Building a software assessment advisor using expert systems techniques

An important aspect of the production of quality software is that of software assessment and certification. This involves the measurement of a finished software product using a set of recognised Software Assessment Units. It is essential that at the specification of a piece of software a set of relevant software attributes with a suitable subset of Assessment Units is identified. The set is used to determine whether or not the finished product meets an appropriate quality standard. It has been recognised that a Software Assessment Advisor (SAA) is a necessary tool to assist with this task. An SAA can help in determining the software attributes which should be measured and in selecting an appropriate set of Assessment Units. The SAA will use information concerning the categorisation and functions of a proposed software product, the user's requirements, available tools, and prior assessment experiences in these tasks. So far, no clear approach has been identified for the development of an SAA. The investigation of the modelling required by an SAA indicates that Expert Systems techniques could provide a useful step forward in this development. Expert Systems techniques are able to relate the information required by the certification procedure intelligently by means of the knowledge model and to support symbolic reasoning to advise the software certifier. Also an Expert System's capability for knowledge learning is significant with respect to the relatively young area of Software Assessment and Certification. This paper discusses the activities involved in the Assessment and Certification process, describes how an SAA can assist for the process and how an Expert Systems approach has been used in the development of a prototype SAA.