Abstract
iStar2.0 has been proposed as a standard language for building goal- and agent-oriented models. It is an evolution of the former i* language, with the purpose of homogenising existing syntactical and semantic variations of basic i* constructs that researchers in the field introduced along the years. In its first version (2016), iStar2.0 was intentionally kept simple, and some constructs were merely introduced but not formally defined. One of them is the notion of specialization. The specialization relationship is offered by iStar2.0 through the is-a construct defined over actors (subactor $x$ is-a superactor $y$ ). Although the overall meaning of this construct is highly intuitive, its semantics when it comes to the fine-grained level of the models is not defined in the standard. In this paper we provide a formal definition of the specialization relationship ready to be incorporated into a next release of the iStar2.0 standard language. We root our proposal over existing work on conceptual modeling in general, and object-orientation in particular. Also, we use the results of a survey that provides some hints about what definition do iStar2.0 modelers expect from specialization. As a consequence of this twofold analysis, we identify, define and specify a set of specialization operations that can be applied over iStar2.0 models. Correctness conditions for them are also formally stated. The result of our work is a formal proposal of specialization for iStar2.0 that allows its use in a well-defined manner and contributes to its standardization.
Highlights
The i∗ framework [1] was formulated in the mid-nineties for representing, modeling and reasoning about socio-technical systems
The work presented in this paper addresses this problem, expressed as a goal in the GQM format [15]: the purpose of this work is to formally define the consequences of the iStar2.0 specialization relationship on models semantics from the point of view of system modelers in the context of a standardization action for iStar2.0
It is worth to remark that, since MCC1 refers to the expected behavior, this condition will be always kept because the chosen specialization operations do not allow removing any element from the model
Summary
The i∗ (pronounced eye-star) framework [1] was formulated in the mid-nineties for representing, modeling and reasoning about socio-technical systems. The work presented in this paper addresses this problem, expressed as a goal in the GQM format [15]: the purpose of this work is to formally define the consequences of the iStar2.0 specialization relationship (is-a) on models semantics from the point of view of system modelers in the context of a standardization action for iStar2.0 This general goal is divided into the following four research questions (RQs): RQ1. Several questions related to our goal arise: how are IEs belonging to Customer inherited in Family?, what modifications are valid over these inherited elements?, do dependencies as Bought apply to Family?, may Buy Travelhave additional sub-tasks in Family?, etc This uncertainness makes the modeler hesitant about the use of specialization and about the correctness of the iStar2.0 models that use this construct. A summary and a comparison of dialects offered in [9] may help to understand the motivation for defining the standard
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