Towards flexible creation of multi-level models: bottom-up change support in the modeling and programming environment XModeler

A process of a multi-level model creation follows typically the top-down approach, i.e., it requires first defining concepts and relations on the highest classification levels, which only then can be used to create concepts on the lower ones. Empirical insights into the process of multi-level model creation suggest however, that this strategy may be counter-intuitive and challenging, especially for non-experts. This paper addresses this problem by focusing on the idea of flexible multi-level model creation, understood as an intertwined application of top-down and bottom-up strategies. As a first step towards realizing this vision for multi-level models in general, and those created with the XModeler and Flexible Meta-Modeling and Execution Language (FMMLx) in particular, in this paper, we select a set of relevant multi-level refactoring patterns, adapt them to our approach, and implement them in the supporting tool. We illustrate the flexible creation process using an exemplary scenario.