Institute Name: University College London, Department of Computer Science
Description: The Department of Computer Science at University College London is one of the leading UK Computer Science university departments with a distinguished reputation both in Europe and internationally.
The Department is made up of some 30 Academic staff, 12 technical staff, 12 administrative staff, 45 contract researchers, 45 research students, 100 MSc students (on three different courses), and 250 undergraduates (on 3 BSc CS or CS+X courses, where X is Maths, Electronic Engineering or Cognitive Science, and students studying CS as part of other degrees).
The Department has vibrant teaching and research programmes, which cover a wide range of topics, while being world-class research in a select number of areas particularly Networks, Multimedia Systems, Medical Imaging, Neural Networks and Software Systems Engineering.
The department's computing systems constitute some 300 Unix workstations, as well as some MACs and PCs for support tasks. These are all on the Internet, and all have World Wide Web access. Many are also capable of receiving audio and video from remote classes, and seminars. Details about courses, research and staff are all available in pages on our WWW servers through the links above.
Researchers involved in Requirements Engineering:
Prof. A. Finkelstein, Dr W. Emmerich, Dr B. Farbey, Dr G H Galal, Dr A Hunter, Dr J McDonnell, Dr M A Sasse.
Mail to all researchers at UCLBrief CVs of Key Researchers:
Name: Anthony Finkelstein (Prof.)
Nationality: British
E-mail: A.Finkelstein@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Web: http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/A.Finkelstein
Academic Qualifications & Experience:
B.Eng. degree in Systems Engineering, an M.Sc. in Systems Analysis and a Ph.D. in Design Theory. Currently Professor of Software Systems Engineering at University College London a post held in the Department of Computer Science. Head of the Information Systems Research Group. This appointment started in November 1997.
From 1994 to 1997: Professor of Computer Science at The City University, London and Head of Department of Computer Science.
From 1985 to 1994: a member of academic staff at Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine (University of London).
Summary of RE-related research interests and activity:
Software systems engineering and in particular in requirements engineering. Recent work has included significant contributions to work on specification from multiple viewpoints and to requirements traceability. Currently Director of RENOIR the EU funded Network of Excellence in Requirements Engineering and actively engaged in work on requirements engineering tools.
I have served as Programme Chair and am Chair of the Steering Committee of the series of IEEE International Symposia on Requirements Engineering and have served on many Programme Committees (more than 50) including on several occasions the International Conference on Software Engineering. In 1998 I am Programme Chair of the 9th IEEE International Workshop on Software Specification and Design. I serve on editorial board of several Journals including Automated Software Engineering, of which I am a former editor-in-chief, and the Requirements Engineering Journal. I am editor of the widely circulated Requirements Engineering Newsletter. Among my professional interests I have served as Secretary of IFIP WG2.9 Software Requirements Engineering and as a long-standing member of IFIP WG 8.1 (Design of Information Systems).
I have given a number of keynote addresses at international conferences. I have recently presented tutorials at the International Conference on Software Engineering (on Requirements Engineering) and the European Software Engineering Conference (on Requirements Traceability). I have also presented a major residential course on Systems Requirements Engineering on behalf of the IEE. I have numerous consulting links with industry, these include recent work for Barclays de Zoete Wedd Investment Management, Praxis, Siemens and Philips.
Selected publications:
Viewpoints
Finkelstein, A. & Sommerville, I. "The Viewpoints FAQ" Software Engineering Journal, 11, 1, (1996), 2-4.
Easterbrook, S., Finkelstein, A., Kramer, J. & Nuseibeh, B. "Coordinating Distributed ViewPoints: The Anatomy of a Consistency Check" International Journal on Concurrent Engineering: Research & Applications, 2,3, (1994), 209-222.
Finkelstein, A., Gabbay, D., Hunter, A., Kramer, J., & Nuseibeh, B., "Inconsistency Handling In Multi-Perspective Specifications" IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 20, 8, (1994), 569-578.
Nuseibeh, B., Kramer, J. & Finkelstein, A. "A Framework for Expressing the Relationships Between Multiple Views in Requirements Specification", IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 20, 10 (1994), 760-773.
Process Modelling
Leonhardt, U., Finkelstein, A., Kramer, J., Nuseibeh, B. "Decentralised Process Enactment in a Multi-perspective Development Environment" Proc. 17th International Conference on Software Engineering (IEEE CS Press) 1995.
Nuseibeh, B., Finkelstein, A., & Kramer, J., "Fine-Grain Process Modelling" in Proc. 7th International Workshop on Software Specification and Design - IWSSD-7, (IEEE CS Press) 1993, 42-46.
Requirements Engineering
Gotel, O. & Finkelstein, A. "Extended Requirements Traceability: results of an industrial case study" in Proc. 3rd International Symposium on Requirements Engineering RE95, (IEEE CS Press), 1997, 169-178.
Gotel, O. & Finkelstein, A.; "Contribution Structures" in Proc. 2nd International Symposium on Requirements Engineering RE95, (IEEE CS Press) 1995, 100-107
Finkelstein, A. "Requirements Engineering: a review and research agenda" in Proc 1st Asian & Pacific Software Engineering Conference, (IEEE CS Press) 1994, 10-19.
Gotel, O. & Finkelstein, A.; "An Analysis of the Requirements Traceability Problem" in Proc. 1st International Conference on Requirements Engineering 1994, (IEEE CS Press) 1994, 94-101.
Consistency Management
Finkelstein, A., Spanoudakis, G & Till, D. "Managing Interference" in Proc. ACM SIGSOFT 96 Workshop, Viewpoints 96, (ACM Press), 1996, 172-174.
Name: Wolfgang Emmerich (Dr.)
Nationality: German
E-mail:W.Emmerich@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Web:http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/W.Emmerich
Academic Qualifications & Experience:
Diploma in Informatics (Dortmund), PhD (Paderborn), Research Assistant, Uni Dortmund (1990-1995), Visiting Scholar, University of Queensland (1995-1996), Lecturer in Computer Science, City University (1996-1997), Lecturer in Computer Science, UCL (from 1997). Member of the IEEE Computer Society, the ACM, Secretary of the BCS Specialist Interest Group on Requirements Engineering and Committee Member of the IEE Group A13 (Distributed Systems). Deputy-Director of RENOIR
Summary of RE-related research interests and activity:
Software engineering standards determine practices that `compliant' software processes shall follow. standards generally define practices in terms of constraints that must hold for documents. The standards often include substantial parts for requirements engineering processes. The document types identified by standards include typical development products, such as user requirements, and also process-oriented documents, such as progress reviews and management reports. The degree of standards compliance can be established by checking these documents against the constraints. It is neither practical nor desirable to enforce compliance at all points in the development process. Thus compliance must be managed rather than imposed. We have defined a model of standards and compliance. We have developed notations to support the use of this model. The notations are implemented in an environment, on top of DOORS, a general purpose requirements management tool.
I also have an interest in the intersection between requirements engineering and software architectures that are based on distributed objects. Architectures in general are determined by non-functional requirements, such as performance, useability, reliability, safety, security and the like. The relationship between the architectural style and the non-functional requirements, however, is only poorly understood. Our approach is to classify different architectural styles with respect to the non-functional properties they meet so as to guide a selection of an architecture.
Selected publications:
W. Emmerich. Software Process - Standards, Assessments and Improvements. To appear in: J.-C. Derniame, B. Warboys and A. Kaba (eds): Software Process: Principles, Methodology, Technology. Springer Verlag. 1998.
W. Emmerich: CORBA and ODBMSs in Viewpoint Development Environment Architectures. In: M. Orlowska and R. Zicari (eds). Proc. of the 4th Int. Conference on Object-Oriented Information Systems. Springer Verlag. pp. 347-360. 1997.
W. Emmerich, A. Finkelstein and C. Montangero: "The World and the Machine" - A Critical Perspective on Process Technology. Workshop on Research Direction in Process Technology, Nancy 1997.
W. Emmerich. An Architecture for Viewpoint Environments based on OMG/CORBA. In: Proc. of the Workshop on Viewpoints, San Francisco, Cal. 1996. pp. 207-211. ACM Press. 1996.
W. Emmerich and A. Finkelstein. Do Process-Centred Environments Deserve Process-Centred Tools? In C. Montagnero (ed): Software Process Technology, Proc. of the 5th European Workshop, EWSPT '96. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1149. pp. 75-81. Springer Verlag. 1996.
N. S. Barghouti, W. Emmerich, W. Schäfer and A. H. Skarra. Information Management in Process-Centered Software Engineering Environments. In A. Fuggetta and A. Wolf (eds): Software Process. Trends in Software 4. pp. 53-87. Wiley 1996.
Name: Barbara Farbey (Dr.)
Nationality: British
E-mail:B.Farbey@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Web:http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/B.Farbey
Academic Qualifications & Experience:
BSc. (Cape Town); Dip. OR (LSE); PhD (City University, Systems Science)
Research posts in Information Systems:
Consultancy HM Treasury and Welsh Health Common Services Authority/ Welsh Office
Committee member OASIG (DTI supported Special Interest Group on Organisational aspects of Information Systems
Organiser and co-chair Workshop on IS Evaluation, 3rd European Conference on Information Systems, May 1995
Organising committee 3rd European Conference on Information Systems Evaluation, 1995
Facilitator, Research Exchange on Information Systems, International Conference on Information Systems, 1995
Book Review Editor, European Journal of Information Systems
Editorial Board, Information and Management
Co-editor, European Journal of Information Systems Special Edition on Evaluation (forthcoming)
Referee for several journals
Book reviews for EJIS and Short Book Reviews (International Statistical Institute)
Associate Member, British Computer Society
Member IFIP TC8.2 (Organisational Aspects)
Member, UK Academy of Information Systems
Principal Research interest: appraisal and evaluation of Information Systems (to be continued within RENOIR as applied to value issues in RE)
Other research interests: human and organisational issues in IS incl. strategic management of IS
Selected publications:
Books
1. Farbey B., Land F.F. and Targett D. (eds. 1995) Hard Money-Soft Outcomes: Evaluating and Managing the IT Investment Robert Waller for UNICOM Seminars Ltd., Henley on Thames
2. Farbey B., Land F.F. and Targett D. How to Evaluate Your I/T Investment: A study of methods and practice, Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford, 1993
Papers
1. Farbey B., Land F.F. and Targett D. The Moving Staircase: problems of appraisal and evaluation in a turbulent environment, IT & People (forthcoming, 1999)
2. Clegg, C., Axtell, C., Damodaran, L., Farbey, B., Hull, R., Lloyd-Jones, R., Nicholls, J., Sell, R., and Tomlinson, C. (1997). Information Technology: a study of performance and the role of human and organizational factors, Ergonomics, 40, 851-871
3. Farbey B., Land F.F. and Targett D. (1995) A Taxonomy of information systems applications: the benefits' evaluation ladder European Journal of Information Systems, 4, 41-50
4. Farbey B. Barking up the wrong tree? in Hard Money, Soft Outcomes: Evaluating and Managing the IT Investment (as above) 1995
5. A Taxonomy of Evaluation Methods, Second European Conference on I/S Evaluation, Henley-on-Thames, September, 1994
6. Farbey B., Land F.F. and Targett D. Matching an IT project with an appropriate method of evaluation: a research note on "Evaluating investments in IT" (Farbey, Land and Targett, 1992), Journal of Information Technology, Sept., 1994
7. Farbey B., Land F.F. and Targett D. The Great IT Benefit Hunt, European Management Journal, Sept., 1994 p 270-279
8. Measurement Issues in Information Systems Appraisal, IMEKO TC1 AND TC7 COLLOQUIUM: State and Advances of Measurement and Instrumentation Science, The City University, 8-10 September 1993
9. Farbey B., Land F.F. and Targett D. (1992) Evaluating Investments in IT, Journal of Information Technology, 7, 109-122
10. Farbey B. Software Quality Metrics: Considerations about requirements and requirement specifications (1993) Software Engineering: A European Perspective, Thayer R.H. and McGettrick A.D. (eds.), IEEE Computer Society Press Tutorial, IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos. Reprinted from Information and Software Technology, 32, 1, 1990 60-64
Name: Anthony Hunter (Dr.)
Nationality: British
E-mail: A.Hunter@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Web: http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/A.Hunter
Academic Qualifications & Experience:
Anthony Hunter is a Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at UCL. Prior to this he was a Research Fellow in the Department of Computing at Imperial College, London, where he worked on the EPSRC-funded VOILA project, looking at inconsistency management in requirements engineering. He is currently a member of the EPSRIT-funded FUSION working group looking at formal techniques for merging inconsistent information. He has also worked on past ESPRIT projects including DRUMS and MEDLAR in this area.
Summary of RE-related research interests and activity:
The development of most large and complex systems necessarily involves many people, each with their own perspectives on the system defined by their knowledge, responsibilities, and commitments. Inevitably, the different perspectives of those involved in the process intersect, giving rise to conflicts. From a logics perspective, these conflicts can be viewed as logical contradictions or inconsistencies.
Our approach to this situation relies on identifying inconsistencies in the context in which they arise, and the actions that could be performed in their presence. We believe that inconsistency is not necessarily a problem, as long as we know how to act in the presence of it. Indeed, inconsistencies can be viewed as being useful, since they can help to direct the development process. Certainly, premature resolution of inconsistency can result in the loss of valuable information, and constrain the overall development process.
In this work, we are exploring the use of a logic-based approach to reasoning in the presence of inconsistency. We have demonstrated how partial specifications can be translated into classical logic in order to detect inconsistencies in them. To overcome the trivialisation of classical logic that results when an inconsistency is detected, we propose the use of paraconsistent logics. These mnon-classical logics allow continued development in the presence of inconsistency.
The use of logic has provides us with a precise and unambiguous language in which to identify inconsistencies in evolving multi-perspective specifications. It also provided us with the means to address issues of inconsistency management in a generic way that is independent of any particular software engineering method or formalism. Furthermore, it has provided us with a formal foundation upon which we can build more sophisticated inconsistency handling and reasoning mechanisms.
We are examining the use of labelled logics to "audit" reasoning results and to "diagnose" inconsistencies. The labels facilitate the identification of likely sources of inconsistencies. Such logical analyses can provide guidance about the actions that can be performed in the presence of particular inconsistencies (for example, actions to resolve a conflict, delay resolution, or ameliorate an inconsistent specification).
Selected publications:
L Cholvy and A Hunter (1997) Information fusion in logic: A brief overview, Qualitative and Quantitative Practical Reasoning, (ECSQARU'97/FAPR'97), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 1244, Springer.
A Hunter and B Nuseibeh (1997) Analysing inconsistent specifications, Proceedings of the Third IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering (RE'97), pages 78-86, IEEE Computer Society Press.
Ph Besnard and A Hunter (1995) Quasi-classical logic: Non-trivializable classical reasoning from inconsistent information, in Symbolic and Quantitative Approaches to Uncertainty (ECSQARU'95), pp44-51, edited by C Froidevaux and J Kohlas, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 946, pages 44-51, Springer.
M Elvang-Goransson and A Hunter (1995) Argumentative logics: Reasoning from classically inconsistent information, Data and Knowledge Engineering, 16, 125-145.
A Finkelstein, D Gabbay, A Hunter, J Kramer and B Nuseibeh (1994) Inconsistency handling in multi-perspective specifications<, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 20(8), 569-578. Also in Proceedings of the 4th European Conference on Software Engineering (ESEC'93), edited by Ian Sommerville and M Paul, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 717, pages 84-99, Springer.
D Gabbay and A Hunter (1993) Making inconsistency respectable 2: Meta-level handling of inconsistent data, in Symbolic and Qualitative Approaches to Reasoning and Uncertainty (ECSQARU'93), edited by M Clarke, R Kruse, and S Moral, Lecture Notes in Co
D Gabbay and A Hunter (1991) Making inconsistency respectable 1: A logical framework for inconsistency in reasoning, in Foundations of Artificial Intelligence Research, edited by Ph. Jorrand and J Kelemen, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 535, pages 19-32, Springer.
Name: Galal H Galal (Dr.)
Nationality: Egyptian/ British
E-mail: G.Galal@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Web: http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/G.Galal
Academic Qualifications & Experience:
BSc in Management Sciences (Summa cum laude, Cairo); MSc in Business Systems Analysis and Design (City University, London); PhD in Information Systems Engineering (Brunel University, London). Teaching/research assistant, Sadat Academy for Management Sciences, Management Consultant, Lecturer in Computer Science (Brunel University); currently on secondment to University College London as a Senior Research Fellow in Software Systems Engineering where I act as the Co-ordinator of the RENOIR project and pursue research in Requirements Engineering and Information Systems Engineering Methodology.
Summary of RE-related research interests and activity:
Interpretive methodology in Requirements Engineering (Grounded-theory based); Incremental requirements engineering models, links between theories of knowledge and design and requirements engineering activities; non-sequential process models; Software and Information systems Architectures; Requirements Negotiation.
The focus of my work on Requirements Engineering is the "construction" of system and software requirements -by relevant stakeholders- using systematic and rigorous, but not necessarily mathematical, research methods and tools. In particular, I focus on how non-functional (or quality) requirements can be established and validated in an incremental manner that does not commit the system to a restrictive architecture too early. My work is also concerned with how RE work feeds into the architectural design of software systems. One of the main techniques I am currently developing is "System-Wide Scenarios" which aim at supporting total systems engineering, rather just software. I always welcome the opportunity to discuss applying my techniques to industrial case studies.
Selected Publications:
Galal, G. H. & Paul, R. (1998) A Qualitative Scenario Approach to Designing Evolvable Requirements, submitted to the Journal of Requirements Engineering.
Ellmer, E., Emmerich, W., Finkelstein, A., & Galal, G. H. (1998). Improving Requirements Management. Submitted to CACM Special Issue on Requirements Traceability.
Galal, G. H., & McDonnell, J. T. (1997). Knowledge-Based Systems in Context: A Methodological Approach to the Qualitative Issues. AI and Society, 11, 1-18
Galal, G. H. (1997). An Issue-Driven Perspective on Information Systems Engineering: The Technical Dimension of the Debate. In J. N. D. Gupta (Ed.), Third Americas Conference on Information Systems, (pp. 303-305). Indianapolis, Indiana USA: Association for Information Systems.
Galal, G. H., & McDonnell, J. T. (1995). Realising a Qualitative Approach to KBS Engineering. In J. J. G. Chen (Ed.), Expersys-95: Expert Systems Applications and Artificial Intelligence, 1 (pp. 403-409). San Francisco, California: IITT International.
Galal, G. H., & McDonnell, J. T. (1994). A Qualitative View of Knowledge-Based Systems Requirements Engineering. In Fourteenth International Avignon Conference. Scientific Conference & Applications "conclaves", 1 (pp. 55-63). Paris, France: EC2 International.
Galal, G. H., & McDonnell, J. T. (1993). Using Systemic Grammar Networks for Knowledge Elicitation: A Methodological Perspective. In Thirteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems and Natural Language, May 1993, 1 (pp. 75-84). Avignon, France: EC2 International.
Johnson, L., & Galal, G. H. (1993). KBS Methodologies: Principles and Misconceptions. Systems Research and Information Science, 6(2), 69-83.
Name: Martina Angela Sasse (Dr)
Nationality: German
E-mail: A.Sasse@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Web: http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/A.Sasse
Academic Qualifications & Experience:
M.Sc. in Occupational Psychology
PhD in Computer Science
Summary of RE-related research interests and activity:
Requirements capture
Systems Analysis and Design
Soft Systems Methods
Selected publications:
M. A. Sasse & D. Fulton (in press): Systems Analysis and Design - Essential Concepts and Skills.
D. Fulton & M. A. Sasse (1996): The Impact of the Development Context on the Implementation of RAD. Proceedings of BCS-ISM'96, 395-406.
List of Members