Model Eco-Systems: Preliminary Work

Modeling is core software engineering practice. Conceptual models are constructed to establish an abstract understanding of the domain among stakeholders. These are then refined into computational models that aim to realize a conceptual specification. The refinement process yields sets of models that are initially incomplete and inconsistent by nature. The aim of the engineering process is to negotiate consistency and completeness toward a stable state sufficient for deployment / implementation. This paper presents the notion of a model ecosystem, which permits the capability to guide analyst edits toward stability by computing consistency and completeness equilibria for conceptual models during periods of model change.