The Research on Model Transformations, Based on Domain Metamodel, for Designing Requirements Specifications

ion [26]. 3 Roles of ontologies in software engineering Ontologies, for software design and development, can be used with the following objectives [29] [26]: • Specification: ontologies are used to specify either the requirements and components definitions (informal use) or the system ́s functionality. • Confidence: ontologies are used to check the system ́s design. • Reusability: ontologies could be organized in modules to define domains, subdomains and their related tasks, which could be later reused and/or adapted to other problems. • Search: ontologies are used as information repositories. • Reliability: ontologies could be used in (semi)–automatic consistency checking. • Maintenance: ontologies improve documentation use and storage for system’s maintenance. • Knowledge acquisition: ontologies could be used as a guide for the knowledge acquisition process. Within Software Engineering, two main roles for ontologies have been considered [30]: • Ontologies for the Software Engineering Process: the definition, re–use and integration of software components is aided by the use of ontologies as the conceptual basis. • Ontologies for the Software Engineering Domain: the use of ontologies to describe the structure and terminology of the software engineering domain itself.