Second-guessing in tracing tasks considered harmful?

Bhushan Chitre; Jane Huffman Hayes; Alexander Dekhtyar

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-77243-1_6

Second-guessing in tracing tasks considered harmful?

Bhushan Chitre, Jane Huffman Hayes, Alexander Dekhtyar

Computer Science

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

[Context and motivation] Trace matrices are lynch pins for the development of mission- and safety-critical software systems and are useful for all software systems, yet automated methods for recovering trace links are far from perfect. This limitation makes the job of human analysts who must vet recovered trace links more difficult. [Question/Problem] Earlier studies suggested that certain analyst behaviors when performing trace recovery tasks lead to decreased accuracy of recovered trace relationships. We propose a three-step experimental study to: (a) determine if there really are behaviors that lead to errors of judgment for analysts, (b) enhance the requirements tracing software to curtail such behaviors, and (c) determine if curtailing such behaviors results in increased accuracy. [Principal ideas/results] We report on a preliminary study we undertook in which we modified the user interface of RETRO.NET to curtail two behaviors indicated by the earlier work. We report on observed results. [Contributions] We describe and discuss a major study of potentially unwanted analyst behaviors and present results of a preliminary study toward determining if curbing these behaviors with enhancements to tracing software leads to fewer human errors.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Requirements Engineering
Subtitle of host publication	Foundation for Software Quality - 24th International Working Conference, REFSQ 2018, Proceedings
Editors	Erik Kamsties, Jennifer Horkoff, Fabiano Dalpiaz
Pages	92-98
Number of pages	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77243-1_6
State	Published - 2018
Event	24th International Working Conference on Requirements Engineering Foundation for Software Quality, REFSQ 2018 - Utrecht, Netherlands Duration: Mar 19 2018 → Mar 22 2018

Publication series

Name	Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume	10753 LNCS
ISSN (Print)	0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)	1611-3349

Conference

Conference	24th International Working Conference on Requirements Engineering Foundation for Software Quality, REFSQ 2018
Country/Territory	Netherlands
City	Utrecht
Period	3/19/18 → 3/22/18

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Acknowledgment. We thank Dr. Dan Berry for insightful comments and suggestions on prior versions that resulted in a greatly improved paper. We thank all participants from upper division software engineering classes who took their time to participate in our study. We thank NASA and NSF as prior grants funded the development of RETRO.NET. We thank Jody Larsen, the developer of RETRO.NET. We thank NSF for partially funding this work under grants CCF-1511117 and CNS-1642134.

Publisher Copyright:
© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018.

Keywords

Empirical study
RETRO.NET
Requirements tracing
Study of the analyst
Trace vetting
User interface

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Theoretical Computer Science
Computer Science (all)

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-319-77243-1_6

Cite this

Chitre, B., Hayes, J. H., & Dekhtyar, A. (2018). Second-guessing in tracing tasks considered harmful? In E. Kamsties, J. Horkoff, & F. Dalpiaz (Eds.), Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality - 24th International Working Conference, REFSQ 2018, Proceedings (pp. 92-98). (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics); Vol. 10753 LNCS). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77243-1_6

Chitre, Bhushan ; Hayes, Jane Huffman ; Dekhtyar, Alexander. / Second-guessing in tracing tasks considered harmful?. Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality - 24th International Working Conference, REFSQ 2018, Proceedings. editor / Erik Kamsties ; Jennifer Horkoff ; Fabiano Dalpiaz. 2018. pp. 92-98 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)).

@inproceedings{7e8a04e1a75d4102a296b1f1a21af2bf,

title = "Second-guessing in tracing tasks considered harmful?",

abstract = "[Context and motivation] Trace matrices are lynch pins for the development of mission- and safety-critical software systems and are useful for all software systems, yet automated methods for recovering trace links are far from perfect. This limitation makes the job of human analysts who must vet recovered trace links more difficult. [Question/Problem] Earlier studies suggested that certain analyst behaviors when performing trace recovery tasks lead to decreased accuracy of recovered trace relationships. We propose a three-step experimental study to: (a) determine if there really are behaviors that lead to errors of judgment for analysts, (b) enhance the requirements tracing software to curtail such behaviors, and (c) determine if curtailing such behaviors results in increased accuracy. [Principal ideas/results] We report on a preliminary study we undertook in which we modified the user interface of RETRO.NET to curtail two behaviors indicated by the earlier work. We report on observed results. [Contributions] We describe and discuss a major study of potentially unwanted analyst behaviors and present results of a preliminary study toward determining if curbing these behaviors with enhancements to tracing software leads to fewer human errors.",

keywords = "Empirical study, RETRO.NET, Requirements tracing, Study of the analyst, Trace vetting, User interface",

author = "Bhushan Chitre and Hayes, {Jane Huffman} and Alexander Dekhtyar",

note = "Funding Information: Acknowledgment. We thank Dr. Dan Berry for insightful comments and suggestions on prior versions that resulted in a greatly improved paper. We thank all participants from upper division software engineering classes who took their time to participate in our study. We thank NASA and NSF as prior grants funded the development of RETRO.NET. We thank Jody Larsen, the developer of RETRO.NET. We thank NSF for partially funding this work under grants CCF-1511117 and CNS-1642134. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018.; 24th International Working Conference on Requirements Engineering Foundation for Software Quality, REFSQ 2018 ; Conference date: 19-03-2018 Through 22-03-2018",

year = "2018",

doi = "10.1007/978-3-319-77243-1_6",

language = "English",

isbn = "9783319772424",

series = "Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)",

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Chitre, B, Hayes, JH & Dekhtyar, A 2018, Second-guessing in tracing tasks considered harmful? in E Kamsties, J Horkoff & F Dalpiaz (eds), Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality - 24th International Working Conference, REFSQ 2018, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), vol. 10753 LNCS, pp. 92-98, 24th International Working Conference on Requirements Engineering Foundation for Software Quality, REFSQ 2018, Utrecht, Netherlands, 3/19/18. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77243-1_6

Second-guessing in tracing tasks considered harmful? / Chitre, Bhushan; Hayes, Jane Huffman; Dekhtyar, Alexander.
Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality - 24th International Working Conference, REFSQ 2018, Proceedings. ed. / Erik Kamsties; Jennifer Horkoff; Fabiano Dalpiaz. 2018. p. 92-98 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics); Vol. 10753 LNCS).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review