NDLI: Identifying duplicate functionality in textual use cases by aligning semantic actions

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Rago, Alejandro Marcos, Claudia Diaz Pace, J. Andres
Copyright Year	2014
Abstract	Developing high-quality requirements specifications often demands a thoughtful analysis and an adequate level of expertise from analysts. Although requirements modeling techniques provide mechanisms for abstraction and clarity, fostering the reuse of shared functionality (e.g., via UML relationships for use cases), they are seldom employed in practice. A particular quality problem of textual requirements, such as use cases, is that of having duplicate pieces of functionality scattered across the specifications. Duplicate functionality can sometimes improve readability for end users, but hinders development-related tasks such as effort estimation, feature prioritization, and maintenance, among others. Unfortunately, inspecting textual requirements by hand in order to deal with redundant functionality can be an arduous, time-consuming, and error-prone activity for analysts. In this context, we introduce a novel approach called ReqAligner that aids analysts to spot signs of duplication in use cases in an automated fashion. To do so, ReqAligner combines several text processing techniques, such as a use case-aware classifier and a customized algorithm for sequence alignment. Essentially, the classifier converts the use cases into an abstract representation that consists of sequences of semantic actions, and then these sequences are compared pairwise in order to identify action matches, which become possible duplications. We have applied our technique to five real-world specifications, achieving promising results and identifying many sources of duplication in the use cases.
Starting Page	579
Ending Page	603
Page Count	25
File Format	PDF
ISSN	16191366
Journal	Software and Systems Modeling
Volume Number	15
Issue Number	2
e-ISSN	16191374
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publisher Date	2014-08-27
Publisher Place	Berlin, Heidelberg
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Use case modeling Use case refactoring Natural language processing Sequence alignment Requirements engineering Machine learning Software Engineering/Programming and Operating Systems Programming Techniques Software Engineering Programming Languages, Compilers, Interpreters Information Systems Applications (incl. Internet) IT in Business
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Modeling and Simulation Software

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

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