Using Semantic Web Technology in Requirements Specifications

In this report, we investigate how the methods developed for using in Semantic Web technology could be used in capturing, modeling, developing, checking, and validating of requirements specifications. Requirements specification is a complex and time-consuming process. The goal is to describe exactly what the user wants and needs before the next phase of the software development cycle will be started. Any failure and mistake in requirements specification is very expensive because it causes the development of software parts that are not compatible with the real needs of the user and must be reworked later. When the analysis phase of a project starts, analysts have to discuss the problem to be solved with the customer (users, domain experts) and then write the requirements found in form of a textual description. This is a form the customer can understand. However, any textual description of requirements can be (and usually is) incorrect, incomplete, ambiguous, and inconsistent. Later on, the analyst specifies a UML model based on the requirements description written by himself before. However, users and domain experts cannot validate the UML model as most of them do not understand (semi-)formal languages such as UML. It is well-known that the most expensive failures in software projects have their roots in requirements specifications. Misunderstanding between analysts, experts, users, and customers (stakeholders) is very common and brings projects over budget. The goal of this investigation is to do some (at least partial) checking and validation of the UML model using a predefined domain-specific ontology in OWL, and to process some checking using the assertions in descriptive logic. As we described in our previous papers, we have implemented a tool obtaining a modul (a computer linguistic component) that can generate a text of requirements description using information from UML models, so that the stakeholders can read it and decide whether the analyst's understanding is right or how different it is from their own one. We argue that the feedback caused by the UML model checking (by ontologies and OWL DL reasoning) can have an important impact on the quality of the outgoing requirements. This report contains a description and explanation of methods developed and used in Semantic Web Technology and a proposed concept for their use in requirements specification. It has been written during my sabbatical in Oviedo and it should serve as a starting point for theses of our students who will implement ideas described here and run some experiments concerning the efficiency of the proposed method