Enhancing collaborative modeling

Abstract

Various studies conducted in the context of model-driven engineering (MDE) identified insufficient collaboration support of modeling tools. In the course of this paper, we present a research agenda to improve collaborative graphical modeling with a focus on users and change history. In contrast to other approaches, user level edit operations should be persisted instead of calculating differences of model versions a posteriori. We expect a detailed series of edit operations to be more self-descriptive than the differences between two versions of a model, which likely represents only the result of multiple edit operations. The expected advantages based on the more detailed history include a more understandable change history of an evolving model and new possibilities in collaboration, such as micro cherry picking of a set of specific edit operations instead of a whole commit. In addition, branching of only sub elements of a model as a way to explore alternatives during concurrent modeling is target of our research. Compared to existing approaches which mostly support either synchronous or asynchronous collaboration, the proposed research aims to support both through the use of Event Sourcing.