Context Information Support in a Measurement and Evaluation Framework ..............................

1
Context Information Support in a Measurement and
Evaluation Framework.............................
........................
WEE-NET Web Engineering Network of
Excellence ALFA Meeting Como, Italy - July 17,
2007
Author Hernán Molina Supervisor Dr. Luis
Olsina GIDIS_Web, Depto Informática Facultad de
Ingeniería Universidad Nacional de La
Pampa Argentina E-mail hmolina,
olsinal_at_ing.unlpam.edu.ar
Contents

• Introduction
• Objectives
• Background
• INCAMI Framework
• Context-aware approach
• Proposal C-INCAMI
• Conclusions and Future Works

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Introduction

• In all science fields several factors bear on the
  interpretation of the available data and
  information ...
• Particularly in measurement and evaluation
  activities as part of quality assurance projects
  and programs,
• Data, information (and knowledge) are used in an
  organization as input for decision making.
• The INCAMI Framework soundly specifies and allows
  the use metrics and indicators data and metadata
  to the analysis of different projects in an
  organization...
• Analysis results could be inconsistent between
  projects if the relevant context is not
  considered.

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Objectives

• To incorporate context information into the
  INCAMI Framework 4,5 in order to
• give support in recommending and improving design
  solutions (e.g. the selection of the better
  metric, the better quality model, etc.)
• provide more robust analysis and comparisons
  results among different measurement and
  evaluation project (intra and cross
  organizations)

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BackgroundINCAMI

• INCAMI is a goal-oriented, organization-centred
  Measurement and Evaluation Framework
• It supports the specification of NF requirements,
  measurement and evaluation design and
  implementation through the use of Metrics and
  Indicators (and related concepts).

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BackgroundINCAMI

• We argue that knowing the context in which the
  measurement and evaluation activities will be
  executed may improve consistence and coherence of
  results

This information should be replaced by a more
complete and structured mechanism (i.e. a context
model) in such a way that can be automatically
processed.
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BackgroundContext-aware Approach

• Several context definitions have been provided by
  different authors... but in general we can draw
  that
• The context is composed by all relevant
  information that may be used to characterize the
  situation of an entity -a person, place or,
  generally, an object. (Dey 3)
• Existing context-aware approaches classify
  context information according to the dimension to
  which it belongs
• Common dimensions used in other related works
  (e.g. Ubiquitous computing) are time, space,
  role, function, entity (among others)
• Dimensions depends on the domain on which the
  context-aware approach will be applied.
• The use of context information within an
  information system requires a model that allows
  to represent such information in a
  machine-processable way.

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The C-INCAMI ProposalDefining Context

• To apply a contex-aware approach we must
  understand what context is (Dey 3).
• Context is not absolute, it is rather
  context-sensitive
• instead of defining the term context globally
  we must define what "context" means to us.
• To define "context" to our proposal we must first
  determine
• the context in which we will define it
  measurement and evaluation of entities in a
  software project of some organization, and
• the purpose we want to be able to recommend
  measurement and evaluation design solutions as
  well as to provide a reference base for
  interpretation of measurement and evaluation
  results.

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The C-INCAMI ProposalDefining Context

• Definition of our context
• Context refers to all the relevant information,
  relative to a software project and the
  organization, that affects the interpretation of
  measurement and evaluation data regarding the
  stated information need to that matter.

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The C-INCAMI ProposalCharacterization of Context

• By characterizing "context" to our purpose we can
  identify the elements that will constitute its
  structure, so that we can provide a model to
  represent context information and how that model
  will be integrated with the existing INCAMI
  domain model.

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The C-INCAMI ProposalCharacterization of Context

• Context information is relative to a specific
  entity
• Context information is that which is relevant
  regarding
• an specific task for that entity
• the specific purpose for that task
• the relevant aspects of that entity (those
  involved in the considered task)
• the situation of that entity regarding the task
  and its interaction with other context elements
• Context information belongs to internal and
  external properties of the entity and their
  relationships in a given situation
• these properties are structured and have
  associated a given lexicon.

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The C-INCAMI ProposalThe Context Model

• A context domain space is kept separatedly from
  the INCAMI domain space, whilst contextualization
  is performed by establishing relationships
  between them.
• Context is represented as an aggregation of
  context properties.
• Context properties are classified into a SWE
  taxonomy and defined semantically by specifying
  its meta-data (including a Metric specifying how
  properties' values can be yielded and expressed).

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The C-INCAMI ProposalThe context model

• The proposed classification of context properties
  for the Software and Web Engineering domain

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The C-INCAMI ProposalThe Context Model

• Two situations of contextualization
• Describing the context of a measurement and
  evaluation project (the old contextDescription
  in InformationNeed)
• Describing the context to which some Contextual
  Elements (from the INCAMI domain) are applicable
• e.g. a Quality Model, a Metric and an Indicator

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The C-INCAMI ProposalThe Context Model
Conceptual Model for integration of context
information to INCAMI
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The C-INCAMI Proposal

• Some Features
• Simple context is just an aggregation of
  properties with name- value pairs, plus some
  additional descriptive information
• Flexible classes an instances of context
  properties can be created or modified
• Specific through the use of a domain
  conceptualization
• Semantically defined and well formed at all
  levels of abstraction (classes, instances, and
  values)
• Organization-oriented
• Loosely coupled to the INCAMI Framework

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Conclusions

• A model to represent context information within
  the INCAMI framework was presented allowing to
  contextualize measurement and evaluation data for
  interpretation and design recommendation
  purposes.
• Data and meta-data of context information is now
  available
• The presented approach is simple, flexible, sound
  and organization-focused, intended to improve key
  entities by providing more accurate information
  for decision making.

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Ongoing and Future Work

• Development of a mechanism of context comparison
  to provide automatic support for design
  recommendations and results interpretation.
• Development of a Contextual INCAMI prototype
  tool.
• Extending the use of context information in
  maintaining an organizational memory to improve
  future solutions in measurement and evaluation
  activities.

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References

• Baffini, M., Rivera, B., Olsina, L. Sistema
  Colaborativo de Revisión de Métricas. III
  Workshop de Ingeniería de Software y Bases de
  Datos, XII CACIC, San Luis, Arg., 2006.
• Covella, G. Olsina, L 2006, Assessing Quality
  in Use in a Consistent Way, In ACM proceedings,
  Int'l Congress on Web Engineering, (ICWE06), San
  Francisco, USA, pp. 1-8, ISBN 1-59593-352-2.
• Dey, A.K. Understanding and Using Context.
  Personal and Ubiquitous Computing Journal,Vol. 5
  (1), 2001, pp. 4-7. ISSN 1617-4917 (Online),
  Springer London.
• Olsina, L Papa, F. Molina, H 2007, How to
  Measure and Evaluate Web Applications in a
  Consistent Way, Chapter Book to appear in a
  Springer Book named Web Engineering Modelling
  and Implementing Web Applications, Rossi, Pastor,
  Schwabe, and Olsina Eds.
• Olsina, L Molina, H Papa, F. 2005
  Organization-Oriented Measurement and Evaluation
  Framework for Software and Web Engineering
  Projects, Lecture Notes in Computer Science of
  Springer, LNCS 3579, Int'l Congress on Web
  Engineering, (ICWE05), Sydney, Australia, pp.
  42-52
• Strang, T., Linnhoff-Popien, C. A Context
  Modeling Survey. In Workshop on Advanced Context
  Modelling, Reasoning and Management, UbiComp 2004
  - The Sixth Intl Conference on Ubiquitous
  Computing, Nottingham, UK, pp. 34-41, 2004,
  http//citeseer.ist.psu.edu/strang04context.html

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Thank you!!......................................
...............
WEE-NET Web Engineering Network of
Excellence ALFA Meeting Como, Italy - July 17,
2007
Questions?
Engineering School, National University of La
Pampa Argentina E-mail hmolina,
olsinal_at_ing.unlpam.edu.ar
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The C-INCAMI ProposalTrade-offs

• A generic modeling approach (such as the last
  seen with five or six dimensions for information)
  is too loose to our aim and could allow
  evaluators to use unsound context descriptions,
• An approach consisting of specific and concrete
  context elements could limit the possible context
  descriptions to be specified,
• The model should be flexible and easily
  integrated to the existing INCAMI model,
• The selected context approach should be useful in
  decision-making processes,
• mainly, from the information management point of
  view.

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The C-INCAMI ProposalThe Context Model
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The C-INCAMI ProposalContext Specification and
Use

• Specific classes of context properties and
  properly defined instances of them are specified
  by the stakeholders of an organization, and
  stored in a Context Catalog, in a colaborative
  way 1 to satisfy specific information needs.

Specification and Use of context information in
Measurement and Evaluation Projects in the
organization
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The C-INCAMI ProposalContext Specification and
Use

• Design recommendations and interpretation support
  is based on the comparison of contexts
• The measurement and evaluation project's context
  will be compared against a Contextual Element's
  context to recommend about its applicability to
  that project
• Two (or more) measurement and evaluation
  projects' contexts will be compared to determine
  if the results intepretation on one can be
  applied to the other project.