Knowledge base creation and management for automation of the goal-oriented software measurement using multi-agent technology.

摘要

Effective implementation of a software measurement system to map collected data to business goals in a software organization is a prime problem. Goal Question Metrics (GQM) measurement provides the guidelines to solve this problem. Nevertheless, the GQM approach is complex, knowledge-intensive, iterative, time consuming and therefore expensive. In this thesis, the procedure of automating a specific GQM process has been devised, and the adopted methodologies and technologies also have been introduced. An agent-based system called Intelligent Software Measurement System (ISMS) has been proposed to automatically produce a software measurement implementation plan based on users' initial business or measurement goal(s). As the main part of this research, particularly, a step-by-step methodology for building the knowledge base that is composed of a series of relational tables, weights and factual rules for the ISMS has been presented. In this knowledge base, the various opinions of software measurement experts have been combined and integrated following a specific mathematical theory, Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence. This research could provide a methodology to build a knowledge base for the automation of the GQM process, and make contributions to the design and implementation of intelligent goal-oriented software measurement systems.