Automatic scenario generation from a multidimensional requirements model

Many languages and notations have been suggested and devised for use in requirements engineering. Less formal notations, such as scenarios and use cases, have proved to be more effective for elicitation, negotiation, and validation whereas more formal notations have proved more effective for requirements specification and analysis. To address this problematic dichotomy, we have devised a requirements development cycle in which requirements are captured using a specification language with a well-defined syntax and semantics resulting in a model that can be transformed into concrete scenarios. The requirements model, a multidimensional model, provides the basis for communicating requirements to developers while generated scenarios provides a means for interacting with other stakeholders.; This research has developed a specification language for defining machine processable, multidimensional requirements models, using Unified Modeling Language (UML) notations. Additionally, the research has developed an experimental tool to demonstrate that concrete scenarios can be generated from models written in the specification language. The specification language and the tool have been exercised in two different domains. The first domain is a tool for rapidly constructing structured data repositories. The second domain is that of on-line meeting scheduling.; The ability to automatically generate scenarios from requirements models has the potential to substantially improve the cost of software development by allowing requirements engineers to represent requirements in one form that is useful for communicating with both developers and nondeveloper stakeholders. In addition to the benefits offered by scenario generation, the specification language devised in this research offers other significant benefits to the software engineering community. Specifically, the language should be easy to adopt and understand because it is a use case-based language that (1) embraces the informal philosophies that have made use cases popular, (2) restricts use case descriptions to a well-defined syntax and semantics, and (3) employs multiple dimensions to reduce the complexity of use case description.