Displaying Hidden Information in Glossaries

Abstract

Requirements Engineering is frequently seen as the activity of the Software Engineering process with fewer tools. Usually there are only available graphic and text editing aids. This is supported by the perception that it is a human being intensive task. This chapter is based on the understanding that such perception is just partially true. Models used along the Requirements Engineering process have underlying structures holding semantic information difficult to be seen by the reader. In fact, models created with well defined objective, were designed to maximize their expressiveness for that objective. However they may hold some useful shadowed information. Here is where a specialized tool may become valuable. From an epistemological point of view, this situation is similar to what happens in data mining. In this chapter, a tool able to make visible any clustering existing in Universe of Discourse glossaries is described. It is based on the automatic constructions of graphs using references embedded in the glossary itself.