EmpAnADa at a glance

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a visual language for modeling software architecture and design. Research shows that UML models have quality problems such as inconsistency, incompleteness and the risk for misinterpretation.

Within the EmpAnADa project we develop techniques to improve the quality of UML models. We validate our proposed techniques in empirical studies such as case studies and controlled experiments. The techniques that we have worked on so far include rules and metrics, visualization techniques and modeling conventions. On this website we inform about the progress of the EmpAnADa project.

The EmpAnADa project is an activity of the System Architecture and Networking group at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven.

Project Members

Dr. Michel Chaudron Associate Professor M.R.V.Chaudron@tue.nl	Christian Lange MSc PhD Candidate C.F.J.Lange@tue.nl

Some of the questions that we are looking at are:

• How should we define quality for UML models?
• How can we objectively assess the quality of a UML model?
• How can we detect defects in UML models?
• What is the effect of defects in UML models?
• How do UML models and their quality evolve during development, and over time?
• What is the correspondence between a UML model and an implementation?
• How can we provide automated support for quality analysis of UML models

News:

• 13-September 2006: Our paper "A Visualization Framework for Task-Oriented Modeling using UML" has been accepted for HICSS 2007. (see Publications)
• 13-July 2006:EmpAnADa member Marcel vam Amstel successfully defended his MSc thesis.
• 12-June 2006: Our paper "An Experimental Investigation of UML Modeling Conventions" is accepted at the MoDELS conference. We will go to Genova/Italy in October to present it! (see Publications)
• 26-May 2006: We present our paper on Effects of Defects in UML models at ICSE'06 in Shanghai.