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Representing Software Process in Description Logics: An Ontology Approach for Software Process Reasoning and Verification

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Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination (SPICE 2016)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 609))

Abstract

Software process is critical for producing high quality software. However, software processes are usually described in natural language which makes it difficult to verify if they have been fully or how well implemented in complex software projects. It’s also hard for practitioners to implement processes from different standards and make sure they work harmonically, consistently and completely. Composition Tree (CT) notation, a Behavior Engineering approach has been successfully used to formalize software process in previous work. However, there are no reasoning tools for CT to automatically check and verify the modeled software processes. In this study we explore the synergy of software process modeling and Description Logics (DLs). Given the rich expressiveness of DLs and their efficient and automated reasoning support, DLs can be used to reason and verify software processes more effectively. We propose an algorithm for transforming CT software process model into a DL so that DL reasoning engines can be used to perform automated software process analysis. Case studies and simple examples are also given to justify the feasibility of this proposed approach.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Integrated and Intelligent Systems, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Rd, Nathan, QLD, 4111, Australia

    Lian Wen, Zhe Wang & Terry Rout

  2. School of Information and Communication Technology, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Rd, Nathan, QLD, 4111, Australia

    Edward Kabaale, Lian Wen & Zhe Wang

Authors
  1. Edward Kabaale
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  2. Lian Wen
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  3. Zhe Wang
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  4. Terry Rout
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Edward Kabaale .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lero Irish Software Research Centre, Dublin City University Lero Irish Software Research Centre, Dublin, Ireland

    Paul M. Clarke

  2. Dublin City University , Dublin 9, Ireland

    Rory V. O'Connor

  3. Software Quality Institue, Griffith University Software Quality Institue, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Terry Rout

  4. Impronova AB , Drabergsvagen, Lindome, Sweden

    Alec Dorling

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Kabaale, E., Wen, L., Wang, Z., Rout, T. (2016). Representing Software Process in Description Logics: An Ontology Approach for Software Process Reasoning and Verification. In: Clarke, P., O'Connor, R., Rout, T., Dorling, A. (eds) Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination. SPICE 2016. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 609. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38980-6_26

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38980-6_26

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-38979-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-38980-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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