The document discusses the role of social software engineering (SSE) and the integration of ontologies to enhance community-oriented requirements engineering. It emphasizes the importance of reusing existing basic ontologies from the semantic web, such as Dublin Core and SKOS, to improve interoperability and collaboration in online environments. Future work includes addressing limitations in current ontologies and extending the SWORE upper ontology for better representation of software engineering aspects.

1. 3rd International Workshop on February 24, 2010
Social Software Engineering
g g Paderborn, Germany
, y
Adding Semantics to
Social Software Engineering:
d
(Re-)Using Ontologies in a Community-oriented
Requirements Engineering Environment
Steffen Lohmann Thomas Riechert
DEI Laboratory Agile Knowledge Engineering and Semantic Web
Computer Science Department Department of Computer Science
Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain University of Leipzig, Germany
Steffen Lohmann, Thomas Riechert

2. Contents
1. Social Software Engineering
2. Ontologies in Software Engineering
3.
3 Reusing basic ontologies from the Semantic Web
4. SWORE upper ontologie for community-oriented RE
Steffen Lohmann, Thomas Riechert

3. Social Software Engineering
‘social aspects’ are key to successful SE
‘social aspe ts’ e ei e ene ed
‘so ial aspects’ receive renewed attention these days
da s
(Social Software, Social Web, …)
Social Software Engineering (SSE) is about…
1. social interaction in software communities
2. sharing knowledge in online environments*
* The online environment’s architecture can be centralized (e.g., community
website) or decentralized (e.g., integrated in IDE).
(e g IDE)
Steffen Lohmann, Thomas Riechert

4. Social Software Engineering
Social Software Engineering
Social Software vs. Software Engineering
Social Software: Software Engineering:
• ad-hoc collaboration • structured processes
• weakly structured contents vs. • well-defined artifacts
f f
• low formal semantics • high formal semantics
Steffen Lohmann, Thomas Riechert

5. Ontologies in Software Engineering
General solution approach:
- applying ontologies* to SSE
l i l i *
Reusing ontologies to represent…
- collaboratively created artifacts
- involved participants
- (self )organizing structures
(self-)organizing
…that emerge in online environments for SSE
* An ontology is a “specification of a conceptualization”
gy p p (
(Gruber 1993)
)
Steffen Lohmann, Thomas Riechert

6. Ontologies in Software Engineering
Popular examples:
- O t l
Ontology D fi iti
Definition M t
Metamodel (ODM) of OMG
d l f
- Ontology Driven Architecture (ODA) of W3C
Applications of Ontologies in SE
Happ & Seedor 2006
OED particularly relevant for SSE
rf
Promising: Semantic Wikis*
pel
* “Semantic Wikis try to combine the strengths of Semantic
Web (machine processable, data integration, complex queries)
and Wiki (easy to use and contribute, strongly interconnected,
contribute interconnected
collaborativeness) technologies” (semwiki.org)
Steffen Lohmann, Thomas Riechert

7. Ontologies in Software Engineering
Existing approaches:
- define own ontologies
- reuse software-related ontologies
g
- support ontology development
many activities and artifacts are not SE-specific
Reusing basic ontologies from the Semantic Web
Steffen Lohmann, Thomas Riechert

8. Reusing basic ontologies from the Semantic Web
Web environment for community-oriented Requirements Engineering
Based on the Semantic Wiki OntoWiki and integrating several ontologies
Steffen Lohmann, Thomas Riechert

9. Reusing basic ontologies from the Semantic Web
DC (+TAGS) DC + SIOC + FOAF
dc:title dc:description dc:subject tags:taggedWithTag dc:creator dc:contributor dc:source
foaf:Agent
sioc:User
SKOS
skos:Concept
skos:broader
skos:narrower
skos:definition
skos definition
tags:Tag
tags:name
skos:definition
TAGS (+SKOS)
class
<vocabulary>:<Class name>
sioc:Item sioc:Post sioctypes:Poll sioctypes:Comment
property
<vocabulary>:<Property name> SIOC
Steffen Lohmann, Thomas Riechert

10. Reusing basic ontologies from the Semantic Web
Dublin Core (DC) for requirement metadata
- DC defines general properties for information resources:
title, description, creator, contributor, subject, and source…
SKOS and TAGS for classification
- SKOS for taxonomy: broader, narrower, definition…
- TAGS for folksonomy: Tag as subclass of Concept
FOAF and SIOC for stakeholders and discussions
d f t k h ld d di i
- FOAF for stakeholders: Person, Group, Organization…
- SIOC for discussions: Post Poll
Post, Poll…
Steffen Lohmann, Thomas Riechert

11. Reusing basic ontologies from the Semantic Web
Benefits of cross-domain ontology reuse:
- interoperability – extended tool range (
p y g (non-CASE tools) )
- new opportunities to utilize, enhance, and analyze artifacts
• refinement of classification structure
• social network analysis
i l t k l i
• reasoning and consistency checking
• …
- shared understanding between participants
- common practices on elaborated knowledge
- no redundant modeling effort
- fewer misconceptions
not all aspects covered by available ontologies
additional modeling required
g q
Steffen Lohmann, Thomas Riechert

12. req:Title req:Description
req:details; req:isDetailedBy; req:dependsOn;
reg:invalidates; req:isInvalidFor;
dc:description
dc:title req:isCommentedBy SWORE Upper
Ontology
req:entails; req:isSimilarTo;
t il i Si il T
req:Requirement dc:source
req:isReferredBy
req:refersTo
req:Source
dc:creator
req:ReferencePoint dc:contributor
dc:subject
req:Stakeholder req:Document
req:ApplicationState req:ApplicationPointer
FOAF
foaf:Agent
foaf:Organization
foaf:holdsAccount
skos:Concept foaf:Person
foaf:Group
skos:broader tags:taggedWithTag
skos:narrower sioc:about
SKOS tags:Tag sioc:account_of
sioc:account of sioc:Item
TAGS sioc:has_modifier SIOC
sioc:modifier_of
sioc:Post
sioc:User
class:
sioctypes#Poll
<vacabulary>:<Class name>
sioctypes#Comment
property: subClassOf property: req:Vote
<vocabulary>:<property name> subPropertyOf property: req:QualityRating req:PriorityRating
Steffen Lohmann, Thomas Riechert

13. Conclusions & Future Work
Conclusions:
many domain-independent aspects of SE are already described
y p p y
by ontologies
reusing these ontologies can be valuable (interoperability)
in particular in SSE (Semantic Wiki)
l
Limitations:
not all aspects represented (additional modeling)
performance and scalability (Semantic Web technologies)
Future Work:
integration of further features and ontologies
extension of SWORE upper ontology
Steffen Lohmann, Thomas Riechert

14. Thank
Th k you f your attention.
for tt ti
Steffen Lohmann, Thomas Riechert