Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The NASA automated requirements measurement tool: a reconstruction

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In the late 1990s the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Software Assurance Technology Center (SATC) developed a tool to automatically analyze a requirements document and produce a detailed quality report. The report was based on statistical analysis of word frequencies at various structural levels of the document. The Automated Requirements Measurement (ARM) tool was further enhanced to include additional functionality such as custom definitions of quality indicators inputs for document analysis. By 2011 work on the ARM tool was discontinued. This paper describes the reverse-engineering and reproduction of the functionality of ARM. Recreating the functionality of this tool yielded valuable insight into certain quality metrics and provides a benchmark tool for future research. In addition to recreating and working with the ARM tool, this paper explores both existing and potential definitions of quality metrics in requirements specifications. Automated requirements analysis is a convergence of various fields of research, including text mining, quality analysis, and natural language processing. Informed by tangential areas of research in document understanding and data mining, recommendations are made for future areas of research and development in automated requirements analysis.

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

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/about/organizations/org2.html

References

  1. Charette R (2005) Why software fails. Spectr IEEE 42(9):42–49

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Ciolkowski M, Soto M, Deprez J (2007) Measurement Requirements Specifications. Specification of Goals for the QualOSS Quality Model. Technical Report, QualOSS Consortium

  3. Davis A, Overmyer S, Jordan K, Caruso J, Dandashi F, Dinh A, Kincaid G, Ledeboer G, Reynolds P, Sitaram P, Ta A, Theofanos M (1993) Identifying and measuring quality in a software requirements specification. In: Proceedings of First International Software Metrics Symposium, pp 141–152, 21–22 May 1993

  4. Dominus M (2005) Higher-order perl: transforming programs with programs. Morgan-Kaufmann, Burlington

  5. Eckroth J, Amoussou G (2008) Improving aoftware quality from the requirements specification. In: SOD ’07 Science of Design Symposium, Humboldt State University

  6. Elcock A, Laplante P (2006) Testing software without requirements: using development artifacts to develop test cases. Innov Syst Softw Eng 2(3–4):137–145

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Ferguson B, Lami G (2005) Automated Natural Language Analysis of Requirements. PowerPoint Presentation, Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute. Available at www.incose.org/delvalley/data/INCOSE-preview-QuARS_21June05.ppt, last Accessed 30 June 2013

  8. Hay D (2003) Requirements analysis: from business views to architecture. Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River

  9. Hyatt L, Rosenberg L (1996) A software quality model and metrics for risk assessment. In: Proceedings of Product Assurance Symposium and Software Product Assurance Workshop, 19–21 March, 1996 (ESA SP-377)

  10. IEEE Std 830–1998 (1998) IEEE Recommended Practice for Software Requirements Specifications, Los Alamitos, CA, IEEE Computer Society Press

  11. Issa AA, Al Ali AI (2011) Automated requirements engineering: use case patterns-driven approach. Softw IET 5(3):287–303

    Google Scholar 

  12. Kof L (2005) Natural language processing: mature enough for requirements documents analysis? In: Natural Language Processing and, Information Systems, pp 91–102

  13. Laplante PA (2009) Requirements engineering for software and systems. CRC, Boca Raton

  14. Leffingwell D, Widrig D (2003) Managing software requirements: a use-case approach, 2nd edn. Addison Wesley Longman, Reading

  15. Rosenberg L (1999) A methodology for writing high-quality requirements specifications and for evaluating existing ones. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Software Assurance Technology Center

  16. Wiegers K (2003) Software requirements, 2nd edn. Microsoft Press, Redmond

    Google Scholar 

  17. Wilson W, Rosenberg L, Hyatt L (1996) Automated quality analysis of natural language requirement specifications

  18. Withall S (2007) Software requirement patterns. Microsoft Press, Redmond

    Google Scholar 

  19. Wyatt V, DiStefano J, Chapan M, Aycoth E (2003) A metrics based approach for identifying requirements risks. In: Proceedings of 28th Annual NASA Goddard Software Engineering Workshop

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Manoj Keswani and Eric Li of Transport for New South Wales, Australia, for various discussions related to their use of the ARM Tools over the years and for experimenting with the reconstructed tool and providing feedback, and to Christopher Laplante for various discussions and prototyping related to the reconstructed tool.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Penn State, Malvern, PA, USA

    Nathan Carlson & Phil Laplante

Authors
  1. Nathan Carlson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Phil Laplante
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Phil Laplante.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Carlson, N., Laplante, P. The NASA automated requirements measurement tool: a reconstruction. Innovations Syst Softw Eng 10, 77–91 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11334-013-0225-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11334-013-0225-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation