Quality patterns for conceptual modelling

Abstract

Patterns have generated a large interest during last years. In software engineering, a pattern is a reusable solution based on the capitalization of well known and agreed practices. The role of a pattern is to speed up development process. The aim of this paper is twofold: it first proposes a concept of quality pattern. The latter is used to structure and to package predefined solutions for evaluation of conceptual modelling quality. The second contribution is related to the combination of two concepts, namely quality patterns and design patterns in a three-step process aiming at i) guiding the quality evaluation by the use of quality patterns, ii) helping designers improve conceptual models using design patterns, iii) evaluating the improvement by quality measurement. © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.