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Software testing is a knowledge intensive process. Thus, Knowledge Management (KM) emerges as a means to manage testing knowledge, and, consequently, to improve software quality. However, there are only a few KM solutions supporting software testing. This paper reports experiences from the development of an approach, Ontology-based Testing Knowledge Management (OntoT-KM), to assist in launching KM initiatives in the software testing domain with the support of Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs). OntoT-KM provides a process guiding how to start applying KM in software testing. OntoT-KM is based on the findings of a systematic mapping on KM in software testing and the results of a survey with testing practitioners. Moreover, OntoT-KM considers the conceptualization established by a Reference Ontology on Software Testing (ROoST). As a proof of concept, OntoT-KM was applied to develop a KMS called Testing KM Portal (TKMP), which was evaluated in terms of usefulness, usability and functional correctness. Results show that the developed KMS from OntoT-KM is a potential system for managing knowledge in software testing, so, the approach is able to guide KM initiatives in software testing.

Software organizations use several applications to support their software processes. To properly support the software processes, applications should be integrated at different layers (data, service, and process). Moreover, the integration should cover semantic aspects. Therefore, an approach that provides guidelines on how to perform integration at different layers addressing semantic aspects can be helpful. This paper presents an extension of the Ontology-based Approach for Semantic Integration (OBA-SI), focusing on semantic integration at process layer. This extension establishes relationships between integration at data, service and process layers, and uses task ontologies and a process ontology to guide integration at process layer. It was used to provide an integrated solution involving applications supporting the Issue Management and Software Configuration Management processes.

Reuse has been recognized as an important practice in software engineering. The use of patterns makes it easier to reuse successful solutions, speeds up the development process, and promotes the application of good practices. Related patterns can be organized in a Pattern Language (PL), which represents the patterns and their relations, and provides guidance on how to select, reuse and integrate them. Visual notations are often used to provide a graphical representation to PLs. Aiming to investigate how PLs related to software have been visually represented, we carried out a systematic mapping. We identified and analyzed 64 PLs. As a result, we noticed a lack of consensus on the elements that should be represented in a PL and the symbols used to represent them. Moreover, most PLs have ambiguous or inexpressive visual representations.

The notion of service spans several domains, such as healthcare, education, and information and communication technology (ICT). In this context, service ontologies are very useful for establishing a common understanding of the main concepts and relations involved, as well as for serving as basis for modeling services in different domains. In this paper, we present an Ontology Pattern Language, called S-OPL, providing a network of interconnected ontology modeling patterns covering the core conceptualization of services. S-OPL builds on UFO-S, a commitment-based core ontology for services. S-OPL patterns support modeling types of customers and providers, as well as the main service life-cycle phases, namely: service offering, service negotiation/agreement, and service delivery. The use of S-OPL is demonstrated in a real case in the ICT service domain.

Many efforts have been made for modeling and standardizing software processes. ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7, the ISO sub-committee responsible for software and systems engineering, is one of the most important groups devoted to this task. However, standards developed by this committee are frequently inconsistent and even contradictory. This led to the need for an ISO Study Group to investigate the creation of an ontological infrastructure to establish a common conceptualization for underpinning all SC7 standards. This ISO initiative is a work in progress, which has focused on the software process domain and, in particular, considering the ISO/IEC 24744 standard. In this paper, we advocate in favor of using an Ontology Pattern Language (OPL) as the main component of this ontological infrastructure. We present ISP-OPL (ISO-based Software Process OPL), an OPL that can be applied as a basis for harmonizing software process-related standards, favoring reuse when building aligned specific software process ontologies for SE sub-domains. In order to illustrate its application, we also present an ontology about the Requirements Engineering process, developed by using ISP-OPL.

Enterprise ontologies are useful for many purposes. Over the years, there have been a number of efforts aiming at building them. However, due to the complexity of the enterprise domain, enterprise ontologies tend to be complex and difficult to reuse. In this paper, we advocate in favor of organizing Core Enterprise Ontologies as Ontology Pattern Languages, since ontology patterns are more and more recognized as an approach that favors ontology reuse. Moreover, we present an initial version of the Enterprise Ontology Pattern Language (E-OPL), and show how it was used for building an enterprise ontology for a specific domain.

Software measurement is a key process for software project management and software process improvement. There are several process quality models and measurement standards that point out its importance and present good practices for it. Unfortunately, the vocabulary used by these models is diverse. This leads to misunderstanding and problems related to the jointly use of different standards. Aiming at establishing a common conceptualization regarding the software measurement process, we developed a Software Measurement Task Ontology (SMTO), which is grounded on the Unified Foundational Ontology. This task ontology was developed to be used for addressing semantic interoperability problems arising from the jointly use of different measurement-related standards, as well as for supporting semantic integration of software applications supporting measurement.

Configuration Management (CM) is an important task for developing complex products. It is a complex task and there are many CM systems that aim to support it. However, generally, these systems work in isolation and there is a need for integrating them. In this context, ontologies have an important role, acting as an inter-lingua to help achieving a shared conceptualization that allows semantic integration. This paper presents an ontology of the CM task. This ontology was built with the purpose of supporting semantic integration of CM systems, mainly in service and process layers of integration.

Software organizations have increased their interest on software process improvement (SPI). In high maturity levels, SPI involves implementing statistical process control (SPC), which requires measures and data that are suitable for this context. However, this has been pointed in the literature as one of the main obstacles for a successful implementation of SPC in SPI efforts. This paper presents an instrument for evaluating the suitability of measurement repositories in order to support software organizations implementing SPC.

Web application development has long evolved from CGI scripting in structured programming languages to a whole new discipline called Web Engineering. Today, large and complex distributed systems are being built for the web, mostly with the use of frameworks or a container-based architecture. This paper proposes a method for the design of Web applications based on the use of frameworks, including a modeling language that extends UML to build diagrams that specifically depict framework-related components.