Component-based approach for requirements reuse

AbstractReusing requirements improves product quality and the productivity of the development process. This paper investigates how the development of new requirements can be made more productive through reuse of the experience gained on similar requirements. This can be facilitated using a component-based reuse approach supported by a framework. Therefore, the central challenge for this research work is double: (1) to define a new concept for the requirement component as the combination of two types of knowledge: reusable knowledge and knowledge of reuse; (2) to define AFR (Analysis For Reuse) that represents the capitalization process by opposition to Analysis By Reuse that represents the process of reuse itself. Finally, we provide a case study related to the requirements of a hotel system to explain how the first process works. Through this approach, we use a framework ‘Requirements Repository Framework (R2F)’ in order to capitalize existing requirements within a repository for future reuse. We present the results of an experiment with three second-level student sections that used R2F in their IS240 course project; as well as with four student groups that used R2F in their respective senior projects. The objective of this experiment is to measure the usability of the proposed AFR process.