Ontology Annotation for Software Engineering Project Management in Multisite Distributed Software Development Environments

Abstract

There are chronic issues in multisite distributed software development which need to be addressed in order to take advantages of the resource pools and around-the-clock work with the time zone differences. One of the most daunting challenges is to address the issues relating to communication and coordination and the unnecessary project delays often caused by miscommunication and improper coordination. There are many more issues in multisite software development, and no single project can address them all, nor should it try to; otherwise the work will be shallow. The objective of this research is to facilitate the software development activities focusing on communication and coordination in multisite distributed software development environments. In this chapter, we present software engineering ontology annotation (SEOAnno), the automated process of assigning software engineering domain concepts to the development process of software products. The SEOAnno aims to clarify any ambiguity in remote communication. We deploy software engineering ontology (SE ontology) which can provide domain knowledge through an annotation process. For a proof-of-concept development, Java source code annotation is chosen because it is a common language and coding is centrally located and critical in multisite software development. The use of the SE ontology-based approach is illustrated and evaluated through a case study for software maintenance and evolution in multisite software development environment. The most complex though common activities in multisite software development environments require an awareness of highly diverse kinds of software artefacts and stakeholders distributed in different sites for the same project. Bug resolution is common yet a complex process for multisite software development. It involves the process of identifying, understanding, fixing a bug, and taking additional steps in order to avoid the recurrence of similar bugs in the future.