Towards a generalised framework for classifying and retrieving requirements patterns

Reuse has received much attention in the Software Engineering literature [1], primarily as a means of improving software quality while minimising the financial and temporal costs of software development. Within requirements engineering, various approaches have been proposed to requirements reuse. However, there is huge variation in the contents, form and intended purpose of these reusable requirements. If these patterns are to be useful in practice, it will be necessary to provide a common framework of reference through which these patterns can be accessed. In this paper, we propose a generalised framework to support the organisation of requirements patterns on three levels: the RE task supported by the pattern, the problem domain addressed, and the level of technical detail provided.