AutoModel - the Idea

AutoModel is an approach to improve the requirements engineering process during software development. It deals with natural language descriptions, their flaws and last but not least their conversion into UML. AutoModel is an add-on to already existing requirements engineering processes.

Until today, there are several streams and ideas how to cope with the problem of understanding natural language and being able to interpret it. We would like to exploit and extend these possibilities using ontologies. This kind of "common sense" is what makes humans inferior to computer while processing natural language specifications. At least until now...

Since this program is sponsored by a company, the desired solution is to work with problems affecting the company's main field of action. That is, CRM.

Imaging you are able to pre-process or even convert the proposal/bid you just received from your customer into smaller chunks which are already in UML. As a consultant, your first job is to completely understand what the customer needs. If the specifications you reiceive from the customer are already quite sophisticated, AutoModel should be able to help you understand and visualize faster. This makes returning an effort-estimation a goal much easier and faster to achieve.

AutoModel is supposed to use methods like statistical translation, semantic roles and ontologies.

So far the facts are:

• We are evaluating our approach on several textual specifications from different domains.
• We are not trying to compete with any of the available parsers for natural languages. But we will found our ideas on one method which appears to be the most promising
• We want to support the automatic model creation process and enrich it with the use of ontologies and therefore "common sense".
• All the other facts can be read in our blog. So click here.

Scholarship - Cooperation

This research project is based on a scholarship in cooperation with the university of Karlsruhe.

The ec4u expert consulting ag was so kind to donate 2 out of my 5 working days to research at the Institute for Program Structures and Data Organization at the University of Karlsruhe, Prof. Tichy.

The field of research has not been artificially cropped by the company. eC4u expects to gain knowledge through the whole learning phase during this conferral of a doctorate.

The focus on the challenge mentioned in "the idea" still lies in the CRM-area and therefore offers potential benefits for the cooperative employer as well as for the research community.

So far there are a number of ideas to involve company knowledge into the research process. This helps to keep track of necessary and maybe unnecessary approaches as well as to recognize problems from a practical point of view.

About me

My name is Sven J. Körner.

I received my diploma in computer science in March 2006. Shortly after I started as a junior researcher in the group of Professor W. Tichy at the Institute for Program Structures and Data Organization at the University of Karlsruhe.

I received a scholarship from eC4u expert consulting AG which gives me the opportunity to do research on two days a week.

I also work three days a week for eC4u expert consulting AG developing software for CRM-Systems. I belong to the development group of the company. We ship our own product additonal to all the consulting my colleagues do in the Siebel, SAP and MS CRM areas.

Contact

It's easiest to contact me through the world-wide-web. You can reach me in the following ways:

Email: koerner at ipd dot uka dot de
Skype: sjk_1979

My office address is:

Institute for Program Structures and Data Organization (IPD)
University of Karlsruhe, Computer Science Department
Group of Prof. Tichy
Am Fasanengarten 5
Room 346 (northern corridor)
76128 Karlsruhe
Germany