@inproceedings{JohnVillela, author = {John, Isabel and Villela, Karina}, title = {Evolutionary Product Line Scoping}, series = {Software Product Lines: Going Beyond (SPLC 2010)}, booktitle = {Software Product Lines: Going Beyond (SPLC 2010)}, editor = {Bosch, Jan and Lee, Jaejoon}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Berlin, Heidelberg}, isbn = {978-3-642-15578-9}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-15579-6_57}, pages = {515 -- 516}, abstract = {Product Line Engineering has a widespread use in industry now. Therefore there is a high need for customizable, adaptable, and also for mature methods. Scoping is an integral part of Product Line Engineering. In this phase we determine where to reuse and what to reuse, establishing the basis for all technical, managerial, and investment decisions in the product line to come. In this tutorial we will give an introduction on how to analyze an environment with the purpose of planning a product line and its future evolution.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{JohnSchwanningerAlmeida, author = {John, Isabel and Schwanninger, Christa and Almeida, Eduardo}, title = {The rise and fall of product line architectures}, series = {Software Product Lines: Going Beyond (SPLC 2010)}, booktitle = {Software Product Lines: Going Beyond (SPLC 2010)}, editor = {Bosch, Jan and Lee, Jaejoon}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Berlin, Heidelberg}, isbn = {978-3-642-15578-9}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-15579-6_49}, pages = {500 -- 501}, abstract = {This panel addresses questions around architecture like: How do you think a good product line architecture should look like? How much up-front design do we need for a product line architecture? What are hot research topics in product line architecture? The panel is organized as a goldfish bowl, where the panelists are in the middle of the audience and panelists change during the panel.}, language = {en} } @article{John, author = {John, Isabel}, title = {Identifikation von Anforderungen aus Benutzerdokumentation}, series = {Softwaretechnik-Trends}, volume = {31}, journal = {Softwaretechnik-Trends}, number = {1}, publisher = {Geselllschaft f{\"u}r Informatik eV}, address = {Bonn}, issn = {0720-8928}, language = {de} } @article{LiuJohnKnodel, author = {Liu, Yan and John, Isabel and Knodel, Jens}, title = {Early service discovery in small business ecosystems: A pilot study}, series = {International Workshop on Service-Oriented Architecture Migration and Evolution (SOAME) 2010}, journal = {International Workshop on Service-Oriented Architecture Migration and Evolution (SOAME) 2010}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{BlaesiusGrawemeyerJohnetal., author = {Bl{\"a}sius, Karl-Hans and Grawemeyer, Beate and John, Isabel and Kuhn, Norbert}, title = {Knowledge-based document analysis}, series = {Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition}, volume = {2}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition}, publisher = {IEEE}, pages = {728 -- 731}, language = {en} } @article{John, author = {John, Isabel}, title = {Using documentation for product line scoping}, series = {IEEE software}, volume = {27}, journal = {IEEE software}, number = {3}, publisher = {IEEE}, doi = {10.1109/MS.2010.34}, pages = {42 -- 47}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{VillelaDoerrJohn, author = {Villela, Karina and D{\"o}rr, J{\"o}rg and John, Isabel}, title = {Evaluation of a Method for Proactively Managing the Evolving Scope of a Software Product Line}, series = {Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ 2010)}, booktitle = {Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ 2010)}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Berlin, Heidelberg}, isbn = {978-3-642-14191-1}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-14192-8_13}, abstract = {[Context and motivation]PLEvo-Scoping is a method intended to help Product Line (PL) scoping teams anticipate emergent features and distinguish unstable from stable features, with the aim of preparing their PL for likely future adaptation needs. [Question/problem]This paper describes a quasi-experiment performed to characterize PLEvo-Scoping in terms of adequacy and feasibility. [Principal ideas/results] This quasi-experiment was performed by two scoping teams in charge of scoping the same PL, where one scoping team applied first an existing PL scoping approach and then PLEvo-Scoping, while the other scoping team interweaved activities from both. The two approaches achieved similar results: The method could be applied in just one day, and it was considered adequate and feasible. [Contribution] Ideas on how to improve the method and its tool support have been obtained, and similar results are expected from other professionals facing the problem of evolution-centered PL scoping. However, further empirical studies should be performed.}, language = {en} } @article{BlaesiusGrawemeyerJohnetal., author = {Bl{\"a}sius, Karl-Hans and Grawemeyer, Beate and John, Isabel and Kuhn, Norbert}, title = {Knowledge-based interpretation of business letters}, series = {Knowledge-Based Systems for Enterprise Knowledge Management KI-97}, journal = {Knowledge-Based Systems for Enterprise Knowledge Management KI-97}, publisher = {Citeseer}, abstract = {The performance of document analysis systems significantly depends on knowledge about the application domain that can be exploited in the analysis process. Typically, one has to deal with different sources of knowledge like syntactic knowledge, semantic knowledge or strategic knowledge guiding the analysis process. We present a knowledge based document analysis system based on a knowledge representation language specially designed for document analysis tasks. It allows to model and to interpret structural knowledge about documents and knowledge about the analysis process declaratively in a common framework}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{BeucheJohn, author = {Beuche, Danilo and John, Isabel}, title = {Managing requirements in product lines}, series = {International Conference on Software Product Lines (SPLC 2010)}, booktitle = {International Conference on Software Product Lines (SPLC 2010)}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Berlin, Heidelberg}, isbn = {978-3-642-15578-9}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-15579-6_56}, pages = {513 -- 514}, abstract = {Any organizations develop software or software -intensive products, which are can be seen as variants or members of a product line. Often the market demands variability and the software organization expects productivity benefits from reuse. In any case, complexity of the software development increases. Requirements management plays a central role in this, when it comes to mastering the complexity. In this tutorial we will give an overview on how to analyze, build and manage common and variable requirements for a product line.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{TschaitschianWenzelJohn, author = {Tschaitschian, B. and Wenzel, C. and John, Isabel}, title = {Tuning the quality of informal software requirements with KARAT}, series = {Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Requirements Engineering: Foundations of Software Quality (REFSQ'97)}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Requirements Engineering: Foundations of Software Quality (REFSQ'97)}, pages = {81 -- 92}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{JohnBassLami, author = {John, Isabel and Bass, L. and Lami, G.}, title = {Software product lines doctoral symposium}, series = {10th International Software Product Line Conference (SPLC'06)}, booktitle = {10th International Software Product Line Conference (SPLC'06)}, publisher = {IEEE}, doi = {10.1109/SPLINE.2006.1691613}, abstract = {The SPLC doctoral symposium provides a platform for young researchers to present their work to an international audience and discuss it with each other and with experts in the field. The symposium addresses research activities in the field of Software Product Lines Topics of Interest include all aspects of the development phases, management, evaluation, reuse, and maintenance of software product lines.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{KolbJohnKnodeletal., author = {Kolb, Ronny and John, Isabel and Knodel, Jens and Muthig, Dirk and Haury, Uwe and Meier, Gerald}, title = {Experiences with product line development of embedded systems at testo AG}, series = {10th International Software Product Line Conference (SPLC'06)}, booktitle = {10th International Software Product Line Conference (SPLC'06)}, publisher = {IEEE}, doi = {10.1109/SPLINE.2006.1691589}, pages = {172 -- 181}, abstract = {Product line practices are increasingly becoming popular in the domain of embedded software systems. This paper presents results of assessing success, consistency, and quality of Testo's product line of climate and flue gas measurement devices after its construction and the delivery of three commercial products. The results of the assessment showed that the incremental introduction of architecture-centric product line development can be considered successful even though there is no quantifiable reduction of time-to-market as well as development and maintenance costs so far. The success is mainly shown by the ability of Testo to develop more complex products and the satisfaction of the involved developers. A major issue encountered is ensuring the quality of reusable components and the conformance of the products to the architecture during development and maintenance}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{GanesanJohnKnodel, author = {Ganesan, D. and John, Isabel and Knodel, Jens}, title = {Combining reverse engineering techniques for product lines}, series = {2nd International Workshop on Program Comprehension through Dynamic Analysis, PCODA 2006}, booktitle = {2nd International Workshop on Program Comprehension through Dynamic Analysis, PCODA 2006}, abstract = {In a product line context, the migration strategy to exploit functionality embodied in existing components having a high reuse potential can be fourfold: reuse as is, reuse and adapt, recover and reconstruct, or (re-)implement. This position paper focuses on the recover and reconstruct strategy and presents an integrated architecture reconstruction approach that aims at migrating core functionality, major variants and key features of existing systems into a product line infrastructure. We combine dynamic and static reverse engineering techniques within a systematic reconstruction approach, whereby one of the main goals is to be compliant to the product line architecture. In this paper, we present the reconstruction approach and illustrate the technique interactions techniques in a case study.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{JohnKnodelLehneretal., author = {John, Isabel and Knodel, Jens and Lehner, Theresa and Muthig, Dirk}, title = {A practical guide to product line scoping}, series = {10th International Software Product Line Conference (SPLC'06)}, booktitle = {10th International Software Product Line Conference (SPLC'06)}, publisher = {IEEE}, doi = {10.1109/SPLINE.2006.1691572}, pages = {3 -- 12}, abstract = {Over the last years scoping has been established as the initial activity for starting product line engineering. To be successful in defining the right scope for more than 5 years in industrial projects, we always had to customize our generic scoping process to the organizational context, projects constraints, available artifacts, and resources. In this paper, we present an update of the scoping process that explicitly integrates 21 customization factors. In our experience customization of scoping is crucial to the overall product line success, since the scope is the basis for all further product line activities.}, language = {en} } @incollection{John, author = {John, Isabel}, title = {Capturing product line information from legacy user documentation}, series = {Software Product Lines - Research Issues in Engineering and Management}, booktitle = {Software Product Lines - Research Issues in Engineering and Management}, editor = {K{\"a}k{\"o}la, Timo and Due{\~n}as, Juan Carlos}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Berlin, Heidelberg}, isbn = {978-3-540-33252-7}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-540-33253-4_4}, pages = {127 -- 159}, abstract = {The development of a software product line is seldom a green field task. Legacy systems exist that serve as an information source or that should be integrated into a product line. The information needed is usually elicited interactively with high involvement by the domain experts of the application domain. As domain experts have a high workload and are often unavailable, relying primarily on high expert involvement is a risk for the successful introduction of a product line engineering approach into an organization. This chapter presents an approach for the extraction of requirements from user documentation, which gives guidance on how to elicit knowledge from existing user documentation and how to transform information from this documentation into product line models. This approach is called the PuLSE-Framework for product line engineering. We describe the metamodel that is the basis of the approach, the extraction patterns that are derived from the metamodel, and the process that guides the application of the patterns and the derivation of information relevant for building a product line. This information can be features of legacy products, parts of use cases that can be used for product line analysis, different kinds of requirements and, most important forproduct line engineering, commonalities and variabilities among existing products. With thehelp of this information, a product line model with the product line requirements can be builtmuch faster and the workload of the domain experts is significantly reduced. We performedan initial validation of the approach in industrial case studies and in a controlled experiment.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{SchmidJohnKolbetal., author = {Schmid, Klaus and John, Isabel and Kolb, Ronny and Meier, Gerald}, title = {Introducing the PuLSE approach to an embedded system population at Testo AG}, series = {27th International Conference on Software Engineering, 2005. ICSE 2005}, booktitle = {27th International Conference on Software Engineering, 2005. ICSE 2005}, publisher = {IEEE}, issn = {0270-5257}, doi = {10.1109/ICSE.2005.1553600}, pages = {544 -- 552}, abstract = {Over the last few years, product line engineering has become a major theme in software engineering research, and is increasingly becoming a central topic of software engineering practice in the embedded domain. Migrating towards a product line approach is not an easy feat. It is even less so, if it is done under tight technology constraints in an embedded environment. It becomes even more difficult if the transition directly aims at integrating two product families into a single product population. In this paper, we discuss our experiences with a project where we successfully dealt with these difficulties and achieved a successful product line transition. In our paper, we strongly emphasize the role of technology transfer, as many facets of product line know-how had to be transferred to guarantee a complete transition to product line engineering. From the experiences of this project many lessons learned can be deduced, which can be transferred to different environments.}, language = {en} } @techreport{ForsterGanesanGirardetal., author = {Forster, T. and Ganesan, D. and Girard, J.-F. and Grund, M. and John, Isabel and Knodel, Jens}, title = {Combination of requirements recovery and architecture recovery for existing systems}, series = {IESE-Report; 058.05/E}, journal = {IESE-Report; 058.05/E}, address = {Kaiserslautern}, doi = {10.24406/publica-fhg-292710}, pages = {66}, abstract = {Reuse of components is a promising solution for software development organizations in order to fulfill the need to reduce cost, effort and time-to-market, to manage increasing complexity and size of the software systems, and to achieve customer requests for high-quality software and individually customized products. A promising migration strategy in order to achieve this organizational change is to transform artifacts of existing systems into reusable components where appropriate. The reusable (often generic) components can then form the core of the product line infrastructure, basis of the future product line. The migration strategy to exploit the functionality embodied in existing components having a high product line potential can be fourfold: reuse as is, reuse and adapt, recover and reconstruct, or (re-)implement. This report focuses on the recovery and presents an integrated architecture reconstruction approach that aims at migrating core functionality, major variants and key features of existing system into a product line infrastructure, whereby one of the main goals is to be complaint to the product line architecture. We call the approach integrated because it combines requirements recovery techniques (reverse engineering of documents) and architecture recovery (static and dynamic reverse engineering). The integrated architecture reconstruction approach does architectural and requirements recovery in breadth by considering all kinds of available artifacts (ranging from source code, documentation to version history information, etc.). The report shows how different reverse engineering techniques from different areas (static, dynamic, and document reverse engineering) influence each other and provide better results when used in combination. The types of combinations of different recovery techniques are explained on the one hand on a abstract level by combining the three areas and analyzing their theoretical potential, and on the other hand by means of concrete techniques where we demonstrate in a case study centered around plug-in development with Eclipse how different techniques interact and what the advantages of the combinations were. The technique we selected to apply in the case study are architecture evaluations with SAVE, interface analysis, architecture recovery with SARA, dynamic analysis with JRat, and requirements recovery based on documentation with CaVE (each technique is shortly described in the report). The different reverse engineering techniques are integrated into the product line engineering framework, PuLSE and especially product line architecture development, PuLSE-DSSA.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{John, author = {John, Isabel}, title = {Pattern-based documentation analysis for software product lines}, publisher = {Fraunhofer Verlag}, address = {Stuttgart}, doi = {10.24406/publica-fhg-278626}, pages = {221}, abstract = {Introducing product line engineering is an investment that has to be planned for. This investment also comprises an investment into the scoping activities. Scoping, also called product line planning can be defined as the process of deciding in which parts of an organisation's products, features and domains systematic reuse is economically useful. The basis of scoping is the domain knowledge of domain experts. In existing product line engineering approaches, the scoping information is elicited interactively from domain experts, which is an effort intensive task due to the large number of experts that are involved and the time needed for workshops and interviews. In this dissertation we present the CaVE approach (Commonality and Variability Extraction) as a solution to this problem. The approach supports scoping and the introduction of product line engineering in a development organisation by systematically eliciting scoping information from user documentation. Our main goal is expert load reduction, to improve the feasibility of product line introduction in industrial context. We could show the completeness and correctness of the approach in three industrial case studies and one experiment. With the empirical validation we could show an expert load reduction of over 40\% percent when using the approach in a real product line context.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{KnodelJohnGanesanetal., author = {Knodel, Jens and John, Isabel and Ganesan, Dharmalingam and Pinzger, Martin and Usero, Fernando and Arciniegas, Jose L. and Riva, Claudio}, title = {Asset recovery and their incorporation into product lines}, series = {12th Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE'05)}, booktitle = {12th Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE'05)}, publisher = {IEEE}, issn = {1095-1350}, doi = {10.1109/WCRE.2005.8}, pages = {120 -- 129}, abstract = {Software product lines aim in having a common platform from which several similar products can be derived. The elements of the platform are called assets and they are managed in an asset base being part of the product line infrastructure. Assets can include own developments, open source or third-party software modules, as well as design and project documents. In the context of the European-wide project FAMILIES, we concentrated on techniques used to populate the asset base by recovering assets from existing systems. We present an approach on how to incorporate existing assets into the product line infrastructure. Thereby we explicitly distinguish the asset origins and the different information sources available. The incorporation is a quality-driven process that is backed up by a set of reverse engineering techniques to evaluate the asset's internal quality. The quality assessment of an asset is the critical measurement for industrial development organizations in order to incorporate assets into their product line infrastructure.}, language = {en} } @techreport{KnodelJohnGanesanetal., author = {Knodel, Jens and John, Isabel and Ganesan, Dharmalingam and Pinzger, Martin and Usero, Fernando and Arciniegas, Jose L. and Riva, Claudio}, title = {Asset recovery and their incorporation into product lines}, series = {IESE-Report; 037.05/E}, journal = {IESE-Report; 037.05/E}, publisher = {Fraunhofer-Institut f{\"u}r Experimentelles Software Engineering IESE}, address = {Kaiserslautern}, doi = {10.24406/publica-fhg-292461}, pages = {22}, abstract = {Software product lines aim in having a common platform from which several similar products can be derived. The elements of the platform are called assets and they are managed in an asset base being part of the product line infrastructure. Assets can include own developments, open source or third-party software modules, as well as design and project documents. In the context of the European-wide project FAMILIES we concentrated on techniques used to populate the asset base by recovering assets from existing systems. We present an approach on how to incorporate existing assets into the product line infrastructure. Thereby we explicitly distinguish the asset origins and the different information sources available. The incorporation is a quality-driven process that is backed up by a set of reverse engineering techniques to evaluate the asset's internal quality. The quality assessment of an asset is the critical measurement for industrial development organizations in order to incorporate assets into their product line infrastructure.}, language = {en} } @techreport{SaueressigJohnHeissensteinetal., author = {Saueressig, Gabriele and John, Isabel and Heißenstein, Johannes and Pfeuffer, Nicolas}, title = {Das B{\"u}rgerkonto. M{\"o}glichkeiten und Potentiale}, language = {de} } @inproceedings{JohnFertig, author = {John, Isabel and Fertig, Tobias}, title = {Gamification for software engineering students - an experience report}, series = {2022 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)}, booktitle = {2022 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)}, publisher = {IEEE}, isbn = {978-1-6654-4434-7}, issn = {2165-9567}, doi = {10.1109/EDUCON52537.2022.9766825}, abstract = {In this paper we describe the evolution of a gamified course on agile methods and Scrum in software engineering teaching at university. The course covers among other topics, agile project management and scrum. For knowledge tranfer we used different gamification approaches in this course over the years, including point based gamification and story based gamification but also simple approaches like quizzes. The gamified e-learning course was realized with the learning management system Moodle. We describe how the course was built up in moodle, give some technical details on the used plugins and gamification elements. We describe our experiences with the different gamification approaches and give some lessons learned.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{UderJohnLee, author = {Uder, Alexander and John, Isabel and Lee, Seok-Won}, title = {Impact of Korean culture on the selection of RE elicitation methods}, series = {SAC '22: Proceedings of the 37th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing}, booktitle = {SAC '22: Proceedings of the 37th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing}, doi = {10.1145/3477314.3507160}, pages = {1337 -- 1340}, abstract = {Requirements Engineering (RE) relies on frequent cooperation and exchange between multiple stakeholder and RE-engineers in order to elicit, analyse, specify, manage and document requirements. Culture shapes the way in which people communicate, adopt techniques, methods and practices. Due to the cooperation-intensive nature of requirements elicitation the cultural background of all involved participants might strongly influence the outcome. This exploratory research investigates the influence of culture on requirements elicitation. The main source of information are qualitative, semi-structured interviews that were conducted with three participants from a large-scale consumer electronics manufacturing company in Korea. The research identified 10 cultural aspects of the Korean culture that show an impact on requirements elicitation.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{JohnHessFertig, author = {John, Isabel and Hess, Anne and Fertig, Tobias}, title = {No More Binge Learning - Using Gamification Elements to Support Distributed Practice in Engineering Education}, series = {2025 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)}, booktitle = {2025 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)}, publisher = {IEEE}, isbn = {979-8-3315-3949-8}, issn = {2165-9567}, doi = {10.1109/EDUCON62633.2025.11016434}, abstract = {An effective technique to support sustainable learning is distributed practice, a method shown to enhance long-term knowledge retention. As part of our research agenda, we aim to investigate suitable design strategies for eLearning courses that support distributed practice through intrinsic motivation. Our most recent strategy followed the idea of linking the acquisition of badges gained by completing a set of quizzes with a small extrinsic reward, a small bonus in the exam grade. We built a course with quizzes and timed badges with staged deadlines for the badges to ensure students do the quizzes during the semester and not shortly before the exam. An initial evaluation of this course design yielded encouraging results. The assessment showed that students learned a great deal from the quizzes and were highly motivated by the quizzes and by receiving the badges. Qualitative feedback highlighted increased motivation, increased engagement, and lower levels of perceived stress among students, who attributed these changes to the platform's ability to make learning more enjoyable and less monotonous. This paper argues that the strategic use of gamification in engineering education can significantly support distributed practice by creating an interactive, motivating, and supportive learning environment.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{JohnFertig, author = {John, Isabel and Fertig, Tobias}, title = {Evaluation of a Gamified Elearning Course for Agile Methods}, series = {2024 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)}, booktitle = {2024 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)}, publisher = {IEEE}, isbn = {979-8-3503-9402-3}, issn = {2165-9567}, doi = {10.1109/EDUCON60312.2024.10578678}, abstract = {For teaching agile methods in an IT undergraduate course we built up a gamified blended learning course. We created the course with gamification elements like videos, quizzes, badges, and points within the learning management system Moodle. To do so we used a gamification concept based on MDA (Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics). The goal of the gamification concept was to increase intrinsic motivation of the students. We evaluated the motivation of our students with a questionnaire that is based on the psychological motivation theory STD (Self Determination Theory). The paper will shortly show how we built up the course in Moodle, and also gives some details on the used plugins and gamification elements. The main focus is on the evaluation which was done using a standardized questionnaire on intrinsic motivation built upon SDT at the beginning and at the end of our course. 39 students participated before taking the course and 16 after the completion of the course. The evaluation shows that some elements in the course like Videos and quizzes increase the motivation clearly whereas others do not. We could show an increase of intrinsic motivation in some factors of the questionnaire we used, but not in all factors.}, language = {en} }