++++++++++++++++++ FME2001: - Review reports for paper 11 +++++++++++++++++++++ - Dear author(s) : this file was extracted automatically from a very large - mailbox. In case you find any problem concerning mail encodings (or any - other kind of anomaly disturbing your understanding of the reviews) please - email any of the PC cochairs (pamela@research.att.com,jno@di.uminho.pt). ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ PAPER NUMBER: 11 CATEGORY: 2 TITLE: Business System Analysis Model with extended Entity concept AUTHOR(S): ByungSun Ko -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Briefly SUMMARIZE the paper (2-3 lines): This paper presents a business analysis model based on entirely informal techniques with different UML diagrams. It does not at all mention FM!!! 2. RELEVANCE: Please provide a rating of the paper's relevance to the FME Symposium, using the scale: 0 = Out of scope 1 = Marginal interest 2 = Minority interest 3 = Majority interest 4 = Outstanding interest Numeric Rating: 0 Please comment your rating: Misplaced submission 3. OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: Please provide a rating of the paper's acceptability, using the scale: 1 = Strong reject 2 = Weak reject 3 = Could go either way 4 = Weak accept 5 = Strong accept Numeric Rating: 1 NB: There should be a correlation between the two rates above. 4. CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Please provide a rating oof your expertise in the area addressed by the paper, using the scale: 1 = Know virtually nothing about this area 2 = Not too knowledgeable, but I know a bit 3 = Know a moderate amount, about average I'd say 4 = Not my main area of work, but I know a lot about it 5 = My area of work, I know it extremely well Numeric Rating: 4 NB: PC members are responsible for ensuring that 1 is not used here. 5. ORIGINALITY. What is NEW and SIGNIFICANT in the work reported here? Comment:Nothing what so ever! 6. How WORTHWILE is the goal of the authors? Comment: Low level 7. How well is this goal EXPLAINED and JUSTIFIED? Comment: Poor 8. TECHNICAL QUALITY. Are the technical parts (definitions, statements, specifications, proofs, algorithms, etc.) SOUND? Comment: Not existing 9. APPLICABILITY. If the work is primarily theoretical or conceptual, are the implications in terms of applicability adequately justified? If the paper is about a new formal technique, are satisfactory arguments presented in favor of the new technique? If a methodology is proposed, is it sound? If experimental results are presented, is their relevance justified? Comment:No 10. PRESENTATION: Describe the QUALITY of the writing, including suggestions for changes where appropriate. Comment: Poor 11. Were there any formatting or mechanical problems with this paper?: yes some font for figures cannot be printed Are the figures and length acceptable?: yes Are the references correct?: yes 12. OTHER COMMENTS you believe would be useful to the author(s), including pointers to missing relevant work: I think that this paper has been submitted to the wrong conference. In addition it would be recommendable to get a native speaker reading it to get rid of the worst mistake in the English formulation. +++++++++++++++++++++ End of FME 2001 Paper Review Report ++++++++++++++++++++++ PAPER NUMBER: 11 CATEGORY: 2 TITLE: Business System Analysis Model with extended Entity concept AUTHOR(S): ByungSun Ko -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Briefly SUMMARIZE the paper (2-3 lines): The paper suggests a number of techniques for business system analysis. At various stages the authors suggest the use of a formal approach. 2. RELEVANCE: Please provide a rating of the paper's relevance to the FME Symposium, using the scale: 0 = Out of scope 1 = Marginal interest 2 = Minority interest 3 = Majority interest 4 = Outstanding interest Numeric Rating: 1 Please comment your rating: The paper briefly mentions use of pre- and post-conditions in the analysis phase of system development, but it's use (and benefits) are not illustrated. The paper contains no systematic use of FM and does not provide technically sound basis for its use. 3. OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: Please provide a rating of the paper's acceptability, using the scale: 1 = Strong reject 2 = Weak reject 3 = Could go either way 4 = Weak accept 5 = Strong accept Numeric Rating: 1 NB: There should be a correlation between the two rates above. 4. CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Please provide a rating oof your expertise in the area addressed by the paper, using the scale: 1 = Know virtually nothing about this area 2 = Not too knowledgeable, but I know a bit 3 = Know a moderate amount, about average I'd say 4 = Not my main area of work, but I know a lot about it 5 = My area of work, I know it extremely well Numeric Rating: 4 NB: PC members are responsible for ensuring that 1 is not used here. 5. ORIGINALITY. What is NEW and SIGNIFICANT in the work reported here? Comment: the suggestion to combine OO and Entity Relationship diagrams in combination with pre- and post-conditions. Also, the use of user-interface state-transition diagrams is a original and worthwile idea. 6. How WORTHWILE is the goal of the authors? Comment: Development of Formal Methods that support the analysis (and requirement) phase is a worthwile goal. 7. How well is this goal EXPLAINED and JUSTIFIED? Comment: poor. 8. TECHNICAL QUALITY. Are the technical parts (definitions, statements, specifications, proofs, algorithms, etc.) SOUND? Comment: The paper is too vague and imprecise. 9. APPLICABILITY. If the work is primarily theoretical or conceptual, are the implications in terms of applicability adequately justified? If the paper is about a new formal technique, are satisfactory arguments presented in favor of the new technique? If a methodology is proposed, is it sound? If experimental results are presented, is their relevance justified? Comment: I can imagine that the approach suggested can be applied. However the authors provide insufficient support for the Methods benefits. In particular, experimental results would Be insightful. 10. PRESENTATION: Describe the QUALITY of the writing, including suggestions for changes where appropriate. Comment: The structure of the paper is reasonable. The use of English is poor. 11. Were there any formatting or mechanical problems with this paper?: Are the figures and length acceptable?: figure 4 could not be printed. Are the references correct?: 12. OTHER COMMENTS you believe would be useful to the author(s), including pointers to missing relevant work: The paper cover a very broad range that would need a lot of text to explain adequately. I think the paper would benefit from a concentrating on single case-study that would be used to illustrate the authors approach. +++++++++++++++++++++ End of FME 2001 Paper Review Report ++++++++++++++++++++++ PAPER NUMBER: 11 CATEGORY: 2 TITLE: Business System Analysis Model with extended Entity concept AUTHOR(S): ByungSun Ko -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Briefly SUMMARIZE the paper (2-3 lines): The paper proposes a method of for business system analysis: Starting from a context diagram which defines the events to which the system has to react entities are identified, which determine the database structure. Business rules are also modeled as entities. The approach is based on a number of diagrams: Besides the above-mentioned context diagrams it uses entity diagrams, information structure diagrams, detailed event specifications, management diagrams and state transitions diagrams to model the user interface. 2. RELEVANCE: Please provide a rating of the paper's relevance to the FME Symposium, using the scale: 0 = Out of scope 1 = Marginal interest 2 = Minority interest 3 = Majority interest 4 = Outstanding interest Numeric Rating: 2 Please comment your rating: The method presented in this paper does not seem really novel to the referee (see 5 below). Moreover, there is no example in the paper and no real application of the method is mentioned. 3. OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: Please provide a rating of the paper's acceptability, using the scale: 1 = Strong reject 2 = Weak reject 3 = Could go either way 4 = Weak accept 5 = Strong accept Numeric Rating: 2 NB: There should be a correlation between the two rates above. 4. CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Please provide a rating oof your expertise in the area addressed by the paper, using the scale: 1 = Know virtually nothing about this area 2 = Not too knowledgeable, but I know a bit 3 = Know a moderate amount, about average I'd say 4 = Not my main area of work, but I know a lot about it 5 = My area of work, I know it extremely well Numeric Rating: 4 NB: PC members are responsible for ensuring that 1 is not used here. 5. ORIGINALITY. What is NEW and SIGNIFICANT in the work reported here? Comment: The referee did not really see what is new in the proposed method. The proposed approach to identify entities starting from a context diagram reminds the referee strongly of the British Systems Analysis and Design Method SSADM or the Complete Systems Analysis by J. Robertson and S. Robertson. The authors also stress as a novel idea the presentation of business rules as entities. The referee is not really convinced of this novelty: for instance there exist product models in the financial domain in which rules for the possible combinations of different products are directly incorporated into the data model (or object model). A convincing example on the representation of business rules as entities is not contained in the paper (there is no example at all). 6. How WORTHWILE is the goal of the authors? Comment: The goal is to achieve the specification of a stable system which can easily be adapted to changes of the internal and external environment. This is a worthwile goal. 7. How well is this goal EXPLAINED and JUSTIFIED? Comment: From the explanations in the paper it did not become clear to the referee why the approach chosen by the authors is superior to the object-oriented approaches discussed in the paper. The approach in the paper has some commonality with methods in structured analysis (as SSADM or Complete Systems Analysis by Robertson/Robertson) which are not mentioned in the paper at all. The authors introduce their model "as an analysis model that preserves the legacy system supporting new environments and users' various requirements." However, they never explain how legacy systems actually are integrated into their approach. 8. TECHNICAL QUALITY. Are the technical parts (definitions, statements, specifications, proofs, algorithms, etc.) SOUND? Comment: In the paper a number of different diagrams describing different aspects of a model are introduced (context diagrams, entity diagrams, information structure diagrams, detailed event specifications, management diagrams and state transitions diagrams). The connection between these different types of diagrams, however, does not become clear: there is no metamodel given in the paper to explain the semantics of the notation. For example the connection between the detailed event specifications and the entity diagrams remains unclear: an event specification refines an event as a set of action sequences with a precondition and a postconditions. It did not become clear to the referee, however, in which way the effect of these events on the entities can be specified. What is missing in the paper is - a metamodel for the notation - a comprehensive example in which all the different diagram types occur and their connection becomes clear. 9. APPLICABILITY. If the work is primarily theoretical or conceptual, are the implications in terms of applicability adequately justified? If the paper is about a new formal technique, are satisfactory arguments presented in favor of the new technique? If a methodology is proposed, is it sound? If experimental results are presented, is their relevance justified? Comment: as already mentioned under 7.) the referee did not see why the proposed method should be superior to other approaches in structured or object-oriented analysis. Moreover, the applicability of the method is not demonstrated by a comprehensive example nor is it even mentioned in the paper that it was applied on a real example. 10. PRESENTATION: Describe the QUALITY of the writing, including suggestions for changes where appropriate. Comment: The paper is full of grammatical errors, which in some places makes it hard to follow the argumentation in the paper. 11. Were there any formatting or mechanical problems with this paper?: there seems to be a printing error in Figure 4. Are the figures and length acceptable?: Figure 4 is not acceptable, length is acceptable Are the references correct?: they seem ok, for a suggestion of further references see 12. 12. OTHER COMMENTS you believe would be useful to the author(s), including pointers to missing relevant work: As already explained above, the paper should contain references to methods in structured analysis (e.g. the CCTA method SSADM, with a reference for instance given by: CCTA (editor), SSADM Foundation, The Stationery Office, 2000 or the Complete Systems Analysis by Robertson/Robertson with the following reference: James Robertson, Suzanne Robertson, Complete Systems Analysis, Dorset House Publishing, New York, 1994.) +++++++++++++++++++++ End of FME 2001 Paper Review Report ++++++++++++++++++++++ PAPER NUMBER: 11 CATEGORY: 2 TITLE: Business system analysis model with extended entity concept AUTHOR(S): Lee &al -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Briefly SUMMARIZE the paper (2-3 lines): A model is suggested for business systems analysis. The outputs are the various diagrams popular in this kind of work. 2. RELEVANCE: Please provide a rating of the paper's relevance to the FME Symposium, using the scale: 0 = Out of scope 1 = Marginal interest 2 = Minority interest 3 = Majority interest 4 = Outstanding interest Numeric Rating: 0 Please comment your rating: The work has nothing to do with formal methods: it is completely outside the scope of the Symposium. 3. OVERALL RECOMMENDATION: Please provide a rating of the paper's acceptability, using the scale: 1 = Strong reject 2 = Weak reject 3 = Could go either way 4 = Weak accept 5 = Strong accept Numeric Rating: 1 NB: There should be a correlation between the two rates above. 4. CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Please provide a rating oof your expertise in the area addressed by the paper, using the scale: 1 = Know virtually nothing about this area 2 = Not too knowledgeable, but I know a bit 3 = Know a moderate amount, about average I'd say 4 = Not my main area of work, but I know a lot about it 5 = My area of work, I know it extremely well Numeric Rating: NB: PC members are responsible for ensuring that 1 is not used here. 5. ORIGINALITY. What is NEW and SIGNIFICANT in the work reported here? Comment: 6. How WORTHWILE is the goal of the authors? Comment: 7. How well is this goal EXPLAINED and JUSTIFIED? Comment: 8. TECHNICAL QUALITY. Are the technical parts (definitions, statements, specifications, proofs, algorithms, etc.) SOUND? Comment: 9. APPLICABILITY. If the work is primarily theoretical or conceptual, are the implications in terms of applicability adequately justified? If the paper is about a new formal technique, are satisfactory arguments presented in favor of the new technique? If a methodology is proposed, is it sound? If experimental results are presented, is their relevance justified? Comment: 10. PRESENTATION: Describe the QUALITY of the writing, including suggestions for changes where appropriate. Comment: 11. Were there any formatting or mechanical problems with this paper?: Are the figures and length acceptable?: Are the references correct?: 12. OTHER COMMENTS you believe would be useful to the author(s), including pointers to missing relevant work: +++++++++++++++++++++ End of FME 2001 Paper Review Report ++++++++++++++++++++++