teaching students collaborative requirements engineering. case study red:wire

Rome, Italy, May 2 - 3, 2016

Teaching Students Collaborative

Requirements Engineering –

Case Study Red:Wire

Talk at the 18th International Conference on Parallel, Distributed Systems and Software Engineering

ICPDSS 2016

Prof. Dr. Dagmar Monett,

Sven-Erik Kujat, Marvin Hartmann

D. Monett

Topics

2Rome, Italy, May 2 - 3, 2016

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D. Monett 3Prague, Czech Republic, December 4 - 6, 2015

Requirements

Engineering

D. Monett 4Rome, Italy, May 2 - 3, 2016

Requirements Engineering

“[It] encompasses all project

activities associated with

understanding a product's

necessary capabilities and

attributes.”

Karl Wiegers and Joy Beatty (2013).

Software Requirements. 3rd Edition, 672 pp. Microsoft Press.

D. Monett

RE sub-disciplines


Adapted from Wiegers&Beatty’s book

Elicitation

Requirements

Engineering

Analysis Specification Validation

Requirements

Development

Requirements

Management

Tracking Managing Controlling Tracing


A structured approach to

Requirements Development


A structured approach to

Requirements Development

Templates


Rupp’s template-based

approach for constructing

requirements


Requirements template

…quality assurance of

unambiguous, complete,

and testable requirements!

“A requirements template is a blueprint

which delineates the syntactic structure

of a requirement”.

Chris Rupp (2014).

Requirements-Engineering und -Management: Aus der Praxis von

klassisch bis agil, 6th Edition, 570 pp., Munich: Hanser Verlag.


Rupp’s template – Six steps

the

systemshould

provide <whom>

with the ability to

verb

<process>

be able to

<process>will

shall

objectadditional details

about the object

When? / Under

what conditions?

Adapted from Rupp’s book


Rupp’s template – Six steps

Adapted from Rupp’s book

the

systemshould

provide <whom>

with the ability to

verb

<process>

be able to

<process>will

shall

objectadditional details

about the object

When? / Under

what conditions?

1: Determine the process,

identify the functionality

2: Characterise the activity

of the system

3: Determine legal

obligation

4: Fine tune the

requirement

5: Phrase

conditions

6: Use SOPHIST-

Rulebook


■ Collaborative CASE tool

■ Developed and tested by and for students

■ Supports the documentation and management

of user and software requirements

■ Mirrors the template-based definition of

requirements (Rupp’s template)

■ Pre-defined syntactical structure to avoid the

presence of linguistic defects that are common

in the natural languageCASE: Computer-Aided Software Engineering


Pre- and Post-Surveys

D. Monett

Research questions


Q1: Do students improve their RE skills (perceived

improvement) after attending the course?

Q2: Can Red:Wire be learned easily by the students?

Q3: Does Red:Wire allow the successful documentation and

management of requirements?

Q4: Is Red:Wire an adequate CASE tool for collaborative work

when documenting requirements?

Q5: Are students satisfied with the use of Red:Wire (subjective

satisfaction)?

Q6: Are there functional and/or non-functional issues that could

be fixed after testing Red:Wire?

Q7: Are there functionalities that are new or nice to have that

could be added to Red:Wire's repertoire?

D. Monett

Methodology


■ Research purposes and learning and mastering of

RE activities and processes informed to students

■ 3rd semester students (33, fall 2015) test Red:Wire

■ Red:Wire - mandated for documenting and

managing requirements

■ Pre-survey: before students' work with

requirements in class or on their course projects

■ Post-survey: by end of term, after final project

presentations and work with Red:Wire

D. Monett

Learnability measures


Ease of

learningConsistency Predictability

FamiliarityInformative

feedback

Error

handling

Online

help


Findings


Ease of learningeasy to get started and to learn how to use

without having to ask for help

easy to remember commands

explanations and

tooltips helped

becoming more

skilled


Consistency

consistently

designed, thus

making it easier

to do the work

same

function keys

used

throughout

the program

for the same

functions


Predictability

it behaves

similarly and

predictably

in similar

situations

when executing

functions, results are

predictable


Error messagesease to undo

the last

operation

error messages

clarify the

problem

error

messages

are helpful

D. Monett

Other results


■ Students perceived they had improved their RE

skills after attending the course

■ But: clear need for further development and testing

of Red:Wire… further, by students!

■ Students rate their software requirements analysis

capabilities without CASE tool support very

favorably… good news for summative assessment!

■ Practical input on which new capabilities and

attributes Red:Wire should include in the future!

D. Monett

Topics


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