A number of studies have compared general medical practices in rural locations with those in urba... more A number of studies have compared general medical practices in rural locations with those in urban locations. Some of these studies have concentrated on the reasons why a GP might choose to work in a rural or urban setting. Others have examined the type of work required to be undertaken by medical professionals. Increasing use of information and communications technology (ICT) in medical practices has led to some studies examining their use in rural as well as urban settings. However, little if any research has examined whether ICT adoption drivers differ between rural and urban GPs based on their organisational characteristics. This paper presents a study of 198 GPs (122 rural, 76 urban) in Australia. The results show that organisational characteristics are associated with the importance of the drivers for ICT adoption and that these characteristics differ between rural and urban GPs. These findings have important practical and theoretical contributions because it shows that ICT adoption decisions must be contextualised and that it is unlikely that universal adoption drivers will apply to all general practices.
In March 2003 the Object Management Group (OMG) released an RFP for customisation of the Unified ... more In March 2003 the Object Management Group (OMG) released an RFP for customisation of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to support the modeling of a wide range of systems including software, hardware, people, procedures and facilities within the framework of OMG's Model Driven Architecture (MDA). Much of the response to this RFP has focused on how the UML notation might be extended rather than how UML and MDA could be used during the conduct of systems engineering lifecycle process activities. In this paper we describe important concepts underlying the Executable/Translatable UML and how they and more traditional modeling concepts can be used to support the objectives of MDA in the Systems Engineering context.
The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is a diagrammatic notation widely used in the computing indu... more The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is a diagrammatic notation widely used in the computing industry and often taught in universities as a way to represent software requirements specifications and design descriptions. In this paper we identify a number of problems associated with teaching UML and how we have minimised their impact by making use of the Executable/Translatable UML ( X T U M L). We describe two case studies that demonstrate the benefits we have gained by using X T U M L in our undergraduate and graduate teaching programs.
... operationalizable quality attributes. Notation: xtUML class diagrams [3] can be used to descr... more ... operationalizable quality attributes. Notation: xtUML class diagrams [3] can be used to describe structural models. They capture the static structures of a functional feature. A class is symbolized as an xtUML class. A relationship is ...
Conceptual models play an important role within model-driven development (MDD) and become the mai... more Conceptual models play an important role within model-driven development (MDD) and become the main artifacts of software development. Developing conceptual model, however, is not a trivial task. There is no clear, direct way to transform requirements into conceptual models. Few methods have been offered aiding developers to develop conceptual models. Yet, those methods do not fully address the specific need for software development using a translative approach of MDD such as concern-oriented model-driven development (COMDD) where the conceptual model for each concern must be separated. This paper proposes a method to analyze, specify, and develop conceptual models of functional requirements (FRs) especially in the context of translative model-driven development. Our method employs a uses-case approach for FRs analysis accompanied with scenario-based approach for the specification. Executable and translatable UML is used as the modeling notation due to the translative nature of COMDD framework. We show the viability of our method using a real-life case study: voter tracking system, a system to mark voters using handheld electronic devices.
This paper proposes a technique to model the architecture (platform) of software systems particul... more This paper proposes a technique to model the architecture (platform) of software systems particularly the ones which are developed under a translative model-driven development (MDD). Our technique adapts the Object-Oriented Analysis and Recursive Design (OOA/RD) method as the framework to model the architecture. We propose six steps to model the architecture, i.e., select an architecture style and patterns, define architecture structural elements and rules, specify data structures, specify structural units, specify mechanisms to support state models and timers, and eventually build the architecture model.
Developing complex software systems which involve a lot of different non-orthogonal concerns requ... more Developing complex software systems which involve a lot of different non-orthogonal concerns requires considerable effort. This situation can be further exacerbated by tangled and scattered concerns found across the system. In order to reduce this sort of complexity, we need to employ a software development framework that facilitates the separation of different concerns. The framework should be able to direct the process of identification, modularization and specification of concerns into autonomous parts and eventually (re)compose them to yield a complete system. In this paper, we propose a software development framework which integrates the concept of a concern-oriented approach with model-driven development. This framework promotes separation of concerns both horizontal (separating concerns based on subject matters) and vertical (separating concerns based on level of abstraction).
... Events and corresponding pertinent actions are the main elements for specifying requirements ... more ... Events and corresponding pertinent actions are the main elements for specifying requirements using a ... The former provides an intuitive specification since it is represented in a graphical form ... A structural model describes the static structure of a functional feature which specifies a ...
... Our framework uses executable and translatable UML (xtUML) for the notation of the specificat... more ... Our framework uses executable and translatable UML (xtUML) for the notation of the specification [3]. Other notations can also be used, such as UML, SysML, etc. We choosextUML because it is graphical, intuitive and also quite rigorous. ...
Separation of concerns has been offered as a practical approach to cope with the development of c... more Separation of concerns has been offered as a practical approach to cope with the development of complex software systems. Intuitively, handling each distinct part of a system separately is easier to deal with than the whole system simultaneously with all concerns mixed. This ...
A number of studies have compared general medical practices in rural locations with those in urba... more A number of studies have compared general medical practices in rural locations with those in urban locations. Some of these studies have concentrated on the reasons why a GP might choose to work in a rural or urban setting. Others have examined the type of work required to be undertaken by medical professionals. Increasing use of information and communications technology (ICT) in medical practices has led to some studies examining their use in rural as well as urban settings. However, little if any research has examined whether ICT adoption drivers differ between rural and urban GPs based on their organisational characteristics. This paper presents a study of 198 GPs (122 rural, 76 urban) in Australia. The results show that organisational characteristics are associated with the importance of the drivers for ICT adoption and that these characteristics differ between rural and urban GPs. These findings have important practical and theoretical contributions because it shows that ICT adoption decisions must be contextualised and that it is unlikely that universal adoption drivers will apply to all general practices.
In March 2003 the Object Management Group (OMG) released an RFP for customisation of the Unified ... more In March 2003 the Object Management Group (OMG) released an RFP for customisation of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to support the modeling of a wide range of systems including software, hardware, people, procedures and facilities within the framework of OMG's Model Driven Architecture (MDA). Much of the response to this RFP has focused on how the UML notation might be extended rather than how UML and MDA could be used during the conduct of systems engineering lifecycle process activities. In this paper we describe important concepts underlying the Executable/Translatable UML and how they and more traditional modeling concepts can be used to support the objectives of MDA in the Systems Engineering context.
The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is a diagrammatic notation widely used in the computing indu... more The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is a diagrammatic notation widely used in the computing industry and often taught in universities as a way to represent software requirements specifications and design descriptions. In this paper we identify a number of problems associated with teaching UML and how we have minimised their impact by making use of the Executable/Translatable UML ( X T U M L). We describe two case studies that demonstrate the benefits we have gained by using X T U M L in our undergraduate and graduate teaching programs.
... operationalizable quality attributes. Notation: xtUML class diagrams [3] can be used to descr... more ... operationalizable quality attributes. Notation: xtUML class diagrams [3] can be used to describe structural models. They capture the static structures of a functional feature. A class is symbolized as an xtUML class. A relationship is ...
Conceptual models play an important role within model-driven development (MDD) and become the mai... more Conceptual models play an important role within model-driven development (MDD) and become the main artifacts of software development. Developing conceptual model, however, is not a trivial task. There is no clear, direct way to transform requirements into conceptual models. Few methods have been offered aiding developers to develop conceptual models. Yet, those methods do not fully address the specific need for software development using a translative approach of MDD such as concern-oriented model-driven development (COMDD) where the conceptual model for each concern must be separated. This paper proposes a method to analyze, specify, and develop conceptual models of functional requirements (FRs) especially in the context of translative model-driven development. Our method employs a uses-case approach for FRs analysis accompanied with scenario-based approach for the specification. Executable and translatable UML is used as the modeling notation due to the translative nature of COMDD framework. We show the viability of our method using a real-life case study: voter tracking system, a system to mark voters using handheld electronic devices.
This paper proposes a technique to model the architecture (platform) of software systems particul... more This paper proposes a technique to model the architecture (platform) of software systems particularly the ones which are developed under a translative model-driven development (MDD). Our technique adapts the Object-Oriented Analysis and Recursive Design (OOA/RD) method as the framework to model the architecture. We propose six steps to model the architecture, i.e., select an architecture style and patterns, define architecture structural elements and rules, specify data structures, specify structural units, specify mechanisms to support state models and timers, and eventually build the architecture model.
Developing complex software systems which involve a lot of different non-orthogonal concerns requ... more Developing complex software systems which involve a lot of different non-orthogonal concerns requires considerable effort. This situation can be further exacerbated by tangled and scattered concerns found across the system. In order to reduce this sort of complexity, we need to employ a software development framework that facilitates the separation of different concerns. The framework should be able to direct the process of identification, modularization and specification of concerns into autonomous parts and eventually (re)compose them to yield a complete system. In this paper, we propose a software development framework which integrates the concept of a concern-oriented approach with model-driven development. This framework promotes separation of concerns both horizontal (separating concerns based on subject matters) and vertical (separating concerns based on level of abstraction).
... Events and corresponding pertinent actions are the main elements for specifying requirements ... more ... Events and corresponding pertinent actions are the main elements for specifying requirements using a ... The former provides an intuitive specification since it is represented in a graphical form ... A structural model describes the static structure of a functional feature which specifies a ...
... Our framework uses executable and translatable UML (xtUML) for the notation of the specificat... more ... Our framework uses executable and translatable UML (xtUML) for the notation of the specification [3]. Other notations can also be used, such as UML, SysML, etc. We choosextUML because it is graphical, intuitive and also quite rigorous. ...
Separation of concerns has been offered as a practical approach to cope with the development of c... more Separation of concerns has been offered as a practical approach to cope with the development of complex software systems. Intuitively, handling each distinct part of a system separately is easier to deal with than the whole system simultaneously with all concerns mixed. This ...
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Papers by Clive Boughton