Enabling Automated Requirements Reuse and Configuration Framework (Zen-ReqConfig) is a methodolgoy with tool support to systematically and automatically develop structured and configuration-ready PL requirements repositories and facilitate the development of product-specific requirements repository, the product configuration at the requirements level and the smooth transition to downstream product configuration phases (e.g., at the architecture design phase).
Zen-ReqConfig has three main functionalities: 1) Automatically structuring the PL
requirements repository by automatically devising a hierarchical structure for the repository
from the hierarchy information contained in a domain model and automatically allocating textual
requirements to the generated structure based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies
and similarity measures; 2) Automatically identifying variabilities (specified in the domain
model of the system) based on NLP technologies in textual requirements; and 3) Facilitating the
configuration of products at the requirements level, the derivation of product-specific
requirements repositories, and the transition to downstream product development and
configuration phases.
Zen-ReqConfig is built by following principles of modularity, extensibility, and modifiability. The architecture of Zen-ReqConfig is shown in the following figure. Zen-ReqConfig have five modules: 1) the module of structuring is for structuring PL requirements repositories, containing two sub-modules: generating structure and allocating textual requirements; 2) the module of identifying and specifying variabilities is to automatically identify and specify variabilities in textual requirements; 3) the module of deriving product-specific requirements is realized to help requirements engineers derive product-specific requirements via systematic product configuration at the RE level; 4) the module of deriving product-specific domain model is to derive the domain model for a specific product based on the configuration obtained during the process of deriving product-specific requirements, and 5) the module of adapter for domain models is to make Zen-ReqConfig extensible for new domain modeling notations.
Zen-ReqConfig is implemented as an Eclipse plug-in, built on the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF).
Now
it can cope with two different domain modeling notations: SimPL and CBFM. Zen-ReqConfig is
extensible
for different model notations by adding an adapter for a new modeling notation.
Zen-ReqConfig relies on the Stanford Parser as a NLP tool to analyze textual requirements, which
generates phrase structure trees and the grammatical structure of sentences (known grammatical
relations). Zen-ReqConfig has very loose coupling with the Stanford Parser.
Structured requirements repositories are presented as ReqIF files. Zen-ReqConfig is built on the
Requirements Modeling Framework (RMF) , which is a framework for working with textual requirements
(structured as ReqIF models), the industry standard for exchanging requirements.
Download Zen-ReqConfig Plugin here!
Zen-ReqConfig Eclipse plug-in is only available for education purpose.
Related Publications
Yan Li, Tao Yue, Shaukat Ali, and Li Zhang. Enabling Automated Requirements Reuse and Configuration,
submitted to Software and System Modeling (Soysm).