An Ontology Based Approach to Non-functional Requirements Conceptualization

The growing awareness of the importance of non-functional requirements (NFRs) among the requirements engineering (RE) community in the last few years led to a heightened interest in NFRs description and modeling and, in turn, to the emergence of several models intended to capture and structure the relevant concepts defining the NFRs and their relations. Yet, most of the terms and concepts in use for describing NFRs have been loosely defined, and often there is no commonly accepted taxonomy of NFRs. Common Foundation is required to enable effective communication and to enable integration of NFRs' related research activities within the RE community. In this paper, this Common Foundation will be realized by developing an ontology-based approach which is adequate for projects taking into consideration the NFRs and their relations earlier in the software development and throughout the life cycle.