I explained to Didar Zowghi some recent work I had been doing with Anthony Finkelstein and Carlo Montangero on Software and System Engineering Standards. In particular I explained a model of standards compliance. The notations we are experimenting with for modelling standards and policies for executing compliance checks. A paper on Managing Standards Compliance is available from my web site. We discussed the relationship of this work to the general area of Inconsistency management and I drew Didar's attention to the RENOIR working group on Inconsistency whose next meeting is going to be in London on December 17-18.
Over luch I talked to Didar and Ray about the various initiatives that are planned for RENOIR and in particular the road show. Ray commented that technology transfer would be a very interesting scientific problem in itself and he suggested the creation of a RENOIR working group to discuss technology transfer problems. We agreed that the arrogant position taken by many academics who try to superimpose their research onto industry would not work. A more fruitful route to technology transfer would be a requirements engineering consulting company within RENOIR where academics would first listen to the requirements engineering problems that exist in industry and then try to solve that.
After lunch I met with Louise Scott to discuss her PhD work on MetaCASE tools. Luise explained a hyper graph model that she explored for modelling the syntax of graphical editors that occur in CASE tools. We discussed the importance of static semantic and inter-document consistency checks. We agreed that slightly different notations were necessary to model this and I drew Louise's attention on the work I did during my PhD on tool specification.
I then gave a seminar talk about the use of OMG/CORBA and Object Database Management Systems in Viewpoint Development Environments. A paper summarising that talk is available from my web site.
I then met with Didar Zowghi to discuss her research about requirements evolution. Didar investigates the application of general confidence theory for requirements engineering as part of her PhD work.
Didar also drew my attention on a series of Australian Requirements Engineering workshops. Didar organised the second workshop in Sydney in October 1997. Proceedings of that workshop are available from the RENOIR network coordinator.
This was a very useful visit for both me and people at Macquarie and we hope to be able to involve JRCASE in further RENOIR activities.