Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

European Knowledge Acquisition Workshop

EKAW 2016: Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management pp 527–542Cite as

SEON: A Software Engineering Ontology Network

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 10024))

Abstract

Software Engineering (SE) is a wide domain, where ontologies are useful instruments for dealing with Knowledge Management (KM) related problems. When SE ontologies are built and used in isolation, some problems remain, in particular those related to knowledge integration. The goal of this paper is to provide an integrated solution for better dealing with KM-related problems in SE by means of a Software Engineering Ontology Network (SEON). SEON is designed with mechanisms for easing the development and integration of SE domain ontologies. The current version of SEON includes core ontologies for software and software processes, as well as domain ontologies for the main technical software engineering subdomains, namely requirements, design, coding and testing. We discuss the development of SEON and some of its envisioned applications related to KM.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Foundational ontologies span across many fields and model the very basic and general concepts and relations that make up the world, such as object, event, parthood relation etc. [14].

  2. 2.

    Core ontologies provide a precise definition of structural knowledge in a specific field that spans across different application domains in this field. These ontologies are built based on foundational ontologies and provide a refinement to them by adding detailed concepts and relations in their specific field [15].

  3. 3.

    A reference ontology is constructed with the goal of making the best possible description of the domain in reality, representing a model of consensus within a community, regardless of its computational properties [18].

  4. 4.

    An OPL is a network of interconnected Domain-Related Ontology Patterns (DROPs) that provides holistic support for solving ontology development problems for a specific domain. Besides the DROPs, it contains a process guiding how to use and combine them in a specific order, and suggesting patterns for solving the modeling problems in that domain [14].

References

  1. Rus, I., Lindvall, M.: Knowledge management in software engineering, pp. 26–38. IEEE Software, May/June (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  2. O’Leary, D.: Using AI in knowledge management: knowledge bases and ontologies. IEEE Intell. Syst. 13, 34–39 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Suárez-Figueroa, M.C., Gómez-Pérez, A., Motta, E., Gangemi, A.: Ontology Engineering in a Networked World. Springer Science & Business Media, Heidelberg (2012)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  4. Mendes, O., Abran, A.: Issues in the development of an ontology for an emerging engineering discipline. In: First Workshop on Ontology, Conceptualizations and Epistemology for Software and Systems Engineering (ONTOSE). Alcalá Henares, Spain (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Sicilia, M.A., Cuadrado, J.J., García, E., Rodríguez, D., Hilera, J.R.: The evaluation of ontological representation of the SWEBOK as a revision tool. In: 29th International Computer Software and Application Conference (COMPSAC), pp. 26–28. Edinburgh, UK (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Wongthongtham, P., Chang, E., Dillon, T., Sommerville, I.: Development of a software engineering ontology for multisite software development. IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng. 21(8), 1205–1217 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Calero, C., Ruiz, F., Piattini, M.: Ontologies for Software Engineering and Software Technology. Springer Science & Business Media, Heidelberg (2006)

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Souza, E.F., Falbo, R.A., Vijaykumar, N.L.: Using ontology patterns for building a reference software testing ontology. In: 17th IEEE International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference Workshops (EDOCW), pp. 21–30. Vancouver (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  9. González-Pérez, C., Henderson-Sellers, B.: An ontology for software development methodologies and endeavours. In: [7] (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Bringuente, A.C., Falbo, R.A., Guizzardi, G.: Using a foundational ontology for reengineering a software process ontology. J. Inf. Data Manag. 2(3), 511 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Calhau, R.F., Falbo, R.A.: An Ontology-based Approach for Semantic Integration. In: 14th IEEE International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference, Vitória, Brazil. Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society, pp. 111–120 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  12. d’Aquin, M., Gangemi, A.: Is there beauty in ontologies? Appl. Ontol. 6(3), 165–175 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Falbo, R.A., Barcellos, M.P., Nardi, J.C., Guizzardi, G.: Organizing ontology design patterns as ontology pattern languages. In: Cimiano, P., Corcho, O., Presutti, V., Hollink, L., Rudolph, S. (eds.) ESWC 2013. LNCS, vol. 7882, pp. 61–75. Springer, Heidelberg (2013). doi:10.1007/978-3-642-38288-8_5

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Guarino, N.: Formal Ontology and Information Systems. In: Guarino, N. (ed.) Formal Ontology and Information Systems, pp. 3–15. IOS Press, Amsterdam (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Scherp, A., Saathoff, C., Franz, T., Staab, S.: Designing core ontologies. Appl. Ontol. 6(3), 177–221 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Bourque, P., Fairley, R.E.: Guide to the software engineering body of knowledge (SWEBOK (R)): Version 3.0. IEEE Computer Society Press (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Sommerville, I.: Software engineering. Addison Wesley, Boston (2004)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  18. Oberle, D., Grimm, S., Staab, S.: An ontology for software. In: Staab, S., Studer, R. (eds.) Handbook on Ontologies. International Handbooks on Information Systems, pp. 383–402. Springer, Heidelberg (2009). doi:10.1007/978-3-540-92673-3_17

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Malone, J., Brown, A., Lister, A.L., Ison, J., Hull, D., Parkinson, H., Stevens, R.: The Software Ontology (SWO): a resource for reproducibility in biomedical data analysis, curation and digital preservation. J. Biomed. Semant. 5, 25 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Wang, X., Guarino, N., Guizzardi, G., Mylopoulos, J.: Towards an ontology of software: a requirements engineering perspective. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, vol. 267, pp. 317–329 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Guizzardi, G.: Ontological Foundations for Structural Conceptual Models: Fundamental research series. Centre for Telematics and Information Technology, Enschede (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Guizzardi, G., Wagner, G., Almeida Falbo, R., Guizzardi, R.S.S., Almeida, J.P.A.: Towards ontological foundations for the conceptual modeling of events. In: Ng, W., Storey, V.C., Trujillo, J.C. (eds.) ER 2013. LNCS, vol. 8217, pp. 327–341. Springer, Heidelberg (2013). doi:10.1007/978-3-642-41924-9_27

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  23. Guizzardi, G., Falbo, R.A., Guizzardi, R.S.S.: Grounding software domain ontologies in the unified foundational ontology (UFO): the case of the ode software process ontology. In: Proceedings of the XI Ibero-American Workshop on Requirements Engineering and Software Environments, pp. 244–251. Recife, Brazil (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Falbo, R.A., Ruy, F.B., Guizzardi, G., Barcellos, M.P., Almeida, J.P.A.: Towards an enterprise ontology pattern language. In: Proceedings of the 29th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing - SAC 2014, pp. 323–330 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Barcellos, M.P., Falbo, R.A., Moro, R.D.: A well-founded software measurement ontology. In: 6th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems 2010, vol. 209, pp. 213–226. IOS Press, Amsterdam (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Duarte, B.B., Souza, V.E.S., Leal, A.L.C., Falbo, R.A., Guizzardi, G., Guizzardi, R.S.S.: Towards an ontology of requirements at runtime. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems, Annecy, France (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Ruy, F.B., Reginato, C.C., Santos, V.A., Falbo, R.A., Guizzardi, G.: Ontology engineering by combining ontology patterns. In: Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER 2015), Stockholm, Sweden, pp. 173–186 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Natali, A.C.C., Falbo, R.A.: Knowledge management in software engineering environments. In Proceedings of XVI Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering, pp. 238–253 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Maalej, W., Panagiotou, D., Happel, H.-J.: Towards effective management of software knowledge exploiting the semantic Wiki paradigm. In: Herrmann, K. Brugge, B. (eds), Software Engineering, GI, LNI, vol. 121, pp. 183–197 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Souza, E.F., Falbo, R.A., Vijaykumar, N.L.: Using lessons learned from mapping study to conduct a research project on knowledge management in software testing. In: 41st Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Falbo, R.A., Braga, C.E.C., Machado, B.N.: Semantic documentation in requirements engineering. In: 17th Workshop on Requirements Engineering (WER), Pucón, Chile (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Eriksson, H.: The semantic-document approach to combining documents and ontologies. Int. J. Hum.-Comput. Stud. 65(7), 624–639 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Ruy, F.B., Falbo, R.A., Barcellos, M.P., Guizzardi, G.: An ontological analysis of the ISO/IEC 24744 metamodel. In: Proceedings of 8th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS 2o14), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Gangemi, A., Pisanelli, D.M., Steve, G.: An overview of the ONIONS project: applying ontologies to the integration of medical terminologies. Data Knowl. Eng. 31(2), 183–220 (1999)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  35. Obrst, L.: Ontological architectures. In: Poli, R., Healy, M., Kameas, A. (eds.) Theory and Applications of Ontology: Computer Applications, pp. 27–66. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This research is funded by the Brazilian Research Funding Agency CNPq (Processes 485368/2013-7 and 461777/2014-2) and FAPES (Process 69382549/14).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ontology and Conceptual Modeling Research Group (NEMO), Computer Science Department, Federal University of Espírito Santo, Vitória, Brazil

    Fabiano Borges Ruy, Ricardo de Almeida Falbo, Monalessa Perini Barcellos, Simone Dornelas Costa & Giancarlo Guizzardi

  2. Computer Department, Federal University of Espírito Santo, Campus Alegre, Alegre, Brazil

    Simone Dornelas Costa

  3. Informatics Department, Federal Institute of Espírito Santo, Campus Serra, Serra, Brazil

    Fabiano Borges Ruy

Authors
  1. Fabiano Borges Ruy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ricardo de Almeida Falbo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Monalessa Perini Barcellos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Simone Dornelas Costa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Giancarlo Guizzardi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fabiano Borges Ruy .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Eva Blomqvist

  2. University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Paolo Ciancarini

  3. University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Francesco Poggi

  4. University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Fabio Vitali

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG

About this paper

Cite this paper

Borges Ruy, F., de Almeida Falbo, R., Perini Barcellos, M., Dornelas Costa, S., Guizzardi, G. (2016). SEON: A Software Engineering Ontology Network. In: Blomqvist, E., Ciancarini, P., Poggi, F., Vitali, F. (eds) Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management. EKAW 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10024. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49004-5_34

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49004-5_34

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-49003-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-49004-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation