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[protege-discussion] Using Protege as a Software Requirements Database Tool
Ron Schultz
ron.schultz at metavante.com
Wed Jun 4 20:10:18 PDT 2008
Tania,
Thank you very, very much. This is very much what I was looking for. The
requirements model and associated documentation provides a number of
insights I had not considered, and some of the work I have already done
meshes nicely with what you provided. This very much validates where I was
trying to head. Thank you again.
Ron
On Wed, Jun 4, 2008 at 4:38 PM, Tania Tudorache <tudorache at stanford.edu>
wrote:
> Hi Ron,
>
> I don't know if this will be useful. I have made the ontologies (including
> requirements ontology) that I have developed some times ago available on the
> web:
>
>
> http://protegewiki.stanford.edu/index.php/Engineering_ontologies#Engineering_ontologies
>
> The ontologies are very generic and can be easily extended.
>
> You can look at an example (EngineTransmission_3) to get an idea how one
> could use Protege as a requirements editor. In my previous job, we have
> developed our own UI to acquire the requirements. The UI used Protege as a
> backend and a requirements ontology.
>
> I have also attached to the email a screenshot of a requirement instance
> (of course, it could look differently, if needed).
>
> Tania
>
>
>
> Ron Schultz wrote:
>
>> Tania,
>> I have Protege discussion queries going back over 3 years asking about
>> requirements models. If there is a requirements ontology available, I have
>> yet to see one. Any references or pointers would be greatly appreciated. My
>> last correspondence was with Ray Fergerson, back in March, 2005.
>> Thanks Tania.
>> Schultz, Ron wrote:
>> > I was wondering if anyone has pointers or references to a Software
>> Requirements Model, a Software
>> Components Model, or a Software Testing Model, using Protégé.
>> >
>> > Ron Schultz
>> From: Ray Fergerson <fergerson <at> SMI.Stanford.EDU <
>> http://SMI.Stanford.EDU>>
>> Subject: Re: Any Software Requirements Models, or Software Component
>> Models, or Software Testing Models available?
>> Newsgroups: gmane.comp.misc.ontology.protege.general
>> Date: 2005-03-04 18:04:23 GMT (3 years, 12 weeks, 6 days, 15 hours and 51
>> minutes ago)
>>
>> You might have a look here:
>> http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jgeorgas/ics225/index.htm<http://www.ics.uci.edu/%7Ejgeorgas/ics225/index.htm><
>> http://www.ics.uci.edu/%7Ejgeorgas/ics225/index.htm>
>> I ran across this page by accident one day looking for something else. I
>> don't really know much about it but it appears relevant.
>> Ray
>>
>> On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 9:56 PM, Tania Tudorache <tudorache at stanford.edu<mailto:
>> tudorache at stanford.edu>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Tomas,
>>
>> Tomas Potok wrote:
>> > Hello!
>> >
>> > Your post made me excited a bit, because currently I am pursuing
>> the same goal,
>> > I'd like to move to Protege as a Knowledge base for storing
>> requirements. My
>> > main motivation would be the extensive possibilities of
>> classifying, searching
>> > and cross-referencing the reqs (+ multiple users at once).
>> >
>> > I tried to set up Protege Frames in Collaborative mode
>> (client+server) with a
>> > MySQL database as a storage backend, but the solution is a bit
>> restrictive at the
>> > moment.
>> >
>> > Downsides:
>> > - I struggle with the immaturity of the system (instability, a
>> LOT of
>> > uncatched exceptions - no sign of an error report to the user,
>> slowness, ...)
>> >
>>
>> I wonder if this was not more a configuration issue. If you got a
>> lot of
>> exceptions it might indicate that something was not set up correctly.
>> We know of several projects that are using successfully protege in
>> client-server mode, also with large ontologies, both in OWL and in
>> Frames.
>>
>> The slowness is also something that should not be the case. What
>> version
>> of Protege did you try? How large was the ontology?
>> It is true, that we have optimized the client-server architecture for
>> browsing and editing classes, and not so much for
>> instances/individuals.
>> If you have thousands of individuals, probably the IndividualsTab was
>> slow (in OWL), but there are ways around it.
>>
>> If you still reproduce the exceptions that you got previously,
>> please do
>> post them, so that we can fix the issues.
>>
>> > - no possibility to edit Forms in Collaborative mode (but this
>> can be
>> > lived with in my case)
>> >
>> Indeed. However, it is still possible to configure the forms on the
>> server and all the clients would see them the next time they would log
>> in. We are looking into ways of allowing clients to configure the
>> forms.
>>
>> > - I managed to damage my database with a simple drag&drop
>> operation with NO
>> > possibility to Undo.
>> >
>> How did you damage the database? Did you get any exceptions? If
>> you did,
>> please do send them to us, so that we can fix them.
>> Undo is explicitly disabled in client-server mode, because a user may
>> undo with knowing operations that have been performed by other
>> users in
>> between.
>>
>>
>> > - Very simplistic Access Control.
>> > - Cumbersome Forms editor - no graphical group operations, e.g.
>> >
>> Actually, if you edit the Project instances in the metaproject, the
>> forms should be quite intuitive. We plan to make a more specialized UI
>> for editing of access information, but this was not a priority yet. I
>> don't think this is a big limitation.
>>
>> > - Cumbersome installation (need to modify batch files, no script
>> for server
>> > shutdown, ...)
>> >
>> I do not totally agree with that. To start the server you just
>> start the
>> "run_protege_server.sh" (or .bat). There is also a shut down script in
>> the Protege installation directory, called
>> "shutdown_protege_server.sh"
>> (or .bat). We also have a lot of documentation about how to set up the
>> server to work with firewalls, and other configurations on the wiki
>> (
>> http://protegewiki.stanford.edu/index.php/Protege_Client-Server_Tutorial
>> ).
>> And if there are any questions, please do post them on this mailing
>> list. We are doing our best to answer all questions in reasonable
>> time.
>>
>>
>> > What I still have not explored is the possibility of advanced
>> reporting -
>> > generating requirement documents (you seem to have some
>> expertise here
>> > already?).
>> >
>> > What I also fear is the relative hardness of querying the db:
>> > - Queries tab can only do AND-ed or OR-ed conditions (probably
>> there exists a
>> > possibility to script stuff...?)
>> >
>>
>> Yes, you can use the ScriptsTab and query any information in the
>> knowledge base. If you are using OWL, then you can use SWRL
>> queries and
>> SPARQL queries.
>>
>> > - No possibility to further process the results (like
>> visualizing them using
>> > OntoWiz, e.g.) - the only option is to export to CSV and
>> postprocess.
>> >
>>
>> That is an interesting idea. I think this can be easily
>> implemented. If
>> anyone is interested, I can point them to the parts of code that
>> need to
>> be changed.
>> > I fear I'll have to abandon my efforts in this direction which
>> I'm really sad
>> > about, because at first it seemed to me I found a perfect tool
>> for the job.
>> > What I'm persuaded about is the suitability of Ontologies for
>> storing/working
>> > with Software Requirements. But I've found no usable tool yet.
>> >
>>
>> Sorry to hear about your disappointment. I have the impression that
>> several of the issues that you encountered were more configuration
>> problems. If you want to give them one more try with the new
>> version of
>> Protege, I am happy to help.
>>
>> Related to the requirements modeling: There must be requirements
>> ontology already available on the web that you can reuse. In my
>> previous
>> life, I have developed a requirements ontology for product development
>> (not specifically software). It deals with requirements
>> decompositions,
>> derivation, attachment to different components, test cases, etc.
>> However
>> it was in frames, not OWL. I am sure there must be software
>> requirements
>> ontologies already available on the web.
>>
>> Protege with its form mechanism it is actually very good at acquiring
>> instances. It will generate automatically a form based on the slots
>> attached to the class. You can also customize the appearance of the
>> forms, and also the widgets to be used for acquiring the values of a
>> property.
>>
>> It is also possible to export the data form the ontology in any
>> form you
>> want, by either writing an export plugin, or by using the script
>> tab and
>> a familiar scripting language.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Tania
>>
>> > I'd be happy to hear about your results,
>> >
>> > Cheers,
>> >
>> > Tomas
>> >
>> > On Sat, 31 May 2008, Ron Schultz wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >> I was wondering if anyone has pointers or references to a Software
>> >> Requirements Model using Protege. I am exploring Protege as a
>> means to
>> >> document, manage, and evaluate the imact of changes, to a software
>> >> requirements database (between 2500 and 5000 individual requirement
>> >> instances). I have built a simple ontology and can export the
>> requirements
>> >> document using DocGen, but I am going to need to finer grain
>> control over the
>> >> output formatting and namespace management. Protege 3.4 seems
>> to have features
>> >> I can utilize for better namespace control, but I wanted to
>> verify that
>> >> someone else has not already gone down this path before - with
>> either success
>> >> or failure.
>> >>
>> >> Lessons learned before the fact tend to be valuable, lessons
>> learned after the
>> >> fact tend to be brutal.
>> >>
>> >> Thanks
>> >>
>> >> Ron Schultz
>> >>
>> > _______________________________________________
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>>
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>>
>> --
>> Ron Schultz
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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--
Ron Schultz
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