=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=None
|storemode=property
|title=Improved GRL Modeling and Analysis with jUCMNav 5
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-978/paper_26.pdf
|volume=Vol-978
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/istar/AmyotRMKTH13
}}
==Improved GRL Modeling and Analysis with jUCMNav 5==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-978/paper_26.pdf
Proceedings of the 6th International i* Workshop (iStar 2013), CEUR Vol-978
Improved GRL Modeling and Analysis with jUCMNav 5
Daniel Amyot, Rouzbahan Rashidi-Tabrizi, Gunter Mussbacher
School of Electrical Eng. and Computer Science, University of Ottawa, Canada
damyot@eecs.uottawa.ca, rouzbahan.r.t@gmail.com, gunterm@eecs.uottawa.ca
Jason Kealey and Etienne Tremblay
JUCM Software Inc., Canada
jkealey@jucm.ca, etremblay@jucm.ca
Jennifer Horkoff
DISI, University of Trento, Italy
horkoff@disi.unitn.it
Abstract. jUCMNav is an open-source Eclipse tool for modeling and analyzing
stakeholder goals, scenarios, and requirements with the User Requirements No-
tation (URN) standard. This paper gives a brief overview of this tool, with an
emphasis on recent improvements targeting URN’s Goal-oriented Requirement
Language (GRL) found in version 5.x.
Keywords: GRL, jUCMNav, URN.
1 Overview of the User Requirements Notation and jUCMNav
The User Requirements Notation (URN) integrates (i) the Goal-oriented Requirement
Language (GRL) for stakeholder objectives and decision rationales and (ii) Use Case
Map (UCM) for scenarios and business processes combined with architectural com-
ponents. One important feature of GRL is the support for strategies, which define
initial satisfaction values (qualitative or quantitative) for some intentional elements in
a goal model that are propagated to other elements of the model (including actors)
through various evaluation algorithms [5]. GRL and UCM have been used individual-
ly and together for more than a decade, in dozens of application areas [2]. The second
version of the URN standard was released in October 2012 [6], four years after the
first release, with several major improvements to GRL that include:
Indicators to handle real-life values (beyond simple satisfaction values) in
goal models. Indicators (symbol: ) convert real-life values into GRL sat-
isfaction values based on linear extrapolation or based on a mapping table.
Strategy inclusion to improve the reuse, consistency, and maintainability of
large collections of GRL strategies.
Contribution changes to enable the description of sets of modifications to
contribution weights in a GRL model (e.g., from different modelers).
Actor importance values to better enable tradeoffs between strategies.
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Proceedings of the 6th International i* Workshop (iStar 2013), CEUR Vol-978
jUCMNav is an Eclipse-based environment for modeling and analysis with URN. Its
development started in 2005, and an overview of version 4.x was given at
iStar’2011 [3]. This is a mature tool that has been used in academia (for teaching and
research), in industry, and even in government agencies for many years, by thousands
of people [2], on academic systems and on real ones. The tool can be installed from
its Wiki site [7], where tutorials, examples, and documentation are also available.
Primary features include the editing of URN models with palettes and context-
sensitive menus. The tool prevents the creation of syntactically incorrect models, but
it also offers users the chance to create, select, and check their own correct-
ness/consistency rules, written in OCL. GRL/UCM elements can also be linked, ste-
reotyped, and grouped, hence enabling the tailoring of the notation to particular do-
mains (e.g., for i*-like modeling [1], or for legal compliance [9]). Copy/paste of mod-
el portions, multiple undo/redo, and many navigation facilities contribute to the usa-
bility and scalability of the tool (e.g., models composed of hundreds of diagrams and
thousands of elements). On the analysis side, UCM scenarios can be defined, run, and
transformed to sequence diagrams. GRL strategies can be defined, evaluated (see
Figure 1), and imported/exported to CSV files. Reports (in HTML, PDF, and RTF)
can be generated to summarize models and analysis results. Models can also be ex-
ported to DOORS. Advanced features for indicators, performance, and aspect model-
ing can each be disabled to simplify the user interface for beginners.
Group
of 3 Evaluated GRL model, with
strategies quantitative contributions
and satisfaction levels,
color highlight and trends
Modeling
elements
Figure 1, jUCMNav 5, with GRL strategy and GRL trends for group “Revenues”.
2 Recent Developments in Version 5 of jUCMNav
The fifth major release of jUCMNav contains many important improvements, espe-
cially for GRL. The tool now supports the new concepts introduced in the second
release of the standard. While quantitative indicators were already available for mod-
eling and analysis [3], jUCMNav now also supports qualitative indicators (illustrated
in [9]), which enable modelers to provide a mapping between enumerated domain-
specific values (e.g., bad, average, good, excellent) and quantitative GRL values (0,
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Proceedings of the 6th International i* Workshop (iStar 2013), CEUR Vol-978
33, 67, 100) or qualitative GRL labels (e.g., WeaklySatisfied and Satisfied). Strategy
inclusion and contribution changes are well illustrated in [4], together with advanced
analysis features such as strategy differences (computing and visualizing the differ-
ences between the evaluations of two GRL strategies), model differences (highlighting
the differences between two versions of a model), and sensitivity analysis (based on
ranges of contribution or satisfaction values in strategies, instead of on specific val-
ues). Note that recent experience in using GRL for modeling laws [4,9] also led us to
introduce a new alternative GRL satisfaction scale ([0..100], in addition to the stand-
ard [-100..100] scale), considered as more intuitive by many users. Also, given that
laws in Canada are written in French and English, jUCMNav now supports bilingual
models, where the labels and descriptions of elements can be switched from one lan-
guage to the other (in addition to having the tool’s interface in both languages).
Recent additions also include: i) simpler and more efficient UI to create, delete,
and navigate URN links, ii) new capabilities to show the actors or intentional element
related (through links or inclusion) to another actor/element (to various depths), iii)
the possibility to define possible stereotypes and the type of model elements they can
apply to, with appropriate pop-up menus to apply these stereotypes (useful in the
context of [1,9]), iv) OCL rules and improved propagation algorithms that support
goal model families, which enable the modeling and analysis of many variants in one
GRL model [8], and v) the computation and visualization of trends (up , stable ,
down , varying , and insufficient data , see Figure 1) based on a sequence of
strategies in a strategy group. Trends are also included for GRL elements in reports.
jUCMNav is still evolving. Future plans include further usability improvements, a
textual syntax for URN, and better support for aspect-oriented extensions to GRL.
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