Teaching Students Collaborative Requirements Engineering. Case Study Red:Wire

Rome, Italy, May 2 - 3, 2016
Teaching Students Collaborative
Requirements Engineering –
Case Study Red:Wire
Talk at the 18th International Conference on Parallel, Distributed Systems and Software Engineering
ICPDSS 2016
Prof. Dr. Dagmar Monett,
Sven-Erik Kujat, Marvin Hartmann

D. Monett
Topics
2Rome, Italy, May 2 - 3, 2016
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D. Monett 3Prague, Czech Republic, December 4 - 6, 2015
Requirements
Engineering

D. Monett 4Rome, Italy, May 2 - 3, 2016
Requirements Engineering
“[It] encompasses all project
activities associated with
understanding a product's
necessary capabilities and
attributes.”
Karl Wiegers and Joy Beatty (2013).
Software Requirements. 3rd Edition, 672 pp. Microsoft Press.

D. Monett
RE sub-disciplines
Adapted from Wiegers&Beatty’s book
Elicitation
Requirements
Engineering
Analysis Specification Validation
Requirements
Development
Requirements
Management
Tracking Managing Controlling Tracing

A structured approach to
Requirements Development

A structured approach to
Requirements Development
Templates

Rupp’s template-based
approach for constructing
requirements

Requirements template
…quality assurance of
unambiguous, complete,
and testable requirements!
“A requirements template is a blueprint
which delineates the syntactic structure
of a requirement”.
Chris Rupp (2014).
Requirements-Engineering und -Management: Aus der Praxis von
klassisch bis agil, 6th Edition, 570 pp., Munich: Hanser Verlag.

Rupp’s template – Six steps
the
system
should
provide <whom>
with the ability to
verb
<process>
be able to
<process>
will
shall
object
additional details
about the object
When? / Under
what conditions?
Adapted from Rupp’s book

Rupp’s template – Six steps
Adapted from Rupp’s book
the
system
should
provide <whom>
with the ability to
verb
<process>
be able to
<process>
will
shall
object
additional details
about the object
When? / Under
what conditions?
1: Determine the process,
identify the functionality
2: Characterise the activity
of the system
3: Determine legal
obligation
4: Fine tune the
requirement
5: Phrase
conditions
6: Use SOPHIST-
Rulebook

■ Collaborative CASE tool
■ Developed and tested by and for students
■ Supports the documentation and management
of user and software requirements
■ Mirrors the template-based definition of
requirements (Rupp’s template)
■ Pre-defined syntactical structure to avoid the
presence of linguistic defects that are common
in the natural language
CASE: Computer-Aided Software Engineering

Pre- and Post-Surveys

D. Monett
Research questions
Q1: Do students improve their RE skills (perceived
improvement) after attending the course?
Q2: Can Red:Wire be learned easily by the students?
Q3: Does Red:Wire allow the successful documentation and
management of requirements?
Q4: Is Red:Wire an adequate CASE tool for collaborative work
when documenting requirements?
Q5: Are students satisfied with the use of Red:Wire (subjective
satisfaction)?
Q6: Are there functional and/or non-functional issues that could
be fixed after testing Red:Wire?
Q7: Are there functionalities that are new or nice to have that
could be added to Red:Wire's repertoire?

D. Monett
Methodology
■ Research purposes and learning and mastering of
RE activities and processes informed to students
■ 3rd semester students (33, fall 2015) test Red:Wire
■ Red:Wire - mandated for documenting and
managing requirements
■ Pre-survey: before students' work with
requirements in class or on their course projects
■ Post-survey: by end of term, after final project
presentations and work with Red:Wire

D. Monett
Learnability measures
Ease of
learning
Consistency Predictability
Familiarity
Informative
feedback
Error
handling
Online
help

Findings

Ease of learning
easy to get started and to learn how to use
without having to ask for help
easy to remember commands
explanations and
tooltips helped
becoming more
skilled

Consistency
consistently
designed, thus
making it easier
to do the work
same
function keys
used
throughout
the program
for the same
functions

Predictability
it behaves
similarly and
predictably
in similar
situations
when executing
functions, results are
predictable

Error messages
ease to undo
the last
operation
error messages
clarify the
problem
error
messages
are helpful

D. Monett
Other results
■ Students perceived they had improved their RE
skills after attending the course
■ But: clear need for further development and testing
of Red:Wire… further, by students!
■ Students rate their software requirements analysis
capabilities without CASE tool support very
favorably… good news for summative assessment!
■ Practical input on which new capabilities and
attributes Red:Wire should include in the future!

D. Monett
Topics
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dagmar@monettdiaz.com
monettdiaz
Contact:

Teaching Students Collaborative Requirements Engineering. Case Study Red:Wire

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