Publications

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Thesis
Goulão, M., "Component-Based Software Engineering: a Quantitative Approach", Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Caparica, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2008. Abstract

http://run.unl.pt/handle/10362/1883

tese.pdf

Background: Often, claims in Component-Based Development (CBD) are only sup-
ported by qualitative expert opinion, rather than by quantitative data. This contrasts
with the normal practice in other sciences, where a sound experimental validation of
claims is standard practice. Experimental Software Engineering (ESE) aims to bridge
this gap. Unfortunately, it is common to find experimental validation efforts that are
hard to replicate and compare, to build up the body of knowledge in CBD.


Objectives:
In this dissertation our goals are (i) to contribute to evolution of ESE, in
what concerns the replicability and comparability of experimental work, and (ii) to ap-
ply our proposals to CBD, thus contributing to its deeper and sounder understanding.


Techniques:
We propose a process model for ESE, aligned with current experimen-
tal best practices, and combine this model with a measurement technique called
Ontology-Driven Measurement (ODM). ODM is aimed at improving the state of prac-
tice in metrics definition and collection, by making metrics definitions formal and ex-
ecutable, without sacrificing their usability. ODM uses standard technologies that can
be well adapted to current integrated development environments.


Results:
Our contributions include the definition and preliminary validation of a pro-
cess model for ESE and the proposal of ODM for supporting metrics definition and
collection in the context of CBD. We use both the process model and ODM to perform
a series experimental works in CBD, including the cross-validation of a component
metrics set for JavaBeans, a case study on the influence of practitioners expertise in
a sub-process of component development (component code inspections), and an ob-
servational study on reusability patterns of pluggable components (Eclipse plug-ins).
These experimental works implied proposing, adapting, or selecting adequate ontolo-
gies, as well as the formal definition of metrics upon each of those ontologies.


Limitations:
Although our experimental work covers a variety of component models
and, orthogonally, both process and product, the plethora of opportunities for using
our quantitative approach to CBD is far from exhausted.


Conclusions:
The main contribution of this dissertation is the illustration, through
practical examples, of how we can combine our experimental process model with
ODM to support the experimental validation of claims in the context of CBD, in a re-
peatable and comparableway. In addition, the techniques proposed in this dissertation
are generic and can be applied to other software development paradigms.

Miscellaneous
Abreu, F. B., L. M. Ochoa, and M. Goulão, The GOODLY Design Language for MOOD Metrics Collection, , no. R16/97: INESC, March, 1997. Abstract

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Goulão, M., A. S. Monteiro, N. P. Ribeiro, A. B. Almeida, F. B. Abreu, and P. Sousa, I Relatório de Actividades do Protocolo Marinha Portuguesa / INESC, : DAMAG / INESC, 1997. Abstract

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Goulão, M., A. S. Monteiro, J. F. Martins, N. P. Ribeiro, A. B. Almeida, F. B. Abreu, and P. Sousa, II Relatório de Actividades do Protocolo Marinha Portuguesa / INESC, : DAMAG / INESC, 1998. Abstract

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Goulão, M., A. S. Monteiro, N. P. Ribeiro, A. B. Almeida, F. B. Abreu, and P. Sousa, III Relatório de Actividades do Protocolo Marinha Portuguesa / INESC, : DAMAG / INESC, 1999. Abstract

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Esteves, R., and M. Goulão, MOODKIT G1, : IST/UTL, November, 1995. Abstract

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Journal Article
Monteiro, R., J. Araújo, V. Amaral, M. Goulão, and P. Patrício, "Adding Interoperability to Requirements Models", Software Quality Professional Journal, vol. 15, issue 4, pp. 16-27, 2013. Abstract

(c) American Society for Quality

sqpv15i4monteiro.pdfWebsite

Complex software systems inherently require a variety of models used in all of the development stages. A general concern is to guarantee consistency and traceability among these models. Model-driven development (MDD) can help tackle this concern. Although MDD has been mainly used in later development stages, it is relatively unexplored in requirements engineering. In this article, the authors discuss how to
leverage MDD to support consistency and traceability in requirements modeling. To illustrate this, they apply MDD to goaloriented requirements engineering (GORE) by making bidirectional mappings between two well-known GORE approaches (i* and KAOS). The result is an interoperable framework that can be used to migrate from one goal model to another through automatic model transformations, keeping consistency and traceability, so requirements engineers can make the best use of each approach.

Barišić, A., V. Amaral, M. Goulão, and B. Barroca, "How to reach a usable DSL? Moving toward a Systematic Evaluation", Electronic Communications of the EASST (MPM), 2011. Abstract

Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) are claimed to increase productivity, while reducing the required maintenance and programming expertise. In this context, DSL usability by domain experts is a key factor for its successful adoption. Evidence that support those improvement claims is mostly anecdotal. Our systematic literature review showed that a usability evaluation was often skipped, relaxed, or at least omitted from papers reporting the development of DSLs. The few exceptions mostly take place at the end of the development process where fixing problems identified is too expensive. We argue that a systematic approach based on User Interface experimental validation techniques should be used to assess the impact of the new DSLs. The rationale is that assessing important and specially tailored usability attributes for DSLs early in language construction will ultimately foster a higher productivity of the DSL users. This paper, besides discussing the quality criteria, proposes a development and evaluation process that can be used to achieve usable DSLs in a better way.

Machado, R., M. Goulão, F. B. e Abreu, and J. Pascoal Faria, "Introduction to Special Issue: Quality in Information and Communications Technology", Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering, vol. 10, issue 1, pp. 1-2, 2014. machado2014isse.pdfWebsite
e Abreu, F. B., and M. Goulão, "A Merit Factor Driven Approach to the Modularization of Software Systems", L'Object, 2001. Abstract

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Gralha, C., J. Araújo, and M. Goulão, "Metrics for measuring complexity and completeness for social goal models", Information Systems, 2015. AbstractWebsite

Goal-oriented Requirements Engineering approaches have become popular in the Requirements Engineering community as they provide expressive modelling languages for requirements elicitation and analysis. However, as a common challenge, such approaches are still struggling when it comes to managing the accidental complexity of their models. Furthermore, those models might be incomplete, resulting in insufficient information for proper understanding and implementation. In this paper, we provide a set of metrics, which are formally specified and have tool support, to measure and analyse complexity and completeness of goal models, in particular social goal models (e.g. i⁎). Concerning complexity, the aim is to identify refactoring opportunities to improve the modularity of those models, and consequently reduce their accidental complexity. With respect to completeness, the goal is to automatically detect model incompleteness. We evaluate these metrics by applying them to a set of well-known system models from industry and academia. Our results suggest refactoring opportunities in the evaluated models, and provide a timely feedback mechanism for requirements engineers on how close they are to completing their models.

Goulão, M., V. Amaral, and M. Mernik, "Quality in model-driven engineering: a tertiary study", Software Quality Journal, vol. 24, issue 3, pp. 601-633, 2016. Abstract

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11219-016-9324-8

Website

Model-driven engineering (MDE) is believed to have a significant impact in software quality. However, researchers and practitioners may have a hard time locating consolidated evidence on this impact, as the available information is scattered in several different publications. Our goal is to aggregate consolidated findings on quality in MDE, facilitating the work of researchers and practitioners in learning about the coverage and main findings of existing work as well as identifying relatively unexplored niches of research that need further attention. We performed a tertiary study on quality in MDE, in order to gain a better understanding of its most prominent findings and existing challenges, as reported in the literature. We identified 22 systematic literature reviews and mapping studies and the most relevant quality attributes addressed by each of those studies, in the context of MDE. Maintainability is clearly the most often studied and reported quality attribute impacted by MDE. Eighty out of 83 research questions in the selected secondary studies have a structure that is more often associated with mapping existing research than with answering more concrete research questions (e.g., comparing two alternative MDE approaches with respect to their impact on a specific quality attribute). We briefly outline the main contributions of each of the selected literature reviews. In the collected studies, we observed a broad coverage of software product quality, although frequently accompanied by notes on how much more empirical research is needed to further validate existing claims. Relatively, little attention seems to be devoted to the impact of MDE on the quality in use of products developed using MDE.

Bombonatti, D., A. Moreira, and M. Goulão, "Synergies and tradeoffs in software reuse – a systematic mapping study", Software Practice & Experience, 2016. AbstractWebsite

Software reuse is a broadly accepted practice to improve software development quality and productivity. Although an object of study in software engineering since the late sixties, achieving effective reuse remains challenging for many software development organizations. This paper reports a systematic mapping study on how reusability relates to other non-functional requirements and how different contextual factors influence the success of a reuse initiative. The conclusion is that the relationships are discussed rather informally, and that human, organizational, and technological domain factors are extremely relevant to a particular reuse context. This mapping study highlights the need for further research to better understand how exactly the different non-functional requirements and context factors affect reusability.

Goulão, M., and F. B. Abreu, "Validação Cruzada de Métricas para Componentes", IEEE Transactions Latin America, vol. 3, no. 1, 2005. Abstract

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Conference Proceedings
Goulão, M., and S. Matalonga, "Experimental Software Engineering Latin America Workshop (ESELAW 2015)", CIbSE 2015, Lima, Peru, 2015.
Störrle, H., M. R. V. Chaudron, V. Amaral, and M. Goulão, "First International Workshop on Human Factors in Modeling (HuFaMo 2015) @ MODELS 2015 - Preface", First International Workshop on Human Factors in Modeling (HuFaMo 2015) @ MODELS 2015, Ottawa, Canada, 28 Sep., 2015.
Conference Paper
Araújo, J., M. Goulão, A. Moreira, I. Simão, V. Amaral, and E. Baniassad, "Advanced Modularity for Building SPL Feature Models: a Model-Driven Approach", 28th ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, Requirements Engineering Track, ACM-SAC 2013, Coimbra, Portugal, ACM, 18-22 Mar., 2013. Abstractaraujo2013sac.pdf

Feature Models are commonly used to specify commonalities and variabilities in Software Product Lines (SPL). Our goal is to enhance feature modeling with traceability and improved support for crosscutting concerns. While traceability will show the features’ requirement-origins, providing means to reason about
their existence, crosscutting concerns will be handled through advanced modularity mechanisms (e.g. aspects), making the impact of changes to SPL models less difficult to understand and analyze. The result is Theme/SPL, a novel SPL requirements technique based on a concern-driven approach (Theme/Doc). Theme/SPL includes the proposal of a domain-specific language for specifying Theme/Doc models and uses model-driven development to generate automatically feature models from them. We show the applicability of the technique through a case study using a within-group design to evaluate the final results and tools developed.

Baroni, A. L., M. Goulão, and F. B. Abreu, "Avoiding the Ambiguity of Quantitative Data Extraction: An Approach to Improve the Quality of Metrics Results", Work in Progress Session at the 28th EUROMICRO Conference, Dortmund, Germany, 2002. Abstract

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Goulão, M., and F. B. Abreu, "Bridging the gap between Acme and UML 2.0 for CBD", Specification and Verification of Component-Based Systems (SAVCBS'2003), at the ESEC/FSE'2003, Helsinki, Finland, 2003. Abstract

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Goulão, M., "CBSE: a Quantitative Approach", ECOOP Doctoral Symposium, Darmstadt, Germany, 2003. Abstract

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Fernandes, A. I., M. Goulão, and Armanda Rodrigues, "A Comparison of Maps Application Programming Interfaces", 16th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science, AGILE 2013, Leuven, Belgium, May 14-17, 2013. Abstractagile2013fernandesetalcameraready.pdf

The development of web applications that manipulate geo-referenced information is often supported by Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), allowing a fast development cycle for high quality applications. APIs can be used by programmers with different expertise levels and choosing an adequate API may
have a dramatic impact on the productivity achieved by those programmers. Our goal is to compare maps APIs with respect to their usability. We compare three different APIs: the Google Maps JavaScript API, the ArcGIS API for JavaScript, and the OpenLayers JavaScript Mapping Library. Our comparison is supported by
a set of software metrics and is performed in two orthogonal ways: the comparison of three implementations of the same system prototype, each using one of the APIs under scrutiny; the comparison of the APIs specifications. The main results of the study are related to the size of the APIs, with the Google API being significantly smaller than the others.

Goulão, M., and F. B. Abreu, "Composition assessment metrics for CBSE", Euromicro-SEAA 2005: 31st Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications, Porto, Portugal, IEEE Computer Society, pp. 96-103, 2005. Abstract

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Monteiro, A. S., M. Goulão, F. B. Abreu, A. B. Almeida, and P. Sousa, "Controlling the Evolution of Legacy Systems Using Internet Technology: A Defect Report and Tracking System", 6th European Conference on Software Quality, Vienna, Austria, European Organization for Quality, pp. 473-483, 1999. Abstract

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e Abreu, F. B., and M. Goulão, "Coupling and Cohesion as Modularization Drivers: Are we being over-persuaded?", 5th European Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering (CSMR'2001), Lisboa, Portugal, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp. 47-57, 2001. Abstract

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