2003 IMTA Proceedings - International Military Testing Association

SOFTWARE SUPPORT
A working model (proof-of-concept prototype) for a new generation of software tools to
support the performance analysis framework has been constructed. This can be accessed
at the web site of knowledge communities’ research group,
http://www.lpg.fsu.edu/OOPA/. The prototype is entirely web-based and incorporates all
of the features of the framework outlined in the introduction. An important concept
embedded in the design of the prototype is configurability, i.e. tools should be not fixed
to a particular methodology, but be adaptable to the specific methodologies (and
terminology) used in different organizations and groups. The intention is to create a set of
configurable tools and methods, which have a shared underlying representation of
performance analysis knowledge. The system architecture is based on the emerging new
paradigm of service-oriented systems (Yao, Lin and Mathieu, 2003). Service-oriented
systems are constructed from web-based software components which each offer a distinct
service, they differ from traditional systems that package a number of services into an
integrated application. The model enables custom front-ends to be created to a
continuously refined shared repository of knowledge. Each version of the AOOPA
system will have core component categories (see figure 2), but the specific version of
each component will vary from organization to organization. In the current version a third
party collaboration tool called Collabra has used for the collaboration component. If a
different organization used a different collaboration tool this would be ‘plugged in’ in
place of Collabra. Likewise, if different data types were collected in another
organizations methodology (or different terminology used), different data entry templates
could appear. The user support component can be tailored to the specific methodology
employed by an organization.
Analysis System Specific
Interfaces
Visual Modelling
Performance Data Entry
Rationale Management
User Support
Collaboration
User Management
Search
Enterprise-Wide
Data
Handling
Performance
Analysis
Project
Databases
Enterprise Gatekeeper
Reusable
Analysis
Repository
Figure 2: Architecture for the performance analysis support software
Reusable
Solution
Repository
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45 th Annual Conference of the International Military Testing Association
Pensacola, Florida, 3-6 November 2003