An Ontology for Requirements
Download: Citation (bibtex). Publisher’s version.
Note: This is the RIGIM@ER07 keynote presented by John Mylopoulos.
Authors: John Mylopoulos, Ivan J. Jureta, Stephane Faulkner.
Publication: Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Requirements, Intentions and Goals in Conceptual Modeling (RIGiM) Conceptual Modeling - ER 2007, 26th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, Auckland, New Zealand.
Abstract. In the good old days, the world of Requirements Engineering (RE) was simple: there were functional requirements to be modelled, somehow, and non-functional ones that usually consisted of a product quality wish list. Solving a particular requirements problem amounted to (loosely-understood) accommodation of functional requirements and doing one’s best with non-functional ones. This world changed dramatically with the advent of Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering. The primitive concepts in terms of which requirements are now conceived are no longer functions, states and things. Instead, the brave new world is populated with goals, stakeholder intentions and social settings. We review, contrast and compare some of the new and old concepts, including goal, intention, function, preference, priority, softgoal, quality, criterion, and non-functional requirement. In addition, we attempt to organize them into a new ontology for requirements. We also present first results on a theory of requirements where, given a requirements problem, we define precisely what is a solution and what is an optimal solution.
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Recently published research
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Suggested reading
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About Ivan
Ivan Jureta currently does scientific research at the intersection of management science, microeconomics, and information systems engineering. Apart his two MSc degrees, one from the University of Louvain and the other from the London School of Economics, he holds a PhD in economics and management from the University of Namur, where he is with the Department of Business Administration. He lives and works primarily between Belgium and Western Balkans. He is the author or coauthor of some 30 peer-reviewed scientific publications. He lectured about his work at various international conferences and universities, including for instance the University of Trento and Carnegie Mellon University.