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Using Semiformal and Formal Methods in Software Design: An Integrated Approach for Intelligent Learning Management System
Abstract
The use of graphical methods such as unified modelling language (UML) in conjunction with formal methods such as Vienna development method (VDM) can be significantly beneficiary in the software design phase due to their complimentary features. UML diagrams are very useful in communication among different stakeholders, but at the same time, being semiformal in nature, they lack formal syntax and preciseness due to textual description in notations. This makes it challenging to verify the design against the requirements. Conversely, a formal specification language like VDM-SL has the advantage of preciseness an unambiguous modelling, but unable to provide ease of understanding like UML. This paper presents a methodology that integrates the use of UML and VDM-SL in software design phase and also proposes a verification technique for the design artefacts with the requirements. A case study of intelligent learning management system (ILMS) is used in this paper to illustrate the proposed work.
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Overture is a community-based initiative that aims to develop a common open-source platform integrating a range of tools for constructing and analysing formal models of systems using VDM. The mission is to both provide an industrial-strength tool set for VDM and also to provide an environment that allows researchers and other stakeholders to experiment with modi�cations and extensions to the tools. This paper presents the current status and future vision of the Overture project.
The mathematical notations of Formal Verification Tools (FVTs) do not prevent us from wrongly defining the behavior of systems, any more than modern CASE tools do. With software rapidly growing in size and complexity, graphical specifications in languages like UML need to be formally verified, before the implementation phase, in order to guarantee the development of more reliable systems. While the enterprise of integrating CASE and FVTs has had reasonable success with the translation of simple diagrams to model checkers' notations, there has been few progress regarding the fundamental aspects an interface should have to fully integrate them. In this work we present an interface for joining both technologies as a reliable solution to bridging this gap.
Use cases are commonly used to structure and document requirements while UML activity diagrams are often used to visualize and formalize use cases, for example to support automated test case generation. Therefore the automated support for the transition from use cases to activity diagrams would provide significant, practical help. Additionally, traceability could be established through automated transformation, which could then be used for instance to relate requirements to design decisions and test cases. In this paper, we propose an approach to automatically generate activity diagrams from use cases while establishing traceability links. Data flow information can also be generated and added to these activity diagrams. Our approach is implemented in a tool, which we used to perform five case studies. The results show that high quality activity diagrams can be generated. Our analysis also shows that our approach outperforms existing academic approaches and commercial tools.
Overture is a community-based initiative that aims to develop a common open-source platform integrating a range of tools for constructing and analysing formal models of systems using VDM. The mission is to both provide an industrial-strength tool set for VDM and also to provide an environment that allows researchers and other stakeholders to experiment with modifications and extensions to the tools and language. This paper presents the current status and future vision of the Overture project.
Analysing user requirements properly is the key to any software development process. In contemporary web based software developments the user interface requirements are predominant among the non functional requirements. The end-users’ involvement in interface requirements has made it challenging for the designers to map these interface requirements with functional requirements. As a consequence we often use different specification languages for different types of requirements but then interface requirements, if handled separately May lead to traceability problem for the developers, especially in web based application development. In order to make requirements analysis both comprehensible and rigorous, formal requirements specification methods are very important. in this paper we have tried to describe how interface requirements can be specified in a formal way in connection with the functional requirements for a better understanding in designing. The Vienna Development Method Specification Language (VDM-SL) being a well established formalizing tool for user requirements specification, we propose some add-ons to this tool to help in formalizing these types of requirements. We have also used this technique in a case study to strengthen our proposal.
This is a copy of the draft proposed American National Standard (dpANS) as established May 3, 1999. It is a draft, with many
parts remaining to be completed. The most curent version (updated as the standard approaches completion) is always available
at: http://concept.cs.uah.edu/CG/Standard.html.
We present a semi-automatic approach to translate a use case to a
sequence diagram, which can be easily used in software design. It needs
to normalize a use case manually. It accommodates user instructions on
how to translate some parts of the use case description while producing
message sends from other parts mechanically
This paper presents a semi-automatic approach to translating the
narrative descriptions of use cases to sequence diagrams. It presents
uses for writing and rewriting use case descriptions that can be
understood by both developers and domain experts and that can be
translated mechanically to message sends, which are used to build
sequence diagrams. The translation accommodates developer's instructions
on how to translate some parts of a use case description while
mechanically producing message records from the description. It deduces
classes, objects, associations, attributes, and operations from use
cases. A prototype of a use case translator that supports the approach
is also reported
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