Knowledge-Based Support for Requirements Engineering

The accurate capture and representation of user requirements plays a critical role in the construction of effective and flexible information systems. However, despite the introduction of development methods and CASE tools in the project life-cycle, the process of developing a requirements specification remains problematical. This paper proposes that future development in CASE environments should provide facilities which more closely match the activies of expen system analysts. These activities include: the creation of infonnal models and scenarios about the modelled domain prior to the formalisation of captured concepts in a schema according to the chosen development method's model; extensive use of domain knowledge; use of method specific knowledge; consideration of multiple views about the modelled domain; the creation of hierarchies of concepts; formulation of hypotheses about modelled structures; and resolution of different hypotheses and decision fonnulation. To this end, the paper reports on a prototype system which provides facilities for the support of these activities by exploiting knowledge-based techniques for the capture of concepts about an application domain and their specification in JSD constructs. .