RationalGRL: A framework for argumentation and goal modeling

Abstract

Goal-oriented requirements modeling approaches aim to capture the intentions of the stakeholders involved in the development of an information system as goals and tasks. The process of constructing such goal models usually involves discussions between a requirements engineer and a group of stakeholders. Not all the arguments in such discussions can be captured as goals or tasks: e.g., the discussion whether to accept or reject a certain goal and the rationale for acceptance or rejection cannot be captured in goal models. In this paper, we apply techniques from computational argumentation to a goal modeling approach by using a coding analysis in which stakeholders discuss requirements for a Traffic Simulator. We combine a simplified version of a traditional goal model, the Goal-oriented Requirements Language (GRL), with ideas from argumentation on schemes for practical reasoning into a new framework (RationalGRL). RationalGRL provides a formal semantics and tool support to capture the discussions and outcomes of the argumentation process that leads to a goal model. We also define the RationalGRL development process to create a RationalGRL model.