Abstract
The i* (i-star) framework is one of the most widely adopted modelling approaches by several communities (business modelling, requirements engineering, ...). Probably due to its highly strategic nature, the definition of the modelling language offered by the framework does not make explicit the full behaviour of some basic constructs, leaving them thus open to several interpretations. This looseness may not be important in some contexts, even it may be beneficial since it leaves room for researchers to customize the framework to their needs. However, it becomes an obstacle in other situations, e.g., model interoperability and model-driven development. In this paper we identify ambiguities and silences in the i* language definition in a systematic manner, and then we propose an interpretation to deal with them. In some cases, the proposal may include the addition of some annotation into some language construct. The result is a formal definition taking the form of a UML conceptual data diagram (a metamodel) with several important integrity constraints.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Yu, E.: Modelling Strategic Relationships for Process Reengineering. PhD.Computer Science University of Toronto, Toronto (1995)
Estrada, H., Martínez, A., Pastor, O., Mylopoulos, J., Giorgini, P.: Extending organizational modeling with business services concepts: An overview of the proposed architecture. In: Parsons, J., Saeki, M., Shoval, P., Woo, C., Wand, Y. (eds.) ER 2010. LNCS, vol. 6412, pp. 483–488. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Yu, E., Giorgini, P., Maiden, N., Mylopoulos, J. (eds.): Social Modeling for Requirements Engineering. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2011)
Mouratidis, H., Giorgini, P., Manson, G.: Integrating Security and Systems Engineering: Towards the Modelling of Secure Information Systems. In: Eder, J., Missikoff, M. (eds.) CAiSE 2003. LNCS, vol. 2681, Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Franch, X.: Fostering the Adoption of i* by Practitioners: Some Challenges and Research Directions. In: International Perspectives on Information Systems Engineering. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Colomer, D., López, L., Franch, X., Cares, C.: Model Interchange and Tool Interoperability in the i* Framework: An Experiment. In: WER 2011 (2011)
Alencar, F., Marín, B., Giachetti, G., Pastor, O., Castro, J., Pimentel, J.H.: From i* requirements models to conceptual models of a model driven development process. In: Persson, A., Stirna, J. (eds.) PoEM 2009. LNBIP, vol. 39, pp. 99–114. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)
López, L., Franch, X., Marco, J.: Defining Inheritance in i* at the Level of SR Intentional Elements. In: iStar 2008 (2008)
The i* Wiki, http://istar.rwth-aachen.de (last accessed July 2011)
ITU-T Recommendation Z.151 (11/08), User Requirements Notation (URN) - Language Definition (2008), http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-Z.151/en ,
Bresciani, P., Giorgini, P., Giunchiglia, F., Mylopoulos, J., Perini, A.: Tropos: An Agent-Oriented Software Development Methodology. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 8(3) (2004)
Amyot, D., Horkoff, J., Gross, D., Mussbacher, G.: A lightweight GRL profile for i* modeling. In: Heuser, C.A., Pernul, G. (eds.) ER 2009. LNCS, vol. 5833, pp. 254–264. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)
Susi, A., Perini, A., Mylopoulos, J.: The Tropos Metamodel and its Use. Informatica (2005)
Cares, C., Franch, X.: A metamodelling approach for i* model translations. In: Mouratidis, H., Rolland, C. (eds.) CAiSE 2011. LNCS, vol. 6741, pp. 337–351. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)
Ayala, C., Cares, C., Carvallo, J.P., Grau, G., Haya, M., Salazar, G., Franch, X., Mayol, E., Quer, C.: A Comparative Analysis of i*-Based Agent-Oriented Modeling Languages. In: SEKE 2005 (2005)
Cares, C., Franch, X., Mayol, E., Quer, C.: A Reference Model for i*. Book chapter in [3] (2011)
Lucena, M., Santos, E., Silva, C., Alencar, F., Silva, M.J., Castro, J.: Towards a unified Metamodel for i*. In: RCIS 2008 (2008)
OpenOME Tool, http://www.cs.toronto.edu/km/openome/ (last accessed, March 2011)
jUCMNav Tool, http://jucmnav.softwareengineering.ca (last accessed, March 2011)
Lockerbie, J., Maiden, N.: REDEPEND: Extending i* Modelling into Requirements Processes. In: RE 2008 (2008)
TAOM4E Tool, http://selab.fbk.eu/taom/ (last accessed, March 2011)
Horkoff, J., Yu, E.: Finding solutions in goal models: An interactive backward reasoning approach. In: Parsons, J., Saeki, M., Shoval, P., Woo, C., Wand, Y. (eds.) ER 2010. LNCS, vol. 6412, pp. 59–75. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Amyot, D., Ghanavati, S., Horkoff, J., Mussbacher, G., Peyton, L., Yu, E.: Evaluating Goal Models within the Goal-oriented Requirement Language. International Journal of Intelligent Systems 25(8) (2010)
Giorgini, P., Mylopoulos, J., Nicchiarelli, E., Sebastiani, R.: Reasoning with goal models. In: Spaccapietra, S., March, S.T., Kambayashi, Y. (eds.) ER 2002. LNCS, vol. 2503, p. 167. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)
Horkoff, J., Elahi, G., Abdulhadi, S., Yu, E.: Reflective analysis of the syntax and semantics of the i* framework. In: Song, I.-Y., Piattini, M., Chen, Y.-P.P., Hartmann, S., Grandi, F., Trujillo, J., Opdahl, A.L., Ferri, F., Grifoni, P., Caschera, M.C., Rolland, C., Woo, C., Salinesi, C., Zimányi, E., Claramunt, C., Frasincar, F., Houben, G.-J., Thiran, P. (eds.) ER Workshops 2008. LNCS, vol. 5232, pp. 249–260. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Webster, I., Amaral, J., Cysneiros, L.M.: A Survey of Good Practices and Misuses for Modelling with i* Framework. In: WER 2005 (2005)
Moody, D., Heymans, P., Matulevicius, R.: Visual Syntax does matter: Improving the Cognitive Effectiveness of the i* Visual Notation. Req. Engineering Journal 15(2) (2010)
Cares, C., Franch, X., Perini, A., Susi, A.: Towards Interoperability of i* Models using iStarML. Computer Standards & Interfaces 33(1) (2011)
Carvallo, J.P., Franch, X.: On the use of i* for architecting hybrid systems: A method and an evaluation report. In: Persson, A., Stirna, J. (eds.) PoEM 2009. LNBIP, vol. 39, pp. 38–53. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)
Annosi, A., Pascale, A., Gross, D., Yu, E.: Analyzing Software Process Alignment with Organizational Business Strategies using an Agent- and Goal-oriented Analysis Technique. In: iStar (2008)
Maiden, N., Jones, S., Ncube, C., Lockerbie, J.: Using i* in Requirements Projects: Some Experiences and Lessons Learned. Book chapter in [3] (2011)
OMG 2.2 Unified Modelling Language Superstructure (2009)
MOF 2.0 Core Final Adopted Specification (2006)
Guizzardi, G., Wagner, G.: Using UFO as a Foundation for General Conceptual Modeling Languages. In: Theory and Application of Ontologies. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
López, L., Franch, X., Marco, J. (2011). Making Explicit Some Implicit i* Language Decisions. In: Jeusfeld, M., Delcambre, L., Ling, TW. (eds) Conceptual Modeling – ER 2011. ER 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6998. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-24606-7_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-24606-7_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-24605-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-24606-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)