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Assessing Object-Oriented Conceptual Models Maintainability

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Book cover Advanced Conceptual Modeling Techniques (ER 2002)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2784))

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Abstract

Conceptual modeling has become a key task in the early phases of object oriented (OO) software life cycle. In the development of OO software class diagrams represent the conceptual schema that reflects not only the objects of the application domain but also the behaviour of them. Indeed, class diagrams constitute the backbone of OO software so, their quality has a great impact on the quality of the product which is finally implemented. To assess class diagram quality, it is useful to have quantitative and objective measurement instruments. After having thoroughly reviewed existing OO measures applicable to class diagrams at a high-level design stage, we defined a set of metrics for UML class diagram structural complexity (and internal quality attribute), with the idea that it is related to maintainability of such diagrams. In order to gather empirical evidence that the proposed metrics could be early indicators of class diagrams maintainability, we carried out a controlled experiment. The main goal of this paper is to show each of the steps of the experimental process, and how we have built a prediction model for class diagram maintainability based upon the data collected in the experiment using a novel process, the Fuzzy Prototypical Knowledge Discovery process.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Paseo de la Universidad, 4, 13071, Ciudad Real, Spain

    Marcela Genero, José Olivas, Mario Piattini & Francisco Romero

Authors
  1. Marcela Genero
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  2. José Olivas
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  3. Mario Piattini
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  4. Francisco Romero
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Architecture Department, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain

    Antoni Olivé

  2. Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University, Yoshida Honmachi, Sakyo, 606-8501, Kyoto, Japan

    Masatoshi Yoshikawa

  3. Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, M5S 3E4, Canada

    Eric S. K. Yu

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© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Genero, M., Olivas, J., Piattini, M., Romero, F. (2003). Assessing Object-Oriented Conceptual Models Maintainability. In: Olivé, A., Yoshikawa, M., Yu, E.S.K. (eds) Advanced Conceptual Modeling Techniques. ER 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2784. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-45275-1_26

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-45275-1_26

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-20255-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45275-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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