IusWare: a methodology for the evaluation and selection of software products

Abstract

IusWare (IUStitia SoftWARis) is a methodology designed to evaluate software products in a formal and rigorous way. The methodology is based on the multicriteria decision aid approach and encompasses activities such as comparison, assessment and selection of software artefacts. The methodology defines an evaluation process which consists of two main phases, designing an evaluation model and applying it. The design phase is made up of the following activities: first, identifying the actors relevant to the evaluation, their role, the purpose of the evaluation, the resources available and the object(s) of the evaluation; secondly, identifying the type of evaluation required: either a formal description of products or the ranking of products from the most preferred to the least preferred or a partitioning into two sets of the best and the remaining products; thirdly, defining a nonredundant hierarchy of evaluation attributes, often corresponding with the quality characteristics of quality models; fourthly, associating a measure, a criterion scale and a function to transform the measure scale into the criterion scale to each basic attribute; and finally, choosing an aggregation technique so as to aggregate values on criteria to form a recommendation for the selection. In the application phase attributes of products are measured, measures are transformed into values on criteria and aggregated to form a recommendation.