RE_PROV: Modeling Requirement Provenance with PROV

Abstract

Requirements are complex by nature. When describing something that has not been realized, users may find it difficult to interpret it accurately. Many problems cannot be discovered until some abstract concepts become concrete and some details have been confirmed. So checking the origination and processing history of the requirements and making adjustments are very normal practice. Requirement provenance records which have well-defined syntax and explicit semantics can provide solid support for requirement traceability analysis. By setting up the mapping between PROV and a typical requirement framework, this paper proposes RE_PROV, a novel model for the description of requirement provenance. The rationales of the mapping are explained and a comprehend example of an embedded software design is provided to show possible usage.