Workshop Overview
The construction of service-based software systems,
composed of several interconnected off-the-shelf components (COTS, open
source, web services, etc.), requires some activities to be performed,
among which we find component evaluation, that is becoming increasingly
more critical, due to the ever-growing number of component domains and
products available. This workshop focuses on the study of the models for
representing evaluation criteria and the evaluations themselves, as well
as the processes to conduct the evaluation.
The workshop is a continuation of the
1st MPEC workshop,
held jointly with ICSE'04.
Goals
The main goals of this workshop are the following:
- To collect real case studies in which workshop attendees have participated and to extract knowledge from them
- To identify criteria for classifying the analysed methods and processes to facilitate their adoption
- To provide a forum in which researchers and practitioners working in the subject may share proposals and experiences
- To stimulate discussions among participants better than just attending to talks
- To establish a network of researchers and practitioners interested in the topic
- To create an atmosphere able to exploit synergies for facilitating joint collaboration among participants
- To write down a summary with the most important issues highlighted during the workshop
Format
The workshop will be organized according to the following:
- A keynote opening speech
- Short presentations of the accepted contributions
- Identification of open issues to discuss
- Discussion in small groups
- Wrap-up session and future agenda
Topics
The workshop is intended to cover topics related to off-the-shelf components evaluation, from theoretical foundations to empirical studies, including the following (but are not limited to):
- Formal representation of evaluation criteria (ontologies, data models, etc.)
- Definition and use of software quality models for representing quality criteria
- Dealing with non-technical criteria (supplier characteristics, legal issues, etc.)
- Requirements-driven vs. reusable off-the-shelf components evaluation
- Off-the-shelf component evaluation maintainability (especially dealing with versions)
- Reusability of (parts of) off-the-shelf component evaluations
- Evaluation data bases
- Third-party organizations and their impact on business processes
- Particularities of types of off-the-shelf component (COTS, OSS, GOTS, etc.)
- Certification of off-the-shelf components
- COTS supplier involvement in the evaluation process
- Definition, validation and examples of software metrics
- Metrics definition processes and techniques (GQM, etc.)
- Methods, processes and techniques involving off-the-shelf evaluation
- Actors involved in the off-the-shelf evaluation process
- Impact of component granularity, domain and organization type and size in the evaluation process
- Case studies in off-the-shelf component evaluation
- Tool-support for off-the-shelf component evaluation