A tool suite for aspect-oriented requirements engineering

ABSTRACT

Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering (AORE) supports identification of crosscutting, aspectual requirements as well as analysis of their influence on other requirements of the system. Identifying and analyzing aspectual requirements manually is very resource intensive due to their broadly scoped nature and the large volumes and ambiguity of input information from the stakeholders. In this paper we present a tool suite to support AORE in a scalable fashion. The tools support identification of aspectual requirements and their influences on other requirements, conflict detection and resolution between aspectual requirements, as well as requirements representation and requirements document structuring. A number of case studies, including two in an industrial setting, demonstrate the scalability and efficiency of the tool suite. They also show that its output is comparable to that of a requirements engineer carrying out the same tasks manually.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Tools

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.9 Management
          Subjects: Productivity

General Terms:
Management

Keywords:
aspect-oriented requirements engineering, aspect-oriented software development, concern identification, requirements analysis, requirements composition