that we
highlighted the ambiguity problem about AND, OR,
and XOR relationships present in the language speci-
fication. Currently, this issue is explained in (Hosseini
et al., 2018) and it is assumed to use priority between
logical operators as 1)XOR 2)OR and 3)AND. Al-
though, this assumption solves the issue temporarily,
we need a better mechanism to represent the mathe-
matically equivalent relations. In TranspLanMeta, we
solve this ambiguity problem with grouping the rela-
tions with an attribute. This is equal to using paren-
theses and resulting mathematical equation can be au-
tomatically derived.
6 CONCLUSION
This paper presented a metamodel for transparency
modeling and a modeling tool with a formal ba-
sis. The metamodel is based on TranspLan language,
which is proposed for defining and analysing trans-
parency requirements in information systems (Hos-
seini et al., 2016). We applied a prototyping approach
where the deliverables were built up incrementally.
The modeling editor provides a diagram view as well
as an XML based representation. OCL based axiom
checking supports further model validation.
As a future work, we will develop a plug-in at-
tached to our metamodel to automatically generate
(fully or partially) Sitreq and Infolet information. In
addition, we would like to improve TranspLan lan-
guage specifications to resolve the ambiguity in log-
ical priorities by using the findings throughout the
metamodeling process.
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