Interoperability experiences related to requirements
management
Dr. Jose María Alvarez-Rodríguez
Carlos III University of Madrid
josemaria.alvarez@uc3m.es
Table of contents
- Interoperability
- Semantic Web & Linked Data
- Requirements Management (RM)
- Crystal Project
- OSLC
- Example
- Conclusions and Future Work
INTEROPERABILITY
British to Australian problem...
https://www.mita.gov.mt/
Semantic web in a nutshell
- Common and shared data model
- Graph (subject, object, predicate)
- RDF with different serialization formats
- Implicit Multilinguism suport
- Knowledge Representation
- Ontologies
- OWL (Ontology Web Language)
- Logic formalism: DL, F-Logic, etc.
- Reasoning
SEMANTIC WEB IN A NUTSHELL (II)
- Knowledge management
- Expert systems
- Standards
- Query Languages
- Vocabularies
- Datasets
- ...
An example...
...and the RDF Triples
jose-foaf: http://www.josemalvarez.es/foaf.rdf#.
diego:foaf: http://berrueta.net/foaf.rdf#.
jose-foaf:me foaf:name “Jose”.
jose-foaf:me foaf:family_name “Alvarez”.
jose-foaf:me foaf:knows diego-foaf:me.
diego-foaf:me foaf:name “Diego”.
An introductory example...
Let's suppose (public procurement):
-
We are a public body
-
We want to buy "beds" for a new hospital
- The call is open to any European entity
- Data
- Type of object (Common Procurement Vocabulary)
- Location (Greece)
- Multilingual environment
- Value / Quantity / currency
- ....
EUROPEAN E-PROCUREMENT CONTEXT...
- Data sources
- Official bulletins, web pages, newspaper, etc.
- Formats
- HTML, PDF, XML, PNG, etc.
- Languages
- 23 official languages in Europe
- Models, services and APIs
- XML-Schema, SQL, REST, WSDL/SOAP, etc.
AN INTEROPERABILITY PROBLEM!
...as RDF triples...
Is this example
linked data?
LINKED DATA PRINCIPLES
- Use URIs to name things
- When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using the standards (RDF*, SPARQL).
- Use HTTP URIs.
- Include links to other URIs.
applying the linked data principles...
extending linked data...
ADVANTAGES
- Web-based standards
- HTTP URIs
- Common and shared data model RDF graph
- Syntaxis: RDF/XML, JSON, Turtle, etc.
- SPARQL as query language
- Implicit multilingualism support
- Reasoning enabled
- Meta-described properties
- E.g. value and currency
LINKED OPEN DATA CLOUD
WEB OF DATA
&
databases similarities
REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING
- Activities
- Elicitation
- Analysis and negotiation
- Documentation
- Quality assessment
- ...
- A key-process in critical systems
- Validation
- Verification
SAFETY!
existing methodologies
-
Requirements-driven engineering (
What?
)
- Focus on requirements
- E.g. RDE
- Model-based systems engineering ( How? )
- Focus on models
- E.g. MDA, MDE, MDD, etc.
- Model-driven requirements engineering ( What + How? )
- Conjunction of models and requirements
- E.g. MDRE
...but...
EVOLUTIONARY requirements
INCOSE
Use of requirements as a basic unit of specification!
SOME OPEN ISSUES...
- Tangled environment of tools/techniques/methods
- Data sources
- IBM Doors, Reqtify, Rational Rose, RAT, KM etc.
- Formats
- XMI, ReqIF, etc.
- Languages
- ...
- Models, services and APIs
- XML-Schema, SQL, REST, WSDL/SOAP, etc.
- Link of requirements to models to...
- share a common vocabulary
- model the Product Breakdown Structure (PBS)
- ensure quality: understandability, traceability, etc.
IS
LINKED DATA
A POTENTIAL SOLUTION?
interoperability
British to Australian solved!
https://www.mita.gov.mt/
open services for lifecycle collaboration (oslc)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/OSLC_diagram.png
SPECIFICATIONS
OSLC PRINCIPLES
- Build on the WWW
- HTTP REST
- CRUD operations
- Auth methods
- Keep things simple
- Consensus
- Accommodate different schemas
- Accommodate different representations
- RDF/XML, JSON, ATOM, etc.
- Align with the W3C Linked Data initiative
- Follow the Linked Data principles
OSLC-CORE
SERVICE PROVIDER
OSLC concepts
- Domain
- Service
- Service Provider
- Resource
- Resource Shape
- Creation Factory
- Query Capability
- Response Info Resource
- ...
EACH SPECIFICATION...
- Defined Resources
- Defined Properties
OSLC REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT
- Management of requirements through OSLC
- Defined resources
- Requirements Resource
- Requirement Collection Resource
- Service Provider
- Service Consumer
oslc REquirements management
Contd.
oscl preliminary evaluation
-
A Linked Data approach for a specific domain
- OSLC Resource shape similar to describe a dataset
- How RDF is generated?
- On-the-fly
- Wrapper on existing database
- Two synchronized databases (e.g. Virtuoso and SQL)
- See: http://linkeddatabook.com/editions/1.0/#htoc65
- SPARQL is missing...
- New syntax for same functionality
- Specifications under development
- Authentication
- HTTPAuth is recommend
- OAuth was not created for these purposes (http://insanecoding.blogspot.com.es/2013/03/oauth-great-way-to-cripple-your-api.html)
OSCL PRELIMINARY EVALUATION
- Good approach but...
- It requires more information on how to...
Publish and Consume
Linked data
THE CRYSTAL PROJECT
IOS (OSLC) IN CRYSTAL
3 main challenges
On-going work
- Controlled vocabulary and ontology
- Product Breakdown Structure
-
Services to manage domain knowledge
skos IN A NUTSHELL
- SIMPLE
- KNOWLEDGE
- ORGANIZATION
- SYSTEM
USE OF SKOS
- Controlled vocabulary
- Taxonomies
- Thesauri
- Folksonomies, etc.
objectives
- Define concepts and concept schemes
operations
Store
Retrieve
Annotate
Link and merge
Concepts
skos definitions
-
Classes and categories
- skos:Concept and skos:ConceptScheme
- Properties
- Lexical labels
- Notation
- Documentation
- Mapping
- Semantic
example
1-Vocabulary
“Whenever the pedal of the brake is pressed, the car will decelerate immediately”
A "car" as a system...
taxonomy
Steps
(simplified version of a lifecycle for linked data)
- Model Concepts in SKOS
- URI Design
- Create concepts
- Add authoring properties
- Add labeling properties
- Add notation properties
- Add documentation properties
- Add semantic properties
- Add mapping properties
- Add concepts to a scheme
- Describe the concept scheme
See Linked Data Lifecyles http://www.w3.org/2011/gld/wiki/GLD_Life_cycle
Model concepts & select URIs
Create concepts
Labeling properties
Documentation properties
semantic properties
Hierarchy
Semantic properties (contd.)
DEFINING MY OWN SEMANTIC PROPERTIES
- Select type of property
- Transitive
- Symmetric
- ...
Extending broader/narrower properties
using part-of
Mapping properties
add concepts to a concept scheme
A skos-based 'car'...
a skos-based braking system...
a skos concept scheme...
SKOS BENEFITS
-
A
concept-oriented model
-
RDF-based
- a common and shared data model
-
Crucial contribution to
interoperability
-
A way of porting KOS to RDF
- Align to existing standards (ISO 25964)
-
Lightweight
reasoning
-
Simple
but
powerful
-
Extensible
-
Widely-used in existing semantic web vocabularies
- Boosting the Linked Data initiative
on-going work
- OSLC Requirements Management
- A first prototype to tackle the aforementioned challenges
- A SKOS-based approach
- Use of the Eclipse Lyo OSLC API
- OSLC Quality Management
- First approach on top of the RDF-Data Cube vocabulary
- To model (reuse existing quality metrics) and
- ... compute
- ... quantitative indexes
- Services for knowledge management
- Inspired by the JENA OntModel interface
OSLC-RM by UC3M
CONCLUSIONS
- Requirements Management is a key-process for the development of critical systems
- Requirement as a basic unit of specification
- Link requirements to models
- Verification and Validation
- Model-driven Requirements Engineering (MDRE)
- Quality Management
- Support ISO standards (250XX)
- OSLC to ensure compatibility among tools
- Linked Data in a controlled environment...
OSLC-based MDRE
WHAT'S NEXT...
- Research
- Identify more services to be offered via OSLC
- Apply the Linked Data principles to Requirements and Quality Management specs.
- Development
- Full prototype
- Innovation
- Support to The Reuse Company Inc. to offer through OSLC
- RAT (Requirements Authoring Tool)
- KM (Knowledge Manager)
- RQA (Requirements Quality Analyzer)
- http://www.reusecompany.com/
...for your attention!
Q & A
CREDITS
- Speaker: Dr. Jose María Alvarez-Rodríguez
- Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain
- Member of the OSLC RM working group
- E-mail: josemaria.alvarez@uc3m.es
- WWW:
- Team:
- KR group
- Prof. Dr. Juan Llorens
- Prof. Dr. Juan Miguel Gómez,
- Dr. Anabel Fraga
- Dr. Valentín Moreno
- Ms. Manuela Alejandres
- Mr. Jose Fuentes (The ReuseCompany Inc.)
RESOURCES
- Diagrams from OSLC specs. http://open-services.net/
-
http://www.slideshare.net/josem.alvarez/skos-intro
Towards a semantic-based and interoperable OSLC environment for cross-sharing and quality assessment of system requirements.
By Jose María Alvarez
Towards a semantic-based and interoperable OSLC environment for cross-sharing and quality assessment of system requirements.
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