Executable Specifications for Agent Oriented Conceptual Modelling

Agent-oriented conceptual modelling (AoCM) notations such as i* have received considerable recent attention as a useful approach to early-phase requirements engineering. AoCM notations are useful in modeling organizational context and in offering high-level anthropomorphic abstractions as modeling constructs. AoCM notations such as i* help answer questions such as what goals exist, how key actors depend on each other and what alternatives must be considered. In this paper, we suggest an approach to executing i* models by translating these into set of interacting agents implemented in the 3APL language. In addition, we suggest a hybrid modeling, or co-evolution, approach in which i* models and 3APL agent programs are concurrently maintained and updated, while retaining some modicum of loose consistency between the two. This allows us to benefit from the complementary representational capabilities of the two frameworks.