=Paper= {{Paper |id=None |storemode=property |title=Integrating Tools for Supporting Software Project Time Management: An Ontology-based Approach |pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1041/ontobras-2013_paper20.pdf |volume=Vol-1041 |dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ontobras/QuirinoF13 }} ==Integrating Tools for Supporting Software Project Time Management: An Ontology-based Approach== https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1041/ontobras-2013_paper20.pdf
      Integrating Tools for Supporting Software Project Time
          Management: An Ontology-based Approach
              Glaice Kelly da Silva Quirino, Ricardo de Almeida Falbo

   Ontology and Conceptual Modeling Research Group (NEMO), Computer Science
   Department – Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES) – Vitória, ES – Brazil.
                   gksquirino@inf.ufes.br, falbo@inf.ufes.br


    Abstract. Project Management is a complex process involving several
    activities and a large volume of information. There are several tools offering
    partial solutions for supporting this process, increasing the need for
    integrating some of them, in order to provide a fuller support to the Project
    Management process. This paper presents an integration initiative aiming at
    semantically integrating dotProject, a web-based project management
    application, to ODE, an Ontology-based software Development Environment.
    This integration initiative focuses on the project time management, mainly for
    supporting the following activities: definition of project activities, allocation
    of human resource to these activities, and scheduling. This initiative was
    conducted partially following OBA-SI, an Ontology-Based Approach for
    Semantic Integration, and it was done using a domain ontology built from a
    Software Process Ontology Pattern Language.

    Keywords. Project Management, Semantic Integration, Ontologies, Semantic
    Interoperability, Ontology Pattern Language.

1. Introduction
Project Management is a process that aims at establishing and evolving project plans,
defining activities, resources and responsibilities for the project, as well as providing
information to assess the actual achievement and progress against the plans, in order to
control the project execution [ISO/IEC 2008]. In order to support this process, several
tools are needed, such as tools for project control, software process definition, resource
allocation and scheduling. Ideally, these tools should work together, exchanging data
and services. The use of several tools to support the same process without some degree
of integration between them brings many problems such as rework and inconsistency.
       ODE (Ontology-based Software Development Environment) [Falbo et al. 2005]
is a process-centered Software Engineering Environment (SEE), which has been
developed grounded on ontologies. ODE has several tools, some of them supporting the
Project Management process, such as tools to support software process definition,
resource allocation, estimation, and risk analysis. However, there are still project
management activities that are not supported by ODE, such as project scheduling and
tracking.
        In order to increase the support offered by a SEE, two main approaches are
typically used: (i) developing new tools already integrated to the SEE; (ii) integrating to


                                            47
the SEE tools already available. In the first approach, the same group develops new
tools as integrated pieces of the SEE, continuously expanding its functionality. In the
second approach, the focus is on integrating tools produced by others. The main
challenge in this case is to establish a common understanding of the meaning of the
terms used by the tools, and to solve semantic conflicts between these tools and the SEE
in which they should be integrated.
        In the context of the ODE Project, the first approach was predominant in the first
years of the project. This approach was in line with the main design premise originally
established for the project, namely: if the tools in a SEE are built based on ontologies,
integration can be more easily achieved, since the same set of ontologies is used for
building different tools supporting related software engineering activities [Falbo et al.
2005]. However, more recently, we realized that adopting only this approach is not
enough. Nowadays there are many free software tools available, and sometimes it is
more appropriate to integrate an existing one to ODE, instead of developing a new tool.
Moreover, this is especially important for allowing software organizations continue to
use some tools to which they are already accustomed, preserving their organizational
culture. Thus, we started to work also in integrating existing tools to ODE. The first
effort in this direction was done to integrate Subversion (a version control system) to
ODE [Calhau and Falbo 2010]. Since ODE is an ontology-based SEE, the integration
approach adopted focus on the use of ontology as an interlingua to map concepts and
services used by the different enterprise applications, in a scenario of access to data and
services via a shared ontology, as pointed by Jasper and Uschold (1999).
        Aligned to this new direction of the ODE Project, we decided to improve the
support to Project Management in ODE by means of integrating a tool that could
provide functionalities for scheduling software projects. Since the current version of
ODE runs in the Web platform, we looked for a web-based free project management
tool that provides such functionality, and, after comparing some of them, we decided to
select dotProject1. dotProject is a free open source web-based project management
system, which basically provides functionalities for managing tasks, schedules and
communication with contacts. As pointed in the main page of dotProject1, it does not
provide all the functionalities required for managing projects.
       However, each application (ODE and dotProject) runs independently and
implements its own data and process models. These models are not shared between
applications, leading to several conflicts, including technical, syntactical and, especially,
semantic conflicts. As pointed by Izza (2009), this heterogeneity is considered one of
the major difficulties in the integration problem. In this context, the adoption of an
approach that helps reduce the complexity of this task is important.
        In [Calhau and Falbo 2010], Calhau and Falbo developed OBA-SI (Ontology-
Based Approach for Semantic Integration), an approach to semantic integration of
systems that concentrates efforts on requirements analysis and conceptual modeling. In
this approach, semantic integration is performed in a high abstraction level, promoting
semantic agreement between the systems at the conceptual level. For this, ontologies are
used to assign semantics to items shared between systems, proposing an integration

1
    http://docs.dotproject.net/index.php?title=Main_Page


                                                     48
process independent of technology and covering three layers of integration: data,
services and process. Once OBA-SI is very aligned with the premises of ODE Project
(using ontologies for building and integrating tools), we decided to adopt it in our
integration initiative. However, since dotProject does not provide an API (Application
Programming Interface) providing services, we decided to address integration only in
the data layer.
        In this paper, we present the semantic integration of dotProject to ODE,
following OBA-SI. First, we defined the integration requirements, defining the
integration scenario. Our focus is on integrating functionalities supporting the Project
Time Management process, as defined in the PMBOK [PMI 2008], which involves the
following activities: define project activities, sequence activities, estimate activity
resources, estimate activity duration, and develop schedule. Second, we developed an
ontology addressing this universe of discourse to be used to map the concepts and
relations of both systems. This ontology, called Project Time Management Ontology
(PTMO), was built by assembling patterns of the Software Process Ontology Pattern
Language (SP-OPL) [Falbo et al. 2013]. Besides, we retrieved the structural conceptual
models of the tools to be integrated. ODE’s conceptual model was already available;
dotProject’s conceptual model, on the other hand, had to be excavated. With the
ontology and the conceptual models of the tools to be integrated in hands, we
established mappings between them, in order to assign semantics to the structural
models of the tools. As a result, we achieved an integration model, which were used to
design a mediator. Finally, we implemented the mediator application, integrating
dotProject to ODE.
         This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we present a brief review of the
literature on topics relevant to the context of this work, namely: Project Management
and Systems Integration. In Section 3, we present the PTMO ontology, discussing how it
was built from SP-OPL. In Section 4, we present the semantic integration of dotProject
to ODE, using OBA-SI. Section 5 discusses related works. Finally, in Section 6, we
present the final considerations of this paper.

2. Project Management and Semantic Integration
According to the PMBOK [PMI 2008], “Project management is the application of
knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities in order to meet project
requirements”. It is a complex process that involves several sub-processes, among them
the project planning is a major one. The PMBOK groups planning related activities in
the Planning Process Group, which involves the processes performed to establish the
project scope, define its goals, and develop the course of actions required to attain them.
This group includes processes for Scope Management, Time Management, Cost
Management, Quality Management, Human Resource Management, Communication
Management, and Risk Management, among others.
       As pointed in the introduction of this paper, ODE provides partial support for
some of these processes, namely: Scope Management, Time Management, Quality
Management, and Risk Management. Thus, we have worked to improve this support by
means of developing new tools to ODE, or integrating existing tools to it. In this paper
our focus is on the Project Time Management process, which includes five very inter-



                                            49
related activities [PMI 2008]: define project activities, sequence activities, estimate
activity resources, estimate activity duration, and develop schedule. ODE provides only
partial support to this process, since it does not help in developing schedules. To
improve this support, we decided to integrate dotProject to ODE.
        However, when integrating these systems, conflicts arise. They were developed
by different groups, in different points in time, and they have no concern with
integration. Thus, they can be said heterogeneous, autonomous and distributed systems
[Izza 2009]. Heterogeneous refers to the fact that each application implements its own
data model defining its concepts in its own way. Autonomous means that each
application runs independently of the other. Distributed means that they implement their
data model in their own data repository and this repository is not shared with the other
tool [Izza 2009].
        In particular, there are semantic conflicts, and integration in the semantic level
should take the intended meaning of the concepts in a data schema or in operation
signatures into account [Izza 2009]. Basically, semantic conflicts occur because
applications do not share a common conceptualization. In this context, ontologies can be
used to deal with meaning and semantic heterogeneities. Ontologies can be used as an
interlingua to map concepts and services used by the different systems, in a scenario of
access to data and services via a shared ontology [Jasper and Uschold 1999]. Moreover,
semantic integration should occur at the knowledge level [Park and Ram 2004],
considering that applications must share the meaning of their terminologies.
        Among the various approaches for integrating systems that consider semantics to
integrate systems, there is OBA-SI (Ontology-Based Approach for Semantic Integration)
[Calhau and Falbo 2010]. This approach considers that the integration process is
analogous to the software development process, consisting of phases of requirements
gathering and analysis, design, implementation, testing and deployment. OBA-SI
focuses on the integration analysis phase, in which the semantics may be set. During this
phase, semantic mappings are made between the conceptual models of the tools being
integrated, using an ontology to assign meaning. This ontology should be a reference
ontology, i.e., a solution-independent specification making a clear and precise
description of the domain entities for the purposes of communication, learning and
problem-solving [Guizzardi 2007].
         The integration process of OBA-SI begins with integration requirements
elicitation phase, when the goals and requirements must be established. In this phase, we
need to define the activities of the business process to be supported, the systems to be
integrated to support them, and the domain where the integration takes place. The output
of this phase is the integration scenario. Once defined the integration scenario,
integration analysis can be performed. Figure 1 shows the activities involved in this
phase. First, the conceptual models of the tools to be integrated should be retrieved, as
well as a reference ontology of the domain where the integration takes place should be
selected or developed. Following, concepts and relations of the conceptual models of the
tools to be integrated should be mapped to the concepts and relations of the ontology.
These mappings are said vertical mappings. Once the structural models are semantically
annotated, the integration model is developed. This model is mainly based on the
domain ontology, but it can also include elements of the tools being integrated that do



                                           50
not have a counterpart in the ontology. These elements, if present in both tools, should
be directly mapped, by means of horizontal mappings [Calhau and Falbo 2010].




                                Figure 1. OBA-SI Analysis Phase

      With the integration model in hand, an integration solution can be designed and
implemented. There are several ways to design and implement an integration solution,
and OBA-SI does not commit to any specific integration solution, although it proposes
some guidelines for maintaining the semantic consistency in these steps.
       In order to integrate dotProject to ODE adopting OBA-SI, we needed a reference
domain ontology regarding project time management. Since several planning-related
ODE’s tools were developed based on the version of the Software Process Ontology
presented in [Falbo and Bertollo 2009], we decided to use it. However, this ontology
was reengineered in [Bringuente et al. 2011] to become aligned to the Unified
Foundational Ontology [Guizzardi et al. 2008], and more recently it was defined as an
Ontology Pattern Language (OPL)2 [Falbo et al. 2013]. Thus, we decided to build a
Project Time Management Ontology (PTMO) by assembling patterns of the Software
Process Ontology Pattern Language (SP-OPL).

3. Using the Software Process Ontology Pattern Language to Develop a
    Project Time Management Ontology
       SP-OPL is an OPL for the Software Process application domain. The main
problem areas addressed by SP-OPL are Standard Software Process Definition, Project
Process Definition and Scheduling, Resource Allocation, and Software Process
Execution. In the next section, we discuss how we developed PTMO from SP-OPL.
       SP-OPL has three entry points3, depending on the focus of the ontology
engineer. Considering our purposes, our entry point was the SPP (Software Process
Planning) pattern, which considers the planning of the project process from scratch (i.e.,
without being based on a standard software process). The SPP pattern represents how a
software process is planned in terms of sub-processes and activities, as well as it deals

2
     An OPL aims to provide holistic support for using Domain-related Ontology Patterns (DROPs) in
    ontology development for a specific application domain. It provides explicit guidance on what
    problems can arise in that domain, informs the order to address these problems, and suggests one or
    more patterns to solve each specific problem [Falbo et al. 2013].
3
     Each entry point allows the ontology engineer to focus on certain problems (and thus using certain
    patterns), disregarding others [Falbo et al. 2013].


                                                 51
with activity sequencing [Falbo et al. 2013]. Once defined the project activities, it is
necessary to schedule the project and define the human roles required for performing the
activities. To handle these aspects, the patterns PSCH (Process Scheduling) and HRP
(Human Role Planning) were selected. The first defines the time window for project
processes and activities, while the second defines the human roles responsible for
performing a project activity [Falbo et al. 2013].
        Human resource allocation was treated by reusing the PTD (Project Team
Definition) and TDHRA (Team-dependent Human Resource Allocation) patterns. The
PTD pattern regards the human resources that are member of a project team; the
TDHRA pattern deals with allocating human resources to project activities, considering
team allocation constraints. These patterns are in the Resource Allocation group of
patterns [Falbo et al. 2013].
        Finally, regarding process execution, we reused the PAET (Process and Activity
Execution and Tracking) and HRPAT (Human Resource Participation and Tracking)
patterns. The first registers the occurrences of processes and activities, taking into
account the planned processes and activities, allowing to track the execution against to
what was previously planned; the second registers the participation of human resources
in activity occurrences, taking into account the existence of a prior allocation of these
resources to planned activities [Falbo et al. 2013].
        Figure 2 shows the conceptual model of the PTMO, resulting from the assembly
of these patterns. This conceptual model is written in OntoUML, a UML profile that
enables modelers to make finer-grained modeling distinctions between different types of
classes and relations according to ontological distinctions put forth by the ontology of
endurants of the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO-A) [Guizzardi 2005]. Thus, the
stereotypes shown in Figure 2 represent types of classes and relations as defined in
UFO-A.
       Project Processes are defined for a Project. There are two types of Project
Processes: General Project Process and Specific Project Process. The first is the overall
process defined for the Project. It consists of Specific Project Processes, thus allowing
defining sub-processes. The second is composed by Project Activities, which may be,
Simple Project Activity or Composite Project Activity. These activities are to be
performed by human resources playing certain Human Roles. For example, a
requirements specification activity defined for a project requires a requirements engineer
to perform it. Once the project processes and activities are defined for a project, it is
possible to establish the start and end dates for them, giving rise to Scheduled Processes
and Scheduled Activities, respectively.
       A Human Resource Allocation is the assignment of a Scheduled Activity to a
Human Resource for playing a specific Human Role. A Human Resource Allocation
depends on a Project Team Allocation, which allocates the Human Resource to the
Project Team and indicates the role he/she will play in this team.
        When scheduled processes and activities are executed, they generate Process and
Activity Occurrences, respectively. Analogously to project processes, there are two types
of processes occurrences: General Process Occurrence, which corresponds to the
execution of the process as a whole, and the Specific Process Occurrence, which



                                           52
corresponds to the execution of a particular project process. Similarly, there are two
types of Activity Occurrences: Simple Activity Occurrence, which is an atomic action,
and Composite Activity Occurrence, which is composed of other activity occurrences.
Finally, when activities are performed (Activity Occurrence), they involve various
Human Resource Participations, which refers to the participation of a single Human
Resource.
       Considering the start and end dates of Scheduled Processes and Activities,
Human Resource Allocations, Process and Activity Occurrences, and Human Resource
Participations, it is possible to track the project progress, contrasting what was planned
(scheduled) with what actually happened (occurrences and participations).




                      Figure 2. Project Time Management Ontology


4. Semantic Integration of` Software Project Management Tools
Once defined the integration scenario and the reference ontology, the required structural
conceptual models had to be retrieved. Two different approaches were used. Since ODE
was developed at NEMO, its structural conceptual model was available. On the other
hand, the conceptual model of dotProject had to be excavated.
         Figure 3 presents a fragment of ODE’s structural conceptual model. It is
presented only partially, due to space limitations. In ODE, a General Project Process is
defined for a Project. This General Project Process is decomposed into Specific Project
Processes that, in turn, are decomposed into Activities. During project activity
definition, several process assets (resources, artifacts required and produced and so on)
are defined for each activity, as well as sub-activities and dependencies between
activities. All this information is registered in the Activity Definition class, which
register also the scheduled start and end dates for the activity. For each activity, human
resources can be allocated (HRAllocation), according to the demands informed during
the process definition (HRDemand). When an activity is initialized, its actual start date
is registered in the Activity Execution class, which represents the actual occurrence of


                                           53
the previously planned activity. When a human resource spends some hours performing
an activity to which she has been allocated, the Expended Effort must be registered.




                     Figure 3. A fragment of ODE’s Class Diagram

        With respect to dotProject, we had to excavate its structural conceptual model.
This was done by analyzing its database schema database and its graphical interface.
Figure 4 shows a fragment of the structural conceptual model resulting from this step.
As this figure shows, in dotProject, a Project has Tasks, to which Contacts can be
allocated. Tasks can have sub-tasks and may depend on other tasks. Any events
associated to a task can be registered by means of Task Logs.




                  Figure 4. A fragment of dotProject’s Class Diagram.

        After retrieving the conceptual models of the tools, the next step is to assign
semantics to their concepts and relationships by mapping them to concepts and relations
of the reference domain ontology. These mappings, said vertical mappings [Calhau and
Falbo 2010], allows comparing the concepts of the systems involved. Table 1 shows
part of vertical mappings established to link the concepts of ODE and dotProject to the
concepts of the PTMO ontology.
        Project in ODE and dotProject are directly mapped to the concept of Project in
PTMO, as well as Human Resource in ODE and Contact in dotProject that are directly
mapped to the concept of Human Resource in PTMO. However, most of the concepts
used in the tools are not directly mapped to a concept in PTMO. Contrariwise, in most
cases, we need to consider attributes or relationships between classes to establish the
same semantics of a concept in PTMO. For instance, the concept of Simple Project
Activity in PTMO corresponds to a Task that does not have subtasks associated to it in


                                          54
dotProject (Task.subactivity = null). In ODE, in turn, there are two concepts (Activity
and ActivityDefinition) that map to the concept of Project Activity in PMTO. In order to
know if a project activity is a simple or a composite project activity, it is necessary to
see if the ActivityDefinition defines sub-activities for the corresponding Activity.
                               Table 1. Vertical Mapping of concepts

      PTMO Ontology                                ODE                                dotProject
Project                         Project                                    Project
Human Resource                  Human Resource                             Contact
Human Resource Allocation       HRAllocation                               ---
Project Activity                Activity + ActivityDefinition              Task
Simple Project Activity         Activity + ActivityDefinition, if          Task, if Task.subtask = null.
                                ActivityDefinition.subactivity = null.
Composite Project Activity      Activity + ActivityDefinition, if          Task, if Task.subtask!=null
                                ActivityDefinition.subactivity != null.
Scheduled Activity              Activity + ActivityDefinition, if      Task, if (Task.startDate!=null
                                (ActivityDefinition.scheduledStartDate and Task.startDate >
                                != null and Activity.ActivityExecution currentDate)
                                = null).
Activity Occurrence             Activity + ActivityExecution               Task, if (Task.startDate != null
                                                                           and Task.startDate ≤
                                                                           currentDate)

        These types of mappings (direct and indirect) can also be observed in the case of
vertical mappings between relationships, as shown in Table 2. The relationship “Human
Resource Allocation – refers to – Scheduled Activity” in PTMO is directly mapped to
the relationship “HRAllocation – related to – Activity” in ODE; whereas for mapping
the whole-part relation between Composite Project Activity and Project Activity in
PTMO to ODE, we need to cross two associations: “ActivityDefinition – defines assets
of – Activities” and “Activity – is sub-activity of – ActivityDefinition”.
                             Table 2. Vertical mapping of relationships

            Ontology                                ODE                               dotProject
  Human Resource Allocation –             HRAllocation – related to –
  refers to – Scheduled Activity                  Activity
                                                                            Contact – allocated to – Task
 Human Resource – has – Human              Human Resource – has –
     Resource Allocation                      HRAllocation
                                   ActivityDefinition – defines assets
 Composite Project Activity – is
                                   of – Activity; and Activity – is sub-          Task – parent – Task
 composed by – Project Activity
                                      activity of – ActivityDefiniton

        Once the structural models were semantically annotated, integration modeling
started. In this step, first, the integration model was developed. The integration model is
basically the conceptual model of the ontology plus some concepts arising from
dotProject and others coming from ODE that do not have a counterpart in the ontology
model. Due to space limitations, we do not present the integration model here.



                                                    55
         Regarding the concepts added to the integration model, Activity Occurrence Log,
for instance, was added to represent the dotProject’s class Task Log, since, through task
logs, it is possible to register the participations of human resources in activities (Human
Resource Participation in PTMO).
        With the integration model in hands, horizontal mappings were performed. In
this step, the concepts that do not have a counterpart in the ontology model, and thus
were introduced only in the integration model, were mapped. For instance, Activity
Occurence Log in the integration model was mapped to Task Log in dotProject, and the
relationship “describes” between Activity Occurence Log and Activity Occurence was
mapped to the relationship “describes” between Task Log and Task.
        Once established the horizontal mappings, the integration analysis phase is
concluded, and we can start to design and implement the integration solution. For ODE
and dotProject to communicate, it is necessary that the shared elements are translated.
For doing that, we develop a mediator, which is responsible for translating data
between the systems, as shown in Figure 5. The mediator is located inside ODE,
making easier the access to ODE’s database. In order to access dotProject’s database,
we implemented an interface for external communication, called dpClient4, which
behaves as an API to dotProject, since did not find any API available for dotProject that
fits the purpose of our work.




         Figure 5. General Architecture of the solution for integrating dotProject to ODE


5. Related Works
Ontologies have been recognized as an important instrument for semantically
integrating software applications [Izza 2009]. In the context of project management,
Cheng et al. (2003) have used the Process Specification Language (PSL) Ontology for
integrating Primavera P3, MS Project, Vite SimVision and 4D Viewer. Analogously to
OBA-SI, the integration process used for building a distributed integration infrastructure
also involves mappings between the concepts and relations of the involved systems and
the concepts and relations of the PSL ontology. Moreover, there were also direct and
indirect mappings, such as in our case (see examples given in the previous section).
Although there are several similarities, there are also differences. The PSL Ontology
deals with types of activities and activity occurrences. PTMO coverage, in turn, is


4
    https://github.com/glaice/dpclient


                                               56
wider. It deals with the concepts of commitments (Project Process and Project Activity)
and appointments (Scheduled Process and Scheduled Activities), in addition to the
concept of occurrences (Process Occurrence and Activity Occurrence) as defined in
UFO-C [Guizzardi et al. 2008]. Thus, it is possible to make finer distinctions, especially
because the concepts of commitments and appointments are very important in project
management. Regarding the technological solution for the integration, Cheng et al.
develop wrappers for each application. The PSL wrappers are used to retrieve and
transfer information between the applications, using PSL files. Not all scheduling and
resource information is exchanged between the applications, since the granularity of the
information may be different. Analogously, in our approach, the mediator is responsible
for translating information from ODE to dotProject, using PTMO as an interlingua.
However, in our case, changes made in dotProject do not reflect in ODE, since we have
implemented the information exchange only from ODE to dotProject.
        Concerning the methodological aspect, another work of semantic integration
using OBA-SI is presented in [Calhau and Falbo 2010]. In their work, Calhau and Falbo
integrated the version control system Subversion (SVN) to ODE. Access to SVN is
worked by means of the svnkit library5. To translate data between the tools, a mediator
stores information about the mappings between concepts and relationships of the tools
being integrated and an ontology about the Software Configuration Management
domain. Since in this work we also followed OBA-SI, the approach is quite similar.

6. Conclusions
This paper presented an initiative of semantically integrating dotProject, a web-based
project management system, to ODE, an ontology-based Software Development
Environment. This initiative was conducted partially following OBA-SI [Calhau and
Falbo 2010], an Ontology-Based Approach for Semantic Integration, and it was done
using a Project Time Management Ontology (PTMO), which was built from the
Software Process Ontology Pattern Language [Falbo et al. 2013]. For implementing an
integration solution, we developed a mediator responsible for exporting data from ODE
to dotProject, allowing visualizing schedules in ODE, and thus providing a more
complete support to the project management process in ODE.
     We should highlight some limitations of our work. First, semantic integration is
worked only in the data layer. Moreover, it occurs only from ODE to dotProject, i.e.,
data from ODE’s database are passed to dotProject, but changes in dotProject’s database
are not reflected in ODE. Ideally, the integration should occur in both directions, and in
other integration layers, especially in the service/message layer [Izza 2009]. Thus, there
is room for adding new features to this work, or even integrating other tools in order to
provide a wider support to the Project Management process.
Acknowledgments - This research is funded by the Brazilian Research Agencies
FAPES/CNPq (PRONEX Grant 52272362/11).




5
    http://svnkit.com/


                                           57
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