STCML: an extensible XML-based language for socio-technical modeling

Abstract

Understanding the complex dependencies between the technical artifacts of software engineering and the social processes involved in their development has the potential to improve the processes we use to engineer software as well as the eventual quality of the systems we produce. A foundational capability in grounding this study of socio-technical concerns is the ability to explicitly model technical and social artifacts as well as the dependencies between them. This paper presents the STCML language, intended to support the modeling of core socio-technical aspects in software development in a highly extensible fashion. We present the basic structure of the language, discuss important language design principles, and offer an example of its application.