In an attempt to compensate for the unavailability of software cost estimation models that fit the different software development environments in the early stages of the software development life cycle, this paper reports on the development of three novel use case model based software cost estimation methods: use case rough estimation method, use case patterns estimation method, and object points extraction estimation method. The accuracy of the proposed methods has been investigated using a wide spectrum of software projects. Two findings emerge. First, the accuracy of the proposed methods surpasses that of the well-know software cost estimation models and varies between 15-53% of the actual effort. Second, the application of these software cost estimation methods to the three different use-case model levels of detail namely, brief, casual, and fully-specified has strengthened the basis of this research hypothesis that the more detailed a use case model is, the more accurate the estimate of the software development effort.
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