Application domain knowledge acquisition and use in requirements engineering for computerized systems

F-cube ('From Fuzzy to Formal') is an ESPRIT-funded project (No.6612) to create methods and tools to support requirements engineers in the acquisition, analysis, validation, specification, and prototyping of requirements for computerized systems. It is intended that tools under the general umbrella of enterprise and environment modelling be part of the tool-kit. The authors have carried out knowledge acquisition with requirements engineers and end-users at the sites of the user partners in the project consortium to model the user (the requirements engineer) and user-tasks. The results of the task-analysis emphasize the importance of acquisition and use by the requirements engineer of a critical minimum subset of application domain knowledge. The authors intend to construct a knowledge-based tool to support the requirements engineer in carrying out early requirements capture, analysis, and validation (ERCAV)-the process of converting a set of requirements, obtained from requirement holder(s) and end-users or their representatives, which may be inexact, incomplete, contradictory, ambiguous, inconcise, and badly structured, into a requirements specification which can form a useful basis for the cost-effective design and construction of a system, comprising software and hardware, which adequately satisfies the needs of the requirement holder(s) and end-users. The tool will prompt the requirements engineer to acquire and input application domain knowledge and will use it to reason over an appropriate representation of the requirements, to assist the requirements engineer in detecting problems and resolving them.<
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