Feature-oriented stigmergy-based collaborative requirements modeling: an exploratory approach for requirements elicitation and evolution based on web-enabled collective intelligence

Wei Zhang, Li Yi, Haiyan Zhao, Zhi Jin

Abstract: Compared with traditional software applications, the requirements problem of Internetware applications exhibits a set of new characteristics that cannot be resolved by traditional engineer-centered face-to-face requirements methods. In this paper, we present an exploratory approach to the requirements elicitation and evolution problem of Internetware applications, based on the concept of web-enable collective intelligence, to accommodate the situation of large-scale user communities of Internetware applications with diverse and constantly evolving requirements. In particular, we propose a feature-oriented stigmergy-based collaborative requirements modeling method that combines feature-oriented requirements modeling with web-enabled stigmergy-based collaboration to support large-scale collaborative requirements eliciting and evolving activities for Internetware applications. Two experiments are introduced to show the feasibility and effectiveness of this approach.