Embedding metrics into information systems development methods: An application of method engineering technique

Abstract

Many methods for information systems development such as object oriented analysis and design (OOA & OOD) support the activities to construct artifacts, but do not include the activities to measure the quality of the artifacts or to improve them based on the results of their measurement. In this paper, by using a meta modeling technique, we propose a general framework of extending an existing method into the method which includes the activities for attaching semantic information to the artifacts and for measuring their quality using this information. Embedding this information into a method can be considered as a method assembly of the meta model of the method and the metrics model. We can formally represent this process with Method Engineering Language (MEL). We show an example that our technique is applied to; the extended version of a use case modeling method. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.