Abstract
This paper presents the results of three experiments designed to assess the extent to which a Natural-Language Processing (NLP) tool improves the quality of conceptual models, specifically object-oriented ones. Our main experimental hypothesis is that the quality of a domain class model is higher if its development is supported by a NLP system. The tool used for the experiment – named NL-OOPS – extracts classes and associations from a knowledge base realized by a deep semantic analysis of a sample text. In our experiments, we had groups working with and without the tool, and then compared and evaluated the final class models they produced. The results of the experiments give insights on the state of the art of NL-based Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools and allow identifying important guidelines to improve their performance, highlighting which of the linguistic tasks are more critical to effectively support conceptual modelling.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abbott, R.: Program Design by Informal English Descriptions. Comm. of the ACM 26(11), 882–894 (1983)
Aguilera, C., Berry, D.M.: The Use of a Repeated Phrase Finder in Requirements Extraction. Journal of Systems and Software 13, 209–230 (1990)
Ambriola, V., Gervasi, V.: An Environment for Cooperative Construction of Natural- Language Requirements Bases. In: Proc. 8th Conf. on SWE Environments, IEEE, Los Alamitos (1997)
Booch, G.: Object Oriented Development. IEEE Trans. on SE 12(2), 211–221 (1986)
Burg, J.F.M.: Linguistic Instruments in Requirements Engineering. IOS Press, Amsterdam (1996)
Cauvet, C., Proix, C., Rolland, C.: ALECSI: An Expert System for Requirements Engineering. In: Conf. on Advanced Information Systems Engineering - CAiSE, Norway, May 1991, pp. 31–49 (1991)
Cockburn, A.: Using NL as a Metaphoric Basis for Object-Oriented Modelling and Programming , IBM Technical Report, TR-36.0002 (1992)
Cockburn, A.: Using NL as a metaphoric base for OO. In: Proc. Conf. on Object Oriented Programming Systems Languages and Applications Archive, Canada, pp. 187–189 (1993)
Cordes, D.: An Object-Based Requirements Modelling Method. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 43(1), 62–71 (1992)
Dunn, L., Orlowska, M.: A NL interpreter for construction of conceptual schemas. In: Steinholtz, B., Bergman, L.D., Solvberg, A. (eds.) CAiSE 1990. LNCS, vol. 436, pp. 371–386. Springer, Heidelberg (1990)
Eriksson, H.-E., Penker, M.: UML Toolkit, John Wiley, New York (1998)
Daniel, H.I.H.: The Smalltalk-76 programming system design and implementation. In: Proc. 5th ACM Symp. on Principles of programming lang., Tucson, January 23-25, pp. 9–16 (1978)
Garigliano, R., Urbanowicz, A., Nettleton, D.J.: Description of the LOLITA system as Used in MUC 7. In: Proc. Conf. MUC 7 (1997)
Goldin, L., Berry, D.M.: AbstFinder, A Prototype NL Text Abstraction Finder for Use in Requirements Elicitation. In: Proc. 1st Int. Conf. on RE Colorado Springs, IEEE, Los Alamitos (1994)
Kiyavitskaya, N., Zeni, N., Mich, L., Mylopoulos, J.: NLP-Based Requirements Modeling: Experiments on the Quality of the models., Technical Report DIT, University of Trento (2004)
Mich, L.: NL-OOPS: From NL to OO Requirements using the NLP System LOLITA. Jour. of NL Engineering 2(2), 161–187 (1996)
Mich, L., Garigliano, R.: Ambiguity measures in Requirements Engineering. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on SW - Theory and Practice - ICS2000, 16th IFIP Cong., Beijing, August 21-25, pp. 9–48 (2000)
Mich, L., Garigliano, R.: NL-OOPS: A Requirements Analysis tool based on NL Processing. In: Proc. 3rd Int. Conf. on Data Mining 2002, Bologna, September 25-27, pp. 321–330 (2002)
Mich, L., Mylopoulos, J., Zeni, N.: Improving the Quality of Conceptual Models with NLP Tools: An Experiment., Tech. Report DIT, University of Trento (2002)
Mich, L., Franch, M., Novi Inverardi, P.L.: Requirements Analysis using linguistic tools: Results of an On-line Survey. Journal of Requirements Engineering (2003)
Moody, D.L., Shanks, G.G.: What Makes a Good Data Model? A Framework for Evaluating and Improving the Quality of ER Models. Australian Computer Journal 30(3), 97–110 (1998)
Osborne, M., MacNish, C.K.: Processing NL software requirement specifications. In: Proc. 2nd IEEE Int. Conf. on Requirements Engineering (ICRE 1996), pp. 229–236. IEEE, Los Alamitos (1996)
Fabbrini, F., Fusani, M., Gnesi, S., Lami, G.: Quality Evaluation of Software Requirements Specifications. In: Proc. 13th International SW Quality Week Conference (2000)
Overmyer, S.P., Lavoie, B., Rambow, O.: Conceptual Modelling through Linguistic Analysis Using LIDA. In: Proc. 23rd Int. Conf. on SW engineering (ICSE 2001), July 2001, pp. 401–410 (2001)
Rolland, C., Proix, C.: A NL approach for requirements engineering. In: Proc. 4th International Conference CAiSE 1992, pp. 257–277 (1992)
Rumbaugh, J., Blaha, M., Premerlani, W., Eddy, F., Lorensen, W.: Object-Oriented Modelling and Design. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1991)
Saeki, M., Horai, H., Enomoto, H.: Software Development Process from NL Specification. In: Proc. 11th Int. Conf. on SW Engineering, Pittsburgh, PE, March 1989, pp. 64–73 (1989)
Teeuw, W.B., Van den Berg, H.: On the Quality of Conceptual Models. In: Proc. Work. Behavioral models and design transformations: Issues and opportunities in conceptual modelling - ER 1997, November 6-7 (1997), http://osm7.cs.byu.edu/ER97/workshop4/tvdb.html
van Rijsbergen, C.J.: Information Retrieval, Butterworths (1979)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Kiyavitskaya, N., Zeni, N., Mich, L., Mylopoulos, J. (2004). Experimenting with Linguistic Tools for Conceptual Modelling: Quality of the Models and Critical Features. In: Meziane, F., Métais, E. (eds) Natural Language Processing and Information Systems. NLDB 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3136. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-27779-8_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-27779-8_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-22564-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-27779-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive