UML2PROV: Automating provenance capture in software engineering

Abstract

In this paper we present UML2PROV, an approach addressing the gap between application design, through UML diagrams, and provenance design, using PROV-Template. PROV-Template is a declarative approach that enables software engineers to develop programs that generate provenance following the PROV standard. The main contributions of this paper are: (i) a mapping strategy from UML diagrams (UML State Machine and Sequence diagrams) to templates, (ii) a code generation technique that creates libraries, which can be deployed in an application by creating suitable artefacts for provenance generation, and (iii) a demonstration of the feasibility of UML2PROV implemented with Java, and a preliminary quantitative evaluation that shows benefits regarding aspects such as design, development and provenance capture.