Ontological Analysis of KAOS using Separation of References

Abstract

Goal modeling is emerging as a central requirements engineering (RE) technique. Unfortunately, current goal-oriented languages are not interoperable with one another or with modeling languages that address other modeling perspectives. This problematic because the emerging generation of model-driven information systems is likely to depend on coordinated use of several modeling languages to represent different perspectives of the enterprise and its proposed information system. The chapter applies a structured approach to describe a well-known goal oriented language, KAOS, by mapping it onto a philosophically grounded ontology. The structured approach facilitates language interoperability because when other languages are described using the same approach, they become mapped onto the same ontology. The approach thereby provides an intermediate language for comparison, consistency checking, update reflection, view synchronization and, eventually, model-to-model translation, both between goal-oriented languages and between different languages.