Abstract
The granularity of conceptual models depends at least in part on the granularity of their underpinning metamodel. Here we investigate the theory of granularity as it can be applied to conceptual modelling and, especially, metamodelling for information systems development methodologies. With a background context of situational method engineering, this paper applies some theoretical works on granularity to the study of current metamodelling approaches. It also establishes some granularity-related best practices to take into account when adopting a metamodel, especially for its future use in developing method fragments for situational method engineering. Using these best practices will result in components of better quality and, consequently, better conceptual models and methodologies.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Welke, R., Kumar, K.: Method Engineering: A Proposal for Situation-Specific Methodology Construction. In: Cotterman, W.W., Senn, J.A. (eds.) Systems Analysis and Design: A Research Agenda. J. Wiley & Sons, Chichester (1991)
Brinkkemper, S.: Method Engineering: Engineering of Information Systems Development Methods and Tools. Inf. Software Technol. 38(4), 275–280 (1996)
Henderson-Sellers, B.: Method Engineering for OO System Development. ACM Comm. 46(10), 73–78 (2003)
Ghidini, C., Giunchiglia, F.: A Semantics for Abstraction. In: Procs. ECAI 2004 (2004)
Giunchiglia, F., Walsh, T.: A Theory of Abstraction. Artificial Intelligence 57(2-3), 323–390 (1992)
Mani, I.: A Theory of Granularity and its Application to Problems of Polysemy and Underspecification of Meaning. In: Cohn, A.G., Schubert, L.K., Shapiro, S.C. (eds.) Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference (KR 1998), pp. 245–257. Morgan Kaufmann, San Mateo (1998)
Unhelkar, B., Henderson-Sellers, B.: ODBMS Considerations in the Granularity of a Reusable OO Design. In: Mingins, C., Meyer, B. (eds.) TOOLS15, pp. 229–234. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1995)
Hobbs, J.: Granularity. In: Procs. Int. Joint Conf. on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI 1985 (1985)
Lakoff, G.: Fire, Women, and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal About the Mind. University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1987)
Winston, M., Chaffin, R., Herrmann, D.: A Taxonomy of Part-Whole Relations. Cognitive Science 11, 417–444 (1987)
Jørgensen, K.A.: Modelling on Multiple Abstraction Levels. In: Procs. 7th Workshop on Product Structuring – Product Platform Development, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg (2004)
Henderson-Sellers, B., Unhelkar, B.: OPEN Modeling with UML. Addison-Wesley, Harlow (2000)
Favre, J.-M.: Foundations of Model (Driven) (Reverse) Engineering: Models. Episode I: Stories of The Fidus Papyrus and of The Solarus. In: Bézivin, J., Hockel, R. (eds.) Procs. Dagstuhl Seminar 04101 Language Engineering for Model-Driven Software Development (2005)
OMG: UML superstructure, v2.2. OMG documentsmsc/09-02-01: UML superstructure, v2.2 (2009)
Henderson-Sellers, B., Bulthuis, A.: Object-Oriented Metamethods. Springer, New York (1998)
OMG: UML Semantics, Version 1.0. OMG document ad/97-01-03 (January 13, 1997)
Graham, I., Henderson-Sellers, B., Younessi, H.: The OPEN Process Specification. Addison-Wesley, Harlow (1997)
Firesmith, D.G., Henderson-Sellers, B.: The OPEN Process Framework. Addison-Wesley, Harlow (2002)
OMG: Software Process Engineering Metamodel Specification. OMG document formal/02-11-14 (2002)
Standards Australia: Standard Metamodel for Software Development Methodologies, AS 4651-2004, Standards Australia, Sydney (2004)
ISO/IEC: Software Engineering – Metamodel for Software Development. ISO/IEC 24744, Geneva, Switzerland (2007)
Odell, J., Parunak, H.V.D., Bauer, B.: Extending UML for Agents. In: Wagner, G., Lesperance, Y., Yu, E. (eds.) Procs. Agent-Oriented Information Systems Workshop, 17th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Austin, TX, USA, pp. 3–17 (2000)
Zachman, J.A.: A Framework for Information Systems Architecture. IBM Systems J. 26(3), 276–292 (1987)
OMG: Software & Systems Process Engineering Meta-Model Specification. Version 2.0, OMG Document Number: formal/2008-04-01 (2008)
ISO/IEC: Software Life Cycle Processes. ISO/IEC 12207. International Standards Organization / International Electrotechnical Commission (1995)
Kühne, T.: Matters of (Meta-)modeling. Softw. Syst. Model. 5, 369–385 (2006)
Rolland, C., Prakash, N.: A Proposal for Context-specific Method Engineering. In: Brinkkemper, S., Lyytinen, K., Welke, R.J. (eds.) Method Engineering. Principles of Method Construction and Too Support. Procs. IFIP TC8, WG8.1/8.2 Working Conference on Method Engineering, Atlanta, USA, August 26-28, pp. 191–208. Chapman & Hall, London (1996)
Henderson-Sellers, B.: On the Challenges of Correctly using Metamodels in Method Engineering. In: Fujita, H., Pisanelli, D. (eds.) New Trends in Software Methodologies, Tools and Techniques. Proceedings of the sixth SoMeT 2007, pp. 3–35. IOS Press, Amsterdam (200)
Lindland, O.I., Sindre, G., Solvberg, A.: Understanding Quality in Conceptual Modeling. IEEE Software 11(2), 42–49 (1994)
Wahl, T., Sindre, G.: An Analytical Evaluation of BPMN using a Semiotic Quality Framework. In: Siau, K. (ed.) Advanced Topics in Database Research, vol. 5, ch. VI, pp. 102–113. Idea Group Inc., Hershey (2006)
Recker, J.C., zur Muehlen, M., Siau, K., Erickson, J., Indulska, M.: Measuring Method Complexity: UML versus BPMN. In: Procs 15th Americas Conf. on Information Systems, San Francisco, CA, USA, August 6-9 (2009)
Rossi, M., Brinkkemper, S.: Complexity Metrics for Systems Development Methods and Techniques. Information Systems 21(2), 209–227 (2006)
Ma, H., Shao, W., Zhang, L., Ma, Z., Jiang, Y.: Applying OO Metrics to Assess UML Meta-models. In: Baar, T., Strohmeier, A., Moreira, A., Mellor, S.J. (eds.) UML 2004. LNCS, vol. 3273, pp. 12–26. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Opdahl, A., Henderson-Sellers, B.: Ontological Evaluation of the UML using the Bunge-Wand-Weber Model. Software and Systems Modelling 1(1), 43–67 (2002)
Genero, M., Piattini, M., Calero, C.: A Survey of Metrics for UML Class Diagrams. Journal of Object Technology 4(9), 59–92 (2005), http://www.jot.fm/issues/issue_2005_11/article1
Unhelkar, B.: Verification and Validation for Quality of UML 2.0 Models. J. Wiley and Sons, Chichester (2005)
Aguilar, E.R., Ruiz, F., Garcia, F., Piattini, M.: Evaluation Measures for Business Process models. In: Procs 2006 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, pp. 1567–1568. ACM, New York (2006)
Fowler, M.: Analysis Patterns. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1997)
Gamma, E., Helm, R., Johnson, R., Vlissides, J.: Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1995)
Rising, L.: The Pattern Almanac 2000. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2000)
Roberts, D., Johnson, R.: Patterns for Evolving Frameworks. In: Martin, R.C., Riehle, D., Buschmann, F. (eds.) Pattern Languages of Program Design 3, pp. 471–486. Addison-Wesley Longman, Amsterdam (1997)
Opdahl, A., Henderson-Sellers, B.: Template-based Definition of Information Systems and Enterprise Modelling Constructs. In: Green, P., Rosemann, M. (eds.) Business Systems Analysis with Ontologies, pp. 105–129. Idea Group, Hershey (2005)
Opdahl, A.L., Henderson-Sellers, B., Barbier, F.: Ontological Analysis of Whole-Part Relationships in OO Models. Information and Software Technology 43(6), 387–399 (2001)
Wand, Y., Weber, R.: On the Ontological Expressiveness of Information Systems Analysis and Design Grammars. Journal of Information Systems 3, 217–237 (1993)
Wand, Y., Weber, R.: On the Deep Structure of Information Systems. Information Systems Journal 5, 203–223 (1995)
Genero, M., Piattini, M., Calero, C. (eds.): Metrics for Software Conceptual Models. Imperial College Press, London (2005)
Shekhovtsov, V.A.: On Conceptualization of Quality. Paper presented at Dagstuhl Seminar on Conceptual Modelling, April 27-30 (2008) (preprint on conference website)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Henderson-Sellers, B., Gonzalez-Perez, C. (2010). Granularity in Conceptual Modelling: Application to Metamodels. In: Parsons, J., Saeki, M., Shoval, P., Woo, C., Wand, Y. (eds) Conceptual Modeling – ER 2010. ER 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6412. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16373-9_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16373-9_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-16372-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-16373-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)