<p>Systems development projects and their documents are more or less standardized and can mainly be applied on systems that are supposed to be built from scratch, or updated. In pace with the number of IT-systems are increasing worldwide there is no need for every organization to build their own IT-system. Nowadays it is also possible to purchase licenses which allow the purchaser to modify or add functions to the system. Along with those changes, there have been an increased amount of “rapid development methods” such as Agile and “Quick and Dirty” solutions, but these methods and perspectives are mainly focusing on entire systems development processes, as the old ones, but quicker.</p><p>If a company purchases an off-the-shelf system with source code available, there is no real need to go through a proper systems development process. During interviews with a small company that has acquired a system as mentioned above, the researcher realized that only one single document is needed, the requirements specification. Today’s requirements specifications can be either well detailed or less, but a project still needs the details specified. Combining a known agile development process with IEEE’s standardized requirements specification, a new way to proceed with projects based on one single document (the requirements specification) has been made. This document also has a focus on simplicity for the inexperienced readers, but with the depth that every developer has got a use for.</p>

Systems development projects and their documents are more or less standardized and can mainly be applied on systems that are supposed to be built from scratch, or updated. In pace with the number of IT-systems are increasing worldwide there is no need for every organization to build their own IT-system. Nowadays it is also possible to purchase licenses which allow the purchaser to modify or add functions to the system. Along with those changes, there have been an increased amount of “rapid development methods” such as Agile and “Quick and Dirty” solutions, but these methods and perspectives are mainly focusing on entire systems development processes, as the old ones, but quicker. If a company purchases an off-the-shelf system with source code available, there is no real need to go through a proper systems development process. During interviews with a small company that has acquired a system as mentioned above, the researcher realized that only one single document is needed, the requirements specification. Today’s requirements specifications can be either well detailed or less, but a project still needs the details specified. Combining a known agile development process with IEEE’s standardized requirements specification, a new way to proceed with projects based on one single document (the requirements specification) has been made. This document also has a focus on simplicity for the inexperienced readers, but with the depth that every developer has got a use for.

Τα τελευταία χρόνια γίνονται πολλές έρευνες οι οποίες δείχνουν πως οι Οντολογίες και οι τεχνολογίες βασισμένες σε οντολογίες, βρίσκουν ευρεία εφαρμογή στην εκπαίδευση και αποτελούν έναν από τους πιο σημαντικούς τομείς έρευνας της εκπαιδευτικής τεχνολογίας. Μια οντολογία αποτελεί την τυπική προδιαγραφή κάποιας περιοχής γνώσης (Gruber, 1993). Παρέχει τις βασικές έννοιες του πεδίου γνώσης που περιγράφεται και τις μεταξύ τους σχέσεις, καθώς και την ορολογία με την οποία αναφερόμαστε στις έννοιες και τις σχέσεις αυτές. Δηλαδή, μια οντολογία παρέχει τόσο λεξιλόγια και όσο και σχήματα οργάνωσης της γνώσης, τα οποία μπορούν να αξιοποιηθούν ως κοινά πλαίσια επικοινωνίας μεταξύ ανθρώπων, συστημάτων και οργανισμών, διευκολύνοντας το διαμοιρασμό, την διαλειτουργικότητα και την επαναχρησιμοποίηση πόρων (Uschold & Gruninger, 1996). Οι Οντολογίες συνδέονται στενά με το λεγόμενο Σημασιολογικό Ιστό, που αναφέρεται στη σημασιολογική διασύνδεση των πληροφοριών που υπάρχουν στον Παγκόσμιο Ιστό με τρόπο κατανοητό από μηχανές (Berners Lee et al., 2001). Μια τέτοια διασύνδεση θα έδινε πολύ μεγάλες προοπτικές όσον αφορά στο διαμοιρασμό, ανάκληση και επαναχρησιμοποίηση της πληροφορίας τόσο στην εκπαίδευση όσο σε όλο το φάσμα των δραστηριοτήτων μας. Η εργασία μας συνίσταται στη δημιουργία μιας εκπαιδευτικής εφαρμογής για τη διαχείριση μαθησιακού υλικού και μαθησιακών στόχων σχετικών με το αντικείμενο της Αντικειμενοστρεφούς Ανάλυσης και συγκεκριμένα με το γνωστικό πεδίο των Διαγραμμάτων Περιπτώσεων Χρήσης, η οποία βασίζεται σε οντολογίες. Χρησιμοποιούμε οντολογίες για να περιγράψουμε με τυπικό τρόπο τρεις βασικές συνιστώσες της μαθησιακής διαδικασίας: το γνωστικό πεδίο, τα μαθησιακά αντικείμενα και τους μαθησιακούς στόχους, με σκοπό να γίνει δυνατή η αυτόματη επεξεργασία των παραπάνω συνιστωσών από εφαρμογές ηλεκτρονικής μάθησης και να προωθείται η επικοινωνία, η διαλειτουργικότητα και ο διαμοιρασμός πόρων. Ακόμα, ζητούμενο της εφαρμογής μας αποτελεί η ενσωμάτωση σε αυτήν δυνατοτήτων παροχής προσωποποιημένων υπηρεσιών. Αφού κάνουμε μια σύντομη επισκόπηση της βιβλιογραφίας σχετικά με τη χρήση οντολογιών στην Εκπαίδευση αναφερόμαστε στις Οντολογίες που δημιουργήσαμε και στον τρόπο που είναι δυνατόν να χρησιμοποιηθούν για να επιτευχθούν οι προαναφερθέντες στόχοι. Σημειώνουμε ότι στην παρούσα εργασία δεν περιλαμβάνεται η εκπαιδευτική αξιολόγηση του συστήματος (μετά από πιλοτική χρήση), αλλά μόνο η επαλήθευση της λειτουργίας του. / An ontology is a formal specification of a conceptualization (Gruber, 1993). It provides terminology and conceptual schemas concerning a domain, and can be used as a communication framework between humans, software systems and organizations, promoting interoperability and reusability of resources. Our work concerns the creation of an ontology-based educational application that aims at the management of educational resources and instructional goals related to the field of Object-Orient Analysis and specifically the field of Use Case Diagrams. As part of our work, we have used ontologies to formally describe three basic components of the educational process: the learning material, the knowledge domain and the learning goals. We created three ontologies: the use case diagram ontology (domain ontology), the competency ontology (to model the learning goals) and the learning object ontology (to describe the learning material), which we ultimately combined in one application. The inclusion of components like learning objects and competencies in our application, as well as the use of ontologies to formally describe them, are features that can promote interoperability and resource reuse and can be used to provide personalised services. In this paper, we first describe ontologies and their current uses in the education field according to recent research and then we proceed with the analytic description of our ontologies and our application.

This study investigated the use of ORM as a conceptual modelling technique by using the UML domain model class diagram as benchmark. The rationale was that if the ORM-class diagram compared favourably with the benchmark, then ORM could be proposed as an alternate conceptual modelling technique. Proponents of ORM suggest that it has significant advantages over other techniques for conceptual modelling. The benchmark UML class diagram was developed according to the Unified Process through use-cases and collaboration diagrams. The ORM-class diagram was derived using the Conceptual Schema Design Process and ORM-UML Mapping Process. The evaluation of the two class diagrams was conducted by means of a questionnaire, based on a set of principles for conceptual models. The study concluded that ORM could not be proposed as a conceptual modelling technique up to the UML domain class diagram level without considering additional techniques for capturing the dynamics of the system. / Computer Science / M.Sc. (Computer Science)

This study investigated the use of ORM as a conceptual modelling technique by using the UML domain model class diagram as benchmark. The rationale was that if the ORM-class diagram compared favourably with the benchmark, then ORM could be proposed as an alternate conceptual modelling technique. Proponents of ORM suggest that it has significant advantages over other techniques for conceptual modelling. The benchmark UML class diagram was developed according to the Unified Process through use-cases and collaboration diagrams. The ORM-class diagram was derived using the Conceptual Schema Design Process and ORM-UML Mapping Process. The evaluation of the two class diagrams was conducted by means of a questionnaire, based on a set of principles for conceptual models. The study concluded that ORM could not be proposed as a conceptual modelling technique up to the UML domain class diagram level without considering additional techniques for capturing the dynamics of the system. / Computer Science / M.Sc. (Computer Science)