A Context Conceptual Model for a Distributed Software Development Environment

Organizations seeking lower costs, quality software and specialized resources started to use an approach called Global Software Development (GSD). However, this approach also brought some drawbas imposed by the physical distribution, including issues related to communication, cooperation and coordination. There is a need to improve user awareness related to the process and the context in which collaborative artifacts are generated. In this context, conceptual modeling is relevant since conceptual specifications can be used to support understanding, problem-solving, and communication among stakeholders about a given subject domain. This paper presents a conceptual model focused on contextual information for DiSEN, a distributed software engineering environment. Main contributions found on the paper are: (i) the identification of a set of information that compose environment entities context ; and (ii) the definition of a model that facilitates domain semantics comprehension, reducing communication gaps. Keywords-Context modeling; Global software development; conceptual modeling