TY - JOUR

T1 - Automated translation from domain knowledge to software model: EXCEL2UML in the tunneling domain

AU - Paskaleva, Galina

AU - Mazak-Huemer, Alexandra

AU - Villeneuve, Marlene

AU - Waldhart, Johannes

N1 - Publisher Copyright: COPYRIGHT: © 2023 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

PY - 2023/7

Y1 - 2023/7

N2 - The development of software tools is a collaborative process involving both the domain experts and the software engineers. This requires efficient communication considering different expertise and perspectives. Additionally, the two groups utilize language and communication tools in disparate ways. This, in turn, may lead to hidden misunderstandings in the requirement analysis phase and potentially result in implementation problems later on, that is difficult and costly to correct. In this paper, we demonstrate the above mentioned challenge via a use case from the tunneling domain. In particular, during the requirement analysis phase for a software capable of handling the data model of the subsoil. The domain experts in the field can best express the complexity of their domain by describing its artifacts, which in most cases are incomprehensible to the software engineers. We outline a method that interleaves requirement analysis and software modeling to enable an iterative increase of the accuracy and completeness of the information extracted from those artifacts and integrated into a flexible software model, which can produce testable software code automatically. Furthermore, we present a prototypical implementation of our method and a preliminary evaluation of the approach.

AB - The development of software tools is a collaborative process involving both the domain experts and the software engineers. This requires efficient communication considering different expertise and perspectives. Additionally, the two groups utilize language and communication tools in disparate ways. This, in turn, may lead to hidden misunderstandings in the requirement analysis phase and potentially result in implementation problems later on, that is difficult and costly to correct. In this paper, we demonstrate the above mentioned challenge via a use case from the tunneling domain. In particular, during the requirement analysis phase for a software capable of handling the data model of the subsoil. The domain experts in the field can best express the complexity of their domain by describing its artifacts, which in most cases are incomprehensible to the software engineers. We outline a method that interleaves requirement analysis and software modeling to enable an iterative increase of the accuracy and completeness of the information extracted from those artifacts and integrated into a flexible software model, which can produce testable software code automatically. Furthermore, we present a prototypical implementation of our method and a preliminary evaluation of the approach.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85167865872&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.36680/j.itcon.2023.019

DO - 10.36680/j.itcon.2023.019

M3 - Article

VL - 28

SP - 360

EP - 384

JO - Journal of information technology in construction

JF - Journal of information technology in construction

SN - 1874-4753

ER -