Size and effort estimation based on correlations between problem and solution domain measures for object oriented software


Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Enformatik Enstitüsü, Bilişim Sistemleri Anabilim Dalı, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2015

Öğrenci: TÜLİN ERÇELEBİ AYYILDIZ

Danışman: ALTAN KOÇYİĞİT

Özet:

Software size measurement and effort estimation methodologies in use today usually take the detailed requirements of software to be developed as the primary input and a certain amount of time and expertise is needed for size measurement. This thesis analyzes the correlations between the problem domain measures such as the number of distinct nouns and distinct verbs in the requirements artifacts and the solution domain measures such as the number of software classes and methods in the corresponding object oriented software to develop an early and cost-effective software size and effort estimation methodology. For this purpose, five case studies have been conducted. In the first case study, 37 open source software projects are analyzed and a strong correlation between the problem and solution domain measures is observed. In order to validate the proposed methodology, the second and third case studies are conducted on commercial software projects. Therefore, a methodology based on linear regression analysis is proposed to estimate the solution domain measures of object oriented software projects. Moreover, significant correlations are also observed between the problem domain measures, the Use Case Points (UCP) and the Common Software Measurement International Consortium (COSMIC) Function Point (CFP) size measures and the effort required to develop software. Again, the linear regression analysis is carried out for size and effort estimations and prediction performances are evaluated via the fourth and fifth case studies. The results show that the proposed methodology provides more accurate results compared to the UCP and CFP methodologies in effort estimations.