Master thesis (MA), Diploma thesis (DA): Context Utilization in ...

Jörn David, david@in.tum.de page 1 of 2 02.11.2006Master thesis (MA), Diploma thesis (DA): Context Utilization inSoftware Development ProcessesTopic description, motivationComprehensive knowledge flow across the software development lifecycle and acrossdistributed developer teams is crucial for the success of a software development project.More specific, individual users (i.e. software developers and engineers) are proactively andautomatically provided with context-sensitive software engineering knowledge. The overallgoal is to enable efficient and effective knowledge management by sharing and reuse ofartifacts in the software development process.One goal of this thesis is to support a machine learning system that can learn and predictsequences of symbols and complex entities.This technology in turn enables personalized and context-sensitive recognition of softwaredevelopment contexts and their prediction.Problem statementCore work-subject is to develop a formal, machine-processable (understandable, in terms ofthe Semantic Web) context model in the area of Software Engineering.o Survey of existing context models, technologies in general (to be leveraged),semantic web technologies, etc. in software engineeringo Types of context sources to consider System models: UML class diagrams, source code Rationale models, documentation, annotations Organizational models such as Gantt charts Team communication: posts, discussion threads, e-mail, etc. …o Formal context representation (finally also an XML-based serialization is required) Grammars: context-free, context-sensitive; in order to describe structuredcontents. Ontologies, RDF/OWL technology Context logics such as Logic of Context (LoC), Local Model Semantics …o Abstract context model Context entities, context types, formal type interpretation, etc.An evaluation of the significance and quality of each context type has to bedone. Final output of the context model from a technical perspective:(typed, temporal, composite) sequences of context entities that aretransformable to feature vectors.The second work package of the MA/DA is the design and implementation of a contextobserver based on the developed context model. The observer must support a dynamic contextprocess model, which exists of the following process phases, for example:1. elicitation2. construction3. dissemination4. interpretation, mediation, usage

Jörn David, david@in.tum.de page 2 of 2 02.11.2006On top of this a concrete use case (application domain) is to be conducted that exploits thecontextualized information provided by the context observer.For further information please talk to Jörn David, david@in.tum.de.