Controlling view editability in projection-based modeling environments

Atkinson, Colin ; Tunjic, Christian ; Lange, Arne

DOI:	https://doi.org/10.1109/EDOC52215.2021.00026
URL:	https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9626182/autho...
Additional URL:	https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356039672...
Document Type:	Conference or workshop publication
Year of publication:	2021
Book title:	2021 IEEE 25th International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference (EDOC) : 25−29 October 2021, Gold Coast, Australia : proceedings
Page range:	152-161
Conference title:	EDOC 2021
Location of the conference venue:	Online
Date of the conference:	25.-29.10.2021
Publisher:	Bilof, Randall
Place of publication:	Piscataway, NJ
Publishing house:	IEEE
ISBN:	978-1-6654-1191-2 , 978-1-6654-3579-6
ISSN:	2325-6362
Publication language:	English
Institution:	School of Business Informatics and Mathematics > Software Engineering (Atkinson 2003-)
Subject:	004 Computer science, internet
Abstract:	In projection-based modeling environments, users work with views of the modelled system or enterprise that are generated dynamically, on demand, from a Single Underling Model (SUM). Moreover, they usually cannot change the SUM directly, but can only influence its contents indirectly via views. This means that at least some of the views need to be editable so that they can be used to evolve the SUM to a new state. However, this is not always possible when the transformations used to project SUM content into view content do not provide the information needed to unambiguously map view changes into SUM changes. Therefore, mechanisms are needed to identify and take appropriate measures to ensure that the integrity of the SUM is not comprised, and it is not updated in unintended ways, when insufficient information is available. This paper illuminates the basic nature of the problem, categorizes the different kinds of situations in which editing ambiguities can arise and discusses potential strategies for dealing with them. These techniques contribute to the creation of user-friendly, yet dependable, projection-based modeling environments.