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This study explores the joint impacts across the power system of distributed energy resources (DER) that could be deployed in utility distribution systems through an analysis of generation, transmission, and distribution expansion and costs driven by DER adoption. We identify six adoption scenarios that combine deployment levels of rooftop solar photovoltaic modules (PV), electric vehicle charging (EV), and battery storage in residential and commercial customers connected to representative feeders in Indiana by 2025 and 2040. Indiana is a good proxy for many U.S. states with low current DER adoption but potentially high future growth. The economic value of DER is assessed by developing capacity expansion and power flow analysis of the generation and distribution segments, respectively, under future hourly demand assumptions based on each adoption scenarios. Results for the distribution system power flow simulations show that voltage violations are relatively rare. Voltage violations can be mitigated at a very low cost using a combination of smart inverters in future rooftop PV systems and voltage adjustments in the feeder heads. Line loading issues are minimal, with only 0.2% of simulation hours showing loading levels above 100% of capacity. Generation capacity impacts are driven by unmanaged EV charging and could be mitigated with charging management. We estimate that the incremental rate impact from power system investment and operation of increased DER adoption in Indiana will be between −1.6% to + 2% in 2025 and + 0.2% to + 15% in 2040 relative to the base case.

Author(s): Stuart, Elizabeth; Hanus, Nichole L; Carvallo, Juan Pablo; Larsen, Peter H | Abstract: This study is the latest in a series of LBNL research into U.S. ESCO industry characteristics and market trends. The research is based on interviews with ESCO industry executives conducted during the fall of 2019 and the first half of 2020. Nearly all companies that identified themselves as ESCOs were contacted as part of this project. We find that after a period of little growth (2011-2014), industry revenues reached an estimated $6 billion in 2018, or a 3.4% annual average growth rate from 2015-2018. ESCOs primarily serve the public an institutional sectors (e.g., federal, state, and local governments; university and colleges; and K-12 schools). In 2018, project investments by public and institutional organizations accounted for over 90% of industry revenue, which is consistent with previous industry studies. ESCO activity in the Middle Atlantic, East North Central, and Pacific regions in the U.S. delivered the highest share of revenue in 2018, which is also consistent with earlier research. ESCOs reported that a majority of their customers use energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs) primarily for facility capital improvement needs and resilience rather than utility savings. In addition, the importance of non-energy benefits (e.g., water savings, avoided operations and maintenance costs, and avoided capital costs) accounted for in the project savings guarantee reportedly increased in all markets during 2016-2018 compared to previous time periods. The study found that the ESCO industry faces several key challenges, including: (1) increasing project development times due to more complex projects and other factors; (2) difficulty finding qualified subcontractors in some regions, including minority- women- and disadvantaged population-owned small business enterprises; and (3) difficulty accessing project documents and quickly fulfilling customer requests to justify project payments several years into the performance period of a project.

Across multiple organized wholesale power markets in the United States, annual average prices declined by $19–64/MWh between 2008 and 2017 while retirements of thermal power plants accelerated. Several prominent changes over the last decade are often discussed as contributors to this decline in prices. These include growth in wind and solar, a reduction in the price of natural gas, and weakened load growth. Here we construct a fundamental supply curve model for each of seven organized wholesale market regions and use counterfactual simulations to assess the degree to which wind and solar—among other factors—have influenced wholesale electricity prices. We find that growth in wind and solar since 2008 reduced average annual wholesale electricity prices by less than $3/MWh. In contrast the decline in natural gas prices reduced wholesale prices by $7–53/MWh, depending on the region. This suggests that recent thermal-plant retirements in the U.S. are primarily due to low natural gas prices, not growth in wind and solar. Fully isolating the impact of individual factors, however, is limited by non-linear interactions between factors.

Distributed energy resources have been almost exclusively deployed and operated under a decentralized decision-making process. In this paper, we assess the evolution of a power system with centrally planned utility-scale generation, transmission, distribution, and distributed resources. We adapt a capacity expansion model to represent both centralized and decentralized decision-making paradigms under various electricity rate structures. This paper shows that a centralized planning approach could save 7% to 37% of total system costs over a 15-year time horizon using a Western United States utility as a case study. We show that centralized decision-making deploys substantially more utility-scale solar and distributed storage compared to a decentralized decision-making paradigm. We demonstrate how a utility could largely overcome the complications of decentralized distributed resource decision-making by incentivizing regulators to develop electricity rates that more closely reflect time- and location-specific, long-run marginal costs. The results from this analysis yield insights that are useful for long-term utility planning and electric utility rate design.

People with disabilities, in Ecuador, are part of population that has been marginalized and discriminated against through processes of exclusion or restriction that have hindered the enjoyment of rights under equal conditions as the rest of the inhabitants. The Support Found “Messengers of Peace” together with the University of Azuay manages the social soap enterprise Aquamarinna, whose objective is to strengthen family and social capacities to identify, support and include people with disabilities in community living, allowing them to make informed decisions and respecting their diversity. As a support strategy, it was considered to adopt OSS, according to CMMI2 procedures, in the design and modeling of business processes by a BPM software solution. As a result, the adoption of this technology increased productivity, accelerate decision-making, response to market changes, and simplify daily tasks.

Video games are seen as a form of entertainment, but it also strengthens intellectual development. The purpose of this case study was to use video games as an alternative resource in the classroom for teaching 5th grade history. The case study was conducted among 32 pupils from Daniel Reyes Elementary school in the province of Imbabura, Ecuador. The software was developed thanks to the Scrum-Sum methodology and gamma technique. This research study used mixed methods (both qualitative and quantitative data) and a survey was conducted among the pupils to evaluate their learning before and after having used the videogame. The results showed an increase of 11.9% in correct answers. In accordance with ISO/IEC 25022 standard, it was demonstrated that the video game scored 98.20% quality in use consolidated percentage regarding efficacy, efficiency, satisfaction, freedom of risk and coverage of context.

Forecasts of electricity consumption and peak demand over time horizons of one or two decades are a key element in electric utilities’ meeting their core objective and obligation to ensure reliable and affordable electricity supplies for their customers while complying with a range of energy and environmental regulations and policies. These forecasts are an important input to integrated resource planning (IRP) processes involving utilities, regulators, and other stake-holders. Despite their importance, however, there has been little analysis of long term utility load forecasting accuracy. We conduct a retrospective analysis of long term load forecasts on twelve Western U. S. electric utilities in the mid-2000s to find that most overestimated both energy consumption and peak demand growth. A key reason for this was the use of assumptions that led to an overestimation of economic growth. We find that the complexity of forecast methods and the accuracy of these forecasts are mildly correlated. In addition, sensitivity and risk analysis of load growth and its implications for capacity expansion were not well integrated with subsequent implementation. We review changes in the utilities load forecasting methods over the subsequent decade, and discuss the policy implications of long term load forecast inaccuracy and its underlying causes.

The US energy services company (ESCO) industry is an example of a private-sector business model that delivers energy savings to customers primarily through the use of performance-based contracts. US ESCO projects garner significant incremental annual savings: approximately 1% of total US commercial building consumption in 2014. From 2000 to 2011, the industry experienced year over year growth; however, based on information drawn from interviews with ESCO executives conducted in late 2015, the authors find that from 2012 to 2014, ESCO industry revenues did not increase. While public and institutional market sectors accounted for 85% of industry revenue in 2014, consistent with previous research findings, the share of revenue from performance contracting increased to 74% in 2014, as compared to 69% share reported for 2011 and 2008. The revenue numbers between 2011 and 2014 are not fully comparable, because a few ESCOs that were subsidiaries of larger companies had undergone reorganization and some categories of revenue reported in 2011 were not included for 2014. Other factors that may have contributed to the recent revenue trend include the following: (1) increased competition from companies not historically defined as an ESCO (e.g. mechanical contractors), (2) uncertainty among some potential customers about committing to long-term performance contracts, and (3) reduction of performance contracting’s perceived benefit of hedging energy price increases and variability due to customer expectations of continued low and less volatile energy prices.

© 2017 American Chemical Society. Fast growing and emerging economies face the dual challenge of sustainably expanding and improving their energy supply and reliability while at the same time reducing poverty. Critical to such transformation is to provide affordable and sustainable access to electricity. We use the capacity expansion model SWITCH to explore low carbon development pathways for the Kenyan power sector under a set of plausible scenarios for fast growing economies that include uncertainty in load projections, capital costs, operational performance, and technology and environmental policies. In addition to an aggressive and needed expansion of overall supply, the Kenyan power system presents a unique transition from one basal renewable resource-hydropower-to another based on geothermal and wind power for ?90% of total capacity. We find geothermal resource adoption is more sensitive to operational degradation than high capital costs, which suggests an emphasis on ongoing maintenance subsidies rather than upfront capital cost subsidies. We also find that a cost-effective and viable suite of solutions includes availability of storage, diesel engines, and transmission expansion to provide flexibility to enable up to 50% of wind power penetration. In an already low-carbon system, typical externality pricing for CO2has little to no effect on technology choice. Consequently, a "zero carbon emissions" by 2030 scenario is possible with only moderate levelized cost increases of between $3 and $7/MWh with a number of social and reliability benefits. Our results suggest that fast growing and emerging economies could benefit by incentivizing anticipated strategic transmission expansion. Existing and new diesel and natural gas capacity can play an important role to provide flexibility and meet peak demand in specific hours without a significant increase in carbon emissions, although more research is required for other pollutant's impacts.

Nowadays, Open Source Software (OSS) is able to support a whole set of business benefits mainly related to value and human talent management, optimization, cost reduction, knowledge generation, and process improvement. Hence, an adequate management of internal users and external stakeholders is required to achieve a successfully OSS adoption, because they impact on critical business model components like value proposal, resources, key activities or cost systems. In this context, due to the lack of support given to represent the organizational context, we propose a model and prioritization method guided by the Open Innovation paradigm, to improve planning and decision making process in earliest OSS adoption stages.

Author(s): Mills, Andrew D; Millstein, Dev; Wiser, Ryan H; Seel, Joachim; Carvallo, Juan Pablo; Jeong, Seongeun; Gorman, Will | Abstract: Wholesale power markets have evolved. Some of the most prominent changes over the last decade in the United States include growth in wind and solar, a reduction in the price of natural gas, weakened load growth, and an increase in the retirement of thermal power plants. Here we empirically assess the degree to which wind and solar—among other factors—have influenced wholesale electricity prices. We show that wind and solar have contributed to reductions in overall average annual wholesale electricity prices since 2008, but that natural gas prices have had the largest impact. More notable is that expansion of variable renewable energy has led to significant changes in locational, time of day, and seasonal pricing patterns in some regions. These altered pricing patterns reflect a fundamental shift, and hold important implications for the grid-system value of wind and solar, and for other electric-sector planning and operating decisions.

Power systems have evolved following a century-old paradigm of planning and operating a grid based on large central generation plants connected to load centers through a transmission grid and distribution lines with radial flows. This paradigm is being challenged by the development and diffusion of modular generation and storage technologies. We use a novel approach to assess the sequencing and pacing of centralized, distributed, and off-grid electrification strategies by developing and employing the grid and access planning (GAP) model. GAP is a capacity expansion model to jointly assess operation and investment in utility-scale generation, transmission, distribution, and demand-side resources. This paper conceptually studies the investment and operation decisions for a power system with and without distributed resources. Contrary to the current practice, we find hybrid systems that pair grid connections with distributed energy resources (DERs) are the preferred mode of electricity supply for greenfield expansion under conservative reductions in photovoltaic panel (PV) and energy storage prices. We also find that when distributed PV and storage are employed in power system expansion, there are savings of 15%–20% mostly in capital deferment and reduced diesel use. Results show that enhanced financing mechanisms for DER PV and storage could enable 50%–60% of additional deployment and save 15 $/MWh in system costs. These results have important implications to reform current utility business models in developed power systems and to guide the development of electrification strategies in underdeveloped grids.

In the city of Cuenca in the south of Ecuador, analogous documentation techniques continue to be the unique registration mechanism for built heritage. The heritage characteristics of modern architecture in Cuenca are not well known, therefore the documentation activities are still based on paper fiches that gather basic data, without the possibility to update or monitor those records. In addition, this type of heritage, is underestimated, not disseminated and devalued by public institutions, owners and by local citizens, who do not find heritage attributes in these buildings. Consequently, this research used technological documentation techniques and tools for the identification, conservation and safeguarding of modern heritage in the city of Cuenca, aiming to raise awareness about modern heritage. With the evaluation of the existing records, this research aspires to validate the digital documentation tools for modern architecture as a first step to its recognition and valorization. Thus, scanner laser, photogrammetry and rectified photography, were used and compared to verify the adaptability of the documentation fields content to modern architecture and the opportunities that the results grants to promote its preservation and management over time.

Modern enterprises rely on Information Systems specifically designed to manage the increasing complexity of their operation. In the usual case, they are built as hybrid systems which integrate several software components of different nature and origins e.g.; legacy systems, web services, commercial components (typically referred as COTS) and, Free and/or Open Source Software (FOSS). The evaluation of individual software components is highly relevant in this kind of system and is usually conducted with the support of software Quality Models. However, these artifacts usually consider only the evaluation of technical quality requirements, in detriment of non-technical ones (e.g. costs, legal and quality of suppliers) which can be just as critical, particularly in the selection of COTS and FOSS. In this paper, we propose an extension to preexisting software Quality Models, intended to deal with technical and non-technical quality requirements in a homogeneous and holistic way. The relevance of the approach is illustrated in relation to four industrial FOSS adoption processes.

Load Serving Entities (LSEs) can procure electricity from their owned generation or purchase it on bilateral or organized markets. Electric utility procurement decisions have important implications for rates, resource adequacy, environmental impacts, and LSE cost recovery. However, there is little or no research on trends of utility procurement practices—or the role of wholesale market transactions. This paper leverages information from the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration, Berkeley Lab's Resource Planning Portal, and structured interviews with regulatory and utility staff. We find that use of market transactions to meet electric energy needs has been increasing across U.S. LSEs. The reasons for this trend include a general stagnation in building owned resources, a preference towards contracting renewable energy resources to meet RPS targets, and the lower relative cost of wholesale market electricity. Results suggest resource adequacy obligations may drive preferences for asset ownership more than a profit incentive. We also recommend improving the planning to procurement connection by incorporating operational constraints of market transactions within planning processes. These results provide insights on key issues in electric utility procurement that could improve overall market efficiency and identify practices that stakeholders should consider incorporating into their long-term capacity planning processes.

The paradigm of Open Source Software (OSS) has revolutionized the way in which the software is used, marketed and distributed. Due to its strategic importance, in recent years, public administrations have defined plans for the promotion and strengthening of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) based on the use of OSS. These strategies have been recognized benefits and a wide social repercussion, given that the open and collaborative paradigm of the OSS phenomenon allows the use and diffusion of ICTs at all social levels. However, it limits the exploitation of the benefits of adopting OSS in the public, private industry and in the Ecuadorian society in general, due to shortcomings in the identification, assessment and risk management, in addition to good practices and adoption, the motive this project is to make a systematic literature review of the OSS adoption, based on Kitchenham and Charters methodological guide; this guide consists in a technique based on empirical research, which requires following a protocol to collect the literature on existing research, related to the free software adoption by organizations, for obtaining relevant references of success, failure, risk, benefits and barriers factors of adoption, in order to determinate the current situation of the OSS use in Ecuador.

In this paper, we evaluate in a network planning scenario the performance of typical Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) networks versus networks based on flexible spectrum grid (i.e., Flex-Grid networks). To this end, we propose several lightweight heuristics with adaptive routing strategies and a Simulated Annealing (SA)-based metaheuristic in order to minimize the spectrum occupation. Moreover, we use the CEDIA backbone network under realistic traffic scenarios. The results obtained with the most promising heuristic disclose that, for foreseeable traffic conditions, spectrum savings up to 42% can be obtained if elastic spectrum allocation is considered compared to rigid spectrum allocation. Furthermore, according to the results the current spectral resources of CEDIA network will be exhausted by mid-2023 using spectrum allocation based on Mixed-Line-Rate (MLR) WDM, while this estimation will extend until near 2025 if allocation based on Flex-Grid is considered.

There are over 600 million people without access to electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa. The design of sustainable electricity systems needed to fuel development in the region requires context-specific power system modeling. Modeling data requirements however can be challenging for researchers and other stakeholders to access. To address this, an open-access cost optimization capacity expansion model, known as PROGRESS (Programmable Resource Optimization for Growth in Renewable Energy and Sustainable Systems), has been built to explore generation expansion pathways for countries with low availability and access to power systems data. The model has relatively low data requirements and is easily adaptable to enable comparative scenario analysis. This paper focuses on a first order proof-of-concept to show how PROGRESS works and then presents preliminary results for generation capacity expansion using the case of Kenya.

The US energy service company (ESCO) industry has a well-established track record of delivering substantial energy and dollar savings in the public and institutional facilities sector, typically through the use of energy savings performance contracts (ESPC). The ESCO industry has the opportunity to play an important role in achieving demand-side energy efficiency under the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed Clean Power Plan. The EPA considered demand-side energy efficiency as a compliance strategy for proposed greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standards under section 111 (d) of the Clean Air Act. To date, there has been little or no research in the public domain to estimate electricity or fuel savings for the entire US ESCO industry. Estimating these savings levels is a foundational step in order to determine total avoided GHG emissions from demand-side energy efficiency measures installed by US ESCOs. We find that on average, 66 % of total energy savings are in the form of electricity, but that in more comprehensive projects, almost 50 % of savings are produced from fuel resources. Overall, we estimate that active US ESCO industry projects generated about 34 TWh of electricity savings in 2012. About 15 TWh of these electricity savings were for municipal, local, and state government facilities; universities/colleges; K-12 schools; and healthcare (MUSH) facilities customers who did not rely on utility customer-funded energy efficiency programs. We extend the electricity analysis to estimate total energy savings and find that the US ESCO industry saved ∼224 million MMBtu in 2012 or ∼1 % of the total US commercial building energy consumption.

The purpose of the following study is present the MOOC Information System Generic Architecture as a result of the analysis of quality characteristics found in the literature concerning of MOOC, and the application of the Discovering Hybrid ARchitectures by Modelling Actors (DHARMA) method based on the use of i∗. Generic Architecture refers to the identification of MOOC system actors, the services that must be covered by each one and the relationships between them. The i∗ diagrams allow identifying strategic needs for which a MOOC Information System is required in an organization (pedagogical approach), and express them indicating the specific services that the system must provide (technological approach), grouping related services in atomic domains. Finally, this study shows how the Generic Architecture will guide the future construction of a MOOC software quality model with ISO/IEC 25010 as an instrument to facilitate a systematic and practical evaluation of those characteristics that guarantee the quality and effectiveness of MOOC in the generation of learning.

Nations and regions need to share lessons about the best ways to create enabling policies, regulations, and markets that get the most social benefit out of power systems and incent the necessary investments.

The generation and dissemination of digital educational materials in Universities is an issue that has generated interest and concern in Latin American academic community. The use of these educational resources has been conditioned to a specific number of barriers and factors from different nature, being the conceptual and pedagogical, one of the most important, in which, the teacher training plays a decisive role. In this paper a set of strategies adopted in the context of Ecuadorian universities, for the generation and publication of digital educational materials under the paradigm of learning objects are presented. To achieve this goal, we have developed a methodology, developed and implemented a specialized repository, carried out a specialized training related with learning objetcs creation and accomplished a national competition. This paper reports the first results and lessons learned from this experience. Costa Rica

espanolLa definicion de Arquitecturas de Software de la mayoria de organizaciones requiere una profunda comprension de su entorno y estructura organizacional; sin embargo, la construccion de dichos modelos no es una tarea facil debido a las brechas de conocimiento y comunicacion entre los interesados, tecnicos y administrativos. El metodo DHARMA, que hace uso intensivo de la notacion i*, propone una solucion a este problema, al apoyar la construccion de Modelos de Contexto. En este trabajo se presenta un enfoque para anotacion de modelos i* utilizando tecnologias semanticas, para que apoyen la busqueda y generacion de modelos de contexto basados en el conocimiento definido en el modelo ontologico, permitiendo la creacion de un Repositorio Semantico de Modelos de Contexto, que sera empleado para descubrir relaciones entre diferentes modelos i* y extraer patrones de estos. EnglishThe System Architecture definition of the majority of organizations requires a deep understanding about its environment and organizational structure; however, the construction of such models is not an easy task because of the gap of knowledge and communication between the technical and administrative staff. The DHARMA method, which makes intensive use of the i* notation, propose a solution to this problem, supporting the building of context models. This paper presents an approach for annotating the i* models with semantic technologies, to support the search and generation of Context Models based on the knowledge defined in ontological models, allowing the creation of a Semantic Repository of Context Models, which will be used to discover relations between different i* models and extract patterns from them.

Sustainable Development of Renewable Energy Mini-grids for Energy Access: A Framework for Policy Design Ranjit Deshmukh Juan Pablo Carvallo Ashwin Gambhir March 2013 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory University of California Berkeley Prayas Energy Group Pune

Modern enterprise engineering (EE) requires deep understanding of organizations and their interaction with their context. Because of this, in early phases of the EE process, enterprise context models are often built and used to reason about organizational needs with respects to actors in their context and vice versa. However, far from simple, this task is usually cumbersome because of knowledge and communication gaps among technical personnel performing EE activities and their administrative counterparts. In this paper, we propose the use of strategic patterns expressed with the i* language aimed to help bridging this gap. Patterns emerged from several industrial applications of our DHARMA method, and synthesize knowledge about common enterprise strategies, e.g. CRM. Patterns have been constructed based on the well-known Porter’s model of the 5 market forces and built upon i* strategic dependency models. In this way technical and administrative knowledge and skills are synthesized in a commonly agreeable framework. The use of patterns is illustrated with an industrial example in the telecom field.

Current software systems are hybrid in nature. They are built by integrating third party Off-The-Shelf (OTS) components with preexisting legacy and bespoke custom-made software. In such systems, components are usually arranged into layers (e.g., hardware platform, operating systems and database layers, among others) to allow for their operation and interaction. Although several methods have been proposed to support OTS component selection, the truth is that in many cases the process is driven by political and other non-technical aspects, considering components as independent and isolated. Because of this, relevant stakeholder's requirements and concerns, as well as the implications that the selection of a particular component may bring to the system architecture, are simply ignored. In the worst case this may lead to the selection of unsuited or inappropriate components and eventually to miscarried projects, but more often to situations in which projects froze due to lack of stakeholders' agreement in relation to the newly created architectural scenario and some of its emerging requirements. In this paper we address these issues and present a proposal that uses software quality models as framework to support the negotiation of both initial and emerging requirements and the reconciliation of stakeholders' concerns. The approach considers components at different layers of system's architecture. The advantages of the proposal are illustrated with a real case conducted in a banking organization.

This chapter proposes the use of quality models to describe the quality of requirements management tools. We present the COSTUME (COmposite SofTware system qUality Model development) method aimed at building ISO/IEC 9126-1-compliant quality models, and then we apply it to the case of requirements management. We emphasize the need to use UML class diagrams to represent the knowledge about the domain prior to the quality model construction, and also use actor-based models to represent the dependencies of requirements management tools with their environment, and then comprehend better the implications of quality factors. We show the applicability of the quality model in a real experience of selection of a requirements management tool. This chapter appears in the book Requirements Engineering for Sociotechnical Systems by Jose Luis Mate and Andres Silva. Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Suite 200, Hershey PA 17033, USA Tel: 717/533-8845; Fax 717/533-8661; URL-http://www.idea-group.com INFORMATION SCIENCE PUBLISHING 120 Carvallo, Franch and Quer Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. Introduction The activities embraced by the requirements engineering discipline (Kotonya & Sommerville, 1998; Robertson & Robertson, 1999), such as the capture, analysis, validation, verification, and maintenance of software systems requirements, often turn out to be very complex to carry out, especially in the case of mediumand large-scale projects. Among other factors, their success depends on the following abilities: 1. The ability to deal with a large number of requirements that are related in many ways. 2. The ability to guarantee, to an acceptable extent, that the requirements are complete and consistent. 3. The ability to organize the requirements with respect to different criteria. 4. The ability to maintain and manage several versions of requirements during the process. Requirements management tools (RMT) provide computer-based support to overcome the complexities that stem from those activities. RMTs provide functionalities to support the abilities mentioned above, such as requirements capture and classification, traceability, version management, and generation of a requirements document. Many RMTs exist in the market nowadays (for example, Rational RequisitePro, Telelogic DOORS, Compuware Reconcile and IrQA from TCP Sistemas e Ingenieria, and so forth), usually available in the form of COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) components. They differ among others in the requirements capture strategies that they offer, in the way in which they structure and relate requirements, and in the additional components and resources that they require to operate. As it is true in other COTS domains, selecting the most appropriate RMT for an organization or even for a particular project can be difficult. For this reason an organization selecting a RMT should be aiming at defining or using a framework in which RMTs could be evaluated with respect to its specific needs. This framework should embrace different kind of features that affect software evaluation, such as managerial, political, and quality factors, which are the focus of our work. In this chapter we present a framework based on the use of quality models for describing the quality aspects of RMTs that will act as software evaluation criteria. In the ISO standard 14598-1, a quality model is defined as “the set of characteristics and related relationships that provides the base for specifying quality requirements and evaluating quality” (ISO, 1999). A widespread standard on quality models is the ISO/IEC 9126-1 (ISO, 2001). Quality models compliant with this standard present three different kinds of quality factors, namely characteristics, subcharacteristics, and attributes, organized as a hierarchy. The standard itself fixes a set of six characteristics (functionality, reliability, usability, efficiency, maintainability, and portability), decomposed into a first level of subcharacteristics (such as security, interoperability, maturity, and so forth). To complete a quality model applicable in a given COTS domain, it becomes necessary to further 18 more pages are available in the full version of this document, which may be purchased using the "Add to Cart" button on the product's webpage: www.igi-global.com/chapter/quality-model-requirements-managementtools/28406?camid=4v1 This title is available in InfoSci-Books, InfoSci-Software Technologies, Science, Engineering, and Information Technology, InfoSci-Select, InfoSciComputer Science and Information Technology. Recommend this product to your librarian: www.igi-global.com/e-resources/library-recommendation/?id=1

The architectural definition of hybrid software systems is a challenging problem that demands to reconcile stakeholders’ strategic needs and components marketplace, whilst defining an appropriate set of services. We have defined a method called DHARMA based on the i* framework. The goal of this paper is to present an experience report about the use of i* in large-scale projects. We provide two different viewpoints: the viewpoint of the stakeholder and the viewpoint of the modeller. Apart from general lessons learned, we also provide some insights about the use of i* in the specific context of architecting hybrid systems using DHARMA.

Large software systems are often deployed putting together many Commercial-Off-The-Shelf software components (COTS). The selection of the COTS to be integrated is driven by the software system requirements. In this paper, we propose the RECSS method aimed at supporting requirements elicitation and analysis in the context of COTS-based software systems. RECSS builds a goal model of the system environment which identifies the external elements that interact with it. Next, the system is decomposed into actors for which ISO/IEC-based quality models are built. As part of the process, environmental and platform characteristics that influence the behaviour of the system are identified. Last, the resulting artefacts are used to analyse and refine the system requirements.

The selection of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components is currently a central activity in the development of information systems. Criteria for selecting COTS components include both technical and non-technical issues. Whilst many catalogues of technical quality factors exist, it is not the case for non-technical ones. In this paper, we propose an extension of the ISO/IEC 9126-1 catalogue with non-technical factors. The extension is designed to be integrated smoothly in the departing catalogue, therefore we keep the hierarchy-oriented structure and we distinguish the three abstraction levels of the ISO/IEC standard. We provide some evidence of the adequacy of the catalogue by reporting on its use in some recent COTS selection experiences carried out in the context of the ETAPATELECOM company (Ecuador).

The selection process is a crucial activity of the development of COTS-based systems. A key step of the evaluation of COTS components carried out during selection is the matching between user requirements and COTS features. We propose a goal-based approach to guide the matching process, using quality models for leveraging goals and COTS features. The different mismatch situations that may arise are reasoned by means of exploratory scenarios. We demonstrate the approach with the mail server case study.

When an organization faces the need of integrating some workflow-related activities in its information system, it becomes necessary to have at hand some well-defined informational model to be used as a framework for determining the selection criteria onto which the requirements of the organization can be mapped. Some proposals exist that provide such a framework, remarkably the WfMC reference model, but they are designed to be appl icable when workflow tools are selected independently from other software, and departing from a set of well-known requirements. Often this is not the case: workflow facilities are needed as a part of the procurement of a larger, composite information syste m and therefore the general goals of the system have to be analyzed, assigned to its individual components and further detailed. We propose in this paper the MULTSEC method in charge of analyzing the initial goals of the system, determining the types of components that form the system architecture, building quality models for each type and then mapping the goals into detailed requirements which can be measured using quality criteria. We develop in some detail the quality model (compliant with the ISO/IEC 9126-1 quality standard) for the workflow type of tools; we show how the quality model can be used to refine and clarify the requirements in order to guarantee a highly reliable selection result; and we use it to evaluate two particular workflow solutions a- ailable in the market (kept anonymous in the paper). We develop our proposal using a particular selection experience we have recently been involved in, namely the procurement of a document management subsystem to be integrated in an academic data management information system for our university.

Selection of software packages from user requirements is a central task in software engineering. Selection of inappropriate packages may compromise business processes and may interfere negatively in the functioning of the involved organization. Success of package selection is endangered because of many factors, one of the most important being the absence of structured descriptions of both package features and user quality requirements. In this paper, we propose a methodology for describing quality factors of software packages using the ISO/IEC quality standard as a framework. Following this standard, relevant attributes for a specific software domain are identified and structured as a hierarchy, and metrics for them are chosen. Software packages in this domain can then be described in a uniform and comprehensive way. Therefore, selection of packages can be ameliorated by transforming user quality requirements into requirements expressed in terms of quality model attributes. We illustrate the approach by presenting, in some depth, a quality model for the mail server domain.

One of the factors that influence the success of COTS product procurement processes is a deep knowledge of the COTS market. The existence of exhaustive and structured descriptions of COTS products belonging to concrete COTS domains may be used as a framework in which particular COTS products could be evaluated and compared to user requirements during the procurement process. Because of its specific characteristics, the domain of mail-related COTS products may benefit from these kind of descriptions. This paper presents an ISO/IEC-based quality model for the mail servers COTS domain, which is built by applying a precise methodology. A general overview of this methodology is presented and its application to the domain is detailed. The use of the mail server quality model is illustrated in some procurement contexts.

In the paper [1] we propose a taxonomy for classifying COTS business applications, i.e. products that are used in the daily functioning of all types of organizations worldwide, such as ERP systems and document management tools. We propose the identification of characterization attributes to arrange the domains which these products belong to, and also we group these domains into categories. We define questions and answers as a means for browsing the taxonomy during COTS selection. We show the need of identifying and recording the relationships among the domains and propose the use of actor-oriented models for expressing these relationships as dependencies. Last, we explore the definition of quality models for the domains, to be used in COTS selection, focusing on their reusability and stepwise definition downwards the hierarchy.

Software component selection is growing in importance. Its success relies on correctly assessing the candidate components' quality. For a particular project, you can assess quality by identifying and analyzing the criteria that affect it. Component selection is on the suitability and completeness of the criteria used for evaluation. Experiences from determining criteria for several industrial projects provide important lessons. For a particular selection process, you can organize selection criteria into a criteria catalog. A CC is built for a scope, which can be either a domain (workflow systems, mail servers, antivirus tools, and so on) or a category of domains (communication infrastructure, collaboration software, and so on). Structurally, a CC arranges selection criteria in a hierarchical tree-like structure. The higher-level selection criteria serve to classify more concrete selection criteria, usually allowing some overlap. They also serve to leverage the CC.

The growing importance of commercial off-the-shelf software packages requires adapting some software engineering practices, such as requirements elicitation and testing, to this emergent framework. Also, some specific new activities arise, among which selection of software packages plays a prominent role. All the methodologies that have been proposed recently for choosing software packages compare user requirements with the packages' capabilities. There are different types of requirements, such as managerial, political, and, of course, quality requirements. Quality requirements are often difficult to check. This is partly due to their nature, but there is another reason that can be mitigated, namely the lack of structured and widespread descriptions of package domains (that is, categories of software packages such as ERP systems, graphical or data structure libraries, and so on). This absence hampers the accurate description of software packages and the precise statement of quality requirements, and consequently overall package selection and confidence in the result of the process. Our methodology for building structured quality models helps solve this drawback.

The definition of the context of a system is one of the most relevant activities in the early phases of information systems engineering. It allows system engineers to narrow the system scope, by defining well established system boundaries. In practice, outlining a system context model is complex and cumbersome. In order to support context modeling, in this paper we propose a catalogue of context model elements expressed in i*, which can be reused as building blocks in the construction of context models for new systems. We describe the process used for the identification of a set of actors and dependencies recurrently appearing in several academic and industrial cases, and the process to store them into a catalogue of reusable i* context dependencies.

ERP systems are a category of COTS products that offers extensive support to the management of business processes in most kind of companies and organizations. Due to their increasing adoption and the risks coming from their incorrect selection, efforts towards effective and reliable selection methods should have a positive impact in the community. This chapter proposes the adoption of quality models as a means for structuring the description of the capabilities of such type of products. The ISO/IEC 9126-1 quality standard is chosen as a framework, and a methodology for tailoring it to this specific domain is followed. The chapter also shows the formalization of the quality model by using a formal language. Last, the use of the quality model for processing quality requirements is also addressed.

In this paper we propose a taxonomy for classifying COTS business applications, i.e. products that are used in the daily functioning of all types of organizations worldwide, such as ERP systems and document management tools. We propose the identification of characterization attributes to arrange the domains which these products belong to, and also we group these domains into categories. We define questions and answers as a means for browsing the taxonomy during COTS selection. We show the need of identifying and recording the relationships among the domains and propose the use of actor-oriented models for expressing these relationships as dependencies. Last, we explore the definition of quality models for the domains, to be used in COTS selection, focusing on their reusability and stepwise definition downwards the hierarchy. (Best Paper Award 2004)

Because of their complexity, software systems are currently built by integrating components of different nature into hybrid architectures, usually including some third party Off-The-Shelf (OTS) components. Several methods have been proposed to support OTS component selection. Most of them work by comparing requirements, incrementally gained though several iterations, and component descriptions. However, the iterative nature of these methods makes them practically unsuitable in some cases, particularly when conducting call-for-tender-based processes for selecting coarse-grained OTS components. In these cases, company goals need to be thoughtfully and systematically engineered to obtain a well structured set of requirements, which is to remain static during the entire procurement process and cannot be validated through hands-on experimentation. In this paper we report a case study in the selection of an ERP system for a telecommunications company using a call-for-tender process. We present the activities that were undertaken to elicit, analyze and structure the requirements to be included in call-for-tender documents, and the evaluation of components based on the identification of mismatches between requirements and component capabilities.

The selection of COTS components is made not only by an analysis of their technical quality but also (and sometimes mostly) by considering how they fulfill the nontechnical requirements considered relevant, which refer to licensing, reputation, and similar issues. In this paper we present an approach for managing non-technical requirements during COTS selection. The proposal is based on extending the ISO/IEC 9126-1 catalogue of quality factors by adding factors related to non-technical issues, obtaining a cohesive and comprehensive framework for managing requirements during selection. We show how we can use this catalogue for eliciting non-technical requirements, and how the metrics included in the catalogue may be used to define fit criteria for requirements. We illustrate our approach with an industrial experience that took place in the telecommunications field.