research-article

Metrics for measuring complexity and completeness for social goal models

Authors:

Catarina Gralha,

Miguel GoulãoAuthors Info & Claims

Information Systems, Volume 53, Issue C

Pages 346 - 362

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2015.03.006

Published: 01 October 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Goal-oriented Requirements Engineering approaches have become popular in the Requirements Engineering community as they provide expressive modelling languages for requirements elicitation and analysis. However, as a common challenge, such approaches are still struggling when it comes to managing the accidental complexity of their models. Furthermore, those models might be incomplete, resulting in insufficient information for proper understanding and implementation. In this paper, we provide a set of metrics, which are formally specified and have tool support, to measure and analyse complexity and completeness of goal models, in particular social goal models (e.g. i*). Concerning complexity, the aim is to identify refactoring opportunities to improve the modularity of those models, and consequently reduce their accidental complexity. With respect to completeness, the goal is to automatically detect model incompleteness. We evaluate these metrics by applying them to a set of well-known system models from industry and academia. Our results suggest refactoring opportunities in the evaluated models, and provide a timely feedback mechanism for requirements engineers on how close they are to completing their models.

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Cited By

Moreira AMussbacher GAraújo JSánchez P(2022)Theme section on model-driven requirements engineeringSoftware and Systems Modeling (SoSyM)10.1007/s10270-022-01055-421:6(2109-2112)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10270-022-01055-4
Barišić ABlouin DAmaral VGoulão MCombemale BMernik MRumpe B(2017)A requirements engineering approach for usability-driven DSL developmentProceedings of the 10th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering10.1145/3136014.3136027(115-128)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3136014.3136027

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cover image Information Systems

Information Systems Volume 53, Issue C

October 2015

385 pages

ISSN:0306-4379

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © Elsevier Ltd.

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Elsevier Science Ltd.

United Kingdom

Publication History

Published: 01 October 2015

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Cited By

Moreira AMussbacher GAraújo JSánchez P(2022)Theme section on model-driven requirements engineeringSoftware and Systems Modeling (SoSyM)10.1007/s10270-022-01055-421:6(2109-2112)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10270-022-01055-4
Barišić ABlouin DAmaral VGoulão MCombemale BMernik MRumpe B(2017)A requirements engineering approach for usability-driven DSL developmentProceedings of the 10th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering10.1145/3136014.3136027(115-128)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3136014.3136027

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