Using ontology-based concept maps for requirements engineering: A case study

Software Engineering includes several processes that have a different impact on software projects success. Requirement engineering is a base for all software engineering processes from designing to maintenance. Therefore, it is the most important process influencing software project success. The biggest challenge that faces requirements engineering come with information representation and communication between stakeholders. This research provides a case study for applying a framework that deals with these problems by using concept maps as informal requirements representation based on ontology as formal and explicit requirements representation. The final result of this framework is evaluated by Fleiss' kappa as statistics tool to measure the degree of agreement compared with traditional and ontology methods. The result shows that The Fleiss' kappa was “0.73” when using the provided framework, and (0.56) when using the ontology, and (0.4) when using the traditional methods. This means that, the ontology-based concept maps are satisfactory and indicates to a high degree of agreement and shared understanding between participants.