Sponsor

Clay E. Williams, PhD
Manager, Software Quality and Testing Research
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
19 Skyline Drive
Hawthorne, NY 10532
Phone: 914-784-7457

Background:

Use case diagrams are among the most frequently used diagram type in the UML 2.0 language. However, diagrams are only the starting point in the effective use of use cases. To fully realize the value of use-case driven processes, teams need to create descriptions that further define the interaction between the system and the actors that use it. These descriptions are essentially stories that place the requirements for the software in context, and can serve as input to many activities later in the software process, including UI design, architecture and system design, and validation.
In spite of the fact that use cases are very valuable in the software development process, support for creating and managing the lifecycle of use cases is currently poor. Many organizations that follow use-case driven processes rely on standard text processors such as Microsoft© Word to create and manage use cases. This approach is lacking in several regards. Refining and adding detail to the use cases is tedious, the use case descriptions are not well integrated with UML tools, there is little to no traceability to other software artifacts, and the end result is not machine processable in any meaningful way.
The goal of this project will be to develop a use case authoring tool that overcomes these issues. The tool will be built on standard Eclipse capabilities, and will be extensible. It will be compliant with the UML 2.0 notion of use cases, so that it will be possible to integrate it with Eclipse-based UML tools. It will provide the following features:
• Support for the use case authoring process, including use case discovery and multiple levels of detail in the use case descriptions.
• The capability to go from use cases to high level use case realizations, which describe some details about how the system actually carries out the use cases.
• Architectural alignment with Eclipse and key Eclipse-based IBM software development products.
• Support for traceability to other artifacts in the software lifecycle.

As the goal is the delivery of a working tool, this is a two semester project.
The customer for this project is Clay Williams, Manager of Software Quality and Testing at the IBM Watson Research Center. We anticipate that the output of this project will be licensed under the Common Public License (CPL) and will be useful in both research projects and as a component in tools for working with use cases.

Recommended Reading: Use Case Modeling by Kurt Bittner and Ian Spence. (Addison-Wesley, 2003).

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