Ontologies for Software Engineering and Software Technology

There are few books available in the area of Ontology for software engineering and this is one the best. The book has eleven chapters, structured in three sections: Introduction, Ontology and domain set concepts and applied ontology as software artifacts in the software process and technologies. The book has been written for postgraduate students, software engineering researchers and university professors. The book has more than three authors (and several contributors for some chapters). Therefore, the contents have been developed based on the academic standards for use in papers and journals rather than industrial standard that are easy to digest and follow. The first chapter is about the Ontological engineering principles, methods and tools. In chapter two and three the authors introduces using ontology in software engineering & technology and engineering the ontology for the SWEBOK (Software Engineering Body of Knowledge). In the following chapters there are many interesting proposals and approaches including software maintenance ontology and ontology for software measurement. In chapter seven, there is an ontological approach to SQL: 2003 that is interesting to study and follow. Meta-model and general structure of meta-models are introduced and reviewed in chapters eight and nine. In chapter ten, the authors approach the use of Ontologies in software development environment. Sadly this chapter is a little outdated. Chapter eleven which is "Semantic Upgrade and Publication of Legacy Data" is an interesting chapter with useful information and many good illustrations. The first chapters are very useful as an introduction to Ontological engineering. Chapters five to eleven are really for those who are competent in ontology and software engineering but are looking to discover more. "Communication is one of the main activities in software projects, many such projects fail or encounter serious problems because the stakeholders involved have different understandings of the problem domain and/or they use different terminologies. Ontologies can help to mitigate these communication problems. Calero and her coeditors mainly cover two applications of ontologies in software engineering and software techonology: sharing knowledge of the problem domain and using a common terminology among all stakeholders; and filtering the knowledge when defining models and metamodels. The editors structured the contributions into three parts: first, a detailed introduction into the use of ontologies in software engineering and software technology in general; second, the use of ontologies to conceptualize different process-related domains such as software maintenance, software measurement, or SWEBOK, initiated by IEEE; third, the use of ontologies as artifacts in several software processes, like, for example, in OMG's MOF or MDA. By presenting the advanced use of ontologies in software research and software projects, this book is of benefit to software engineering researchers in both academia and industry."--Publisher's website Ontological Engineering: Principles, Methods, Tools and Languages....Pages 1-48 Using Ontologies in Software Engineering and Technology....Pages 49-102 Engineering the Ontology for the SWEBOK: Issues and Techniques....Pages 103-121 An Ontology for Software Development Methodologies and Endeavours....Pages 123-151 Software Maintenance Ontology....Pages 153-173 An Ontology for Software Measurement....Pages 175-196 An Ontological Approach to SQL:2003....Pages 197-215 The Object Management Group Ontology Definition Metamodel....Pages 217-247 Ontologies, Meta-models, and the Model-Driven Paradigm....Pages 249-273 Use of Ontologies in Software Development Environments....Pages 275-309 Semantic Upgrade and Publication of Legacy Data....Pages 311-339 This book covers two applications of ontologies in software engineering and software sharing knowledge of the problem domain and using a common terminology among all stakeholders; and filtering the knowledge when defining models and metamodels. By presenting the advanced use of ontologies in software research and software projects, this book is of benefit to software engineering researchers in both academia and industry.