Theme and topics

THEME AND TOPICS OF INTEREST

Collaborative software engineering deals with methods, processes and tools for enhancing collaboration, communication, and coordination (3C) among team members. Artifacts subject to collaborative software engineering are not only code or documentation, but models as well.

In the context of MDSE, a collaborative MDE approach is a method or technique in which:

  • models are the first-class elements that drive both the software development activities and the other model-based tasks in the context of a software engineering process
  • at least one repository exists for managing the persistence of the models
  • at least a modelling tool exists for allowing each stakeholder involved in the modelling activities to create, edit, and delete models
  • at least a communication means exists for allowing involved stakeholders to be aware of what the other stakeholders collaborating with them are doing (e.g., chat, social network, wiki, asynchronous messaging system, issue tracker)
  • at least a collaboration means exists for allowing involved stakeholders to work on the modelling artifacts collaboratively (e.g., model versioning systems, model merging mechanisms, systems for model conflict management and visualization).

The objective of this workshop is to bring together experts in model driven software engineering and collaborative software engineering in order to give evidence on the research and development going on on this topic.

The importance of collaborative MDE is evidenced in a number of sources and recently empowered by the prominence of agile methods, open source software projects, and global software development. Modelling tools, embracing new collaborative means and features are being released, such us GenMyModel, WebGME, or FlexiSketch.

This workshop has the dual role of investigating the potential impact of collaborative SE methods and principles into MDE practices, as well as MDE support to collaborative SE.
The main objectives we want to achieve by running this workshop are:

  • Check the state of the research and practice on Collaborative MDE
  • Create links between tool vendors, researchers, and practitioners
  • Inform the community about the new means for collaborative MDE
  • Identify needs and gaps in the Collaborative MDE community

CONTRIBUTIONS

We consider COMMitMDE topics to be foundational to the MODELS community, and orthogonal to most of the methods and techniques developed by the MODELS community. As briefly reported above, COMMitMDE will look at model editing, model merging, conflict management, repositories, multi-view, modeling and metamodeling from a collaborative perspective. A non-exhaustive list of topics includes:

  • Collaborative MDE design
  • Requirements engineering with collaborative MDE
  • Metamodel-level collaboration
  • Multi-view collaborative MDE
  • The role of off-the-shelf VCS/forges in MDE
  • Web-based model editing
  • Collaborative MDE practices
  • Academic and industral needs in collaborative MDE
  • Case studies and experience reports
  • Scalable repositories for collaborative modeling
  • Multi-user modeling environments
  • Synchronization mechanisms like model migration and merging
  • Conflicts management
  • Model versioning and model comparison support