Knowledge centered assessment pattern: an effective tool for assessing safety concerns in software architecture

  • Authors:
  • Soheil Khajenoori;Lorenz Prem;Karen Stevens;Ban Seng Keng;Nader Kameli

  • Affiliations:
  • Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Department of Computing, Daytona Beach, Florida, FL;Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Department of Computing, Daytona Beach, Florida, FL;Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Department of Computing, Daytona Beach, Florida, FL;Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Department of Computing, Daytona Beach, Florida, FL;Guidant Corporation, Cardiac Rhythm Management, 4100 Hamline Avenue North, St. Paul, MN

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Systems and Software - Special issue: Applications of statistics in software engineering
  • Year:
  • 2004

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

In software-based systems, the notion of software failure is magnified if the software in question is a component of a safety critical system. Hence, to ensure a required level of safety, the product must undergo expensive rigorous testing and verification/ validation activities. To minimize the cost of quality (COQ) associated with the development of safety critical systems, it becomes imperative, that the assessment of intermediate artifacts (e.g., requirement, design documents or models) is done efficiently and effectively to maximize early defect detection and/or defect prevention. However, as a human-centered process, the assessment of software architecture for safety critical systems relies heavily on the experience and knowledge of the assessment team to ensure that the proposed architecture is consistent with the software functional and safety requirements. The knowledge centered assessment pattern (KCAP) acts as effective tool to assist assessment teams by providing key information on what architectural elements should be assessed, why they should to be assessed, and how they should be assessed. Furthermore, the use of KCAP highlights cases where the software architecture has been properly, over, under, or incoherently engineered.