Enriching the Model-Driven Architecture with Weakly Structured Information

Most MDA approaches are focused on Platform Independent Models (PIM) and Platform Specific Models (PSM) and the transformation between them. The more conceptual Computation Independent Models (CIM) or even unstructured information is often neglected, despite the importance of requirements modelling at the CIM-level and the impact this has on the entire software development process. Almost every change that is done within the software development lifecycle, including maintenance triggers, is based on unstructured information in the early stages which then affects the CIM level, e.g. a change in a business process or a change in law that requires a change of software. Therefore unstructured or weakly structured information has to be included in any maintenance processes. In order to introduce unstructured or weakly structured information to the Model-Driven-Architecture (MDA) we propose to enhance the MDA-levels by a preCIM-level for unstructured information, extend the modelling capabilities on CIM-level and establish links between the objects on different levels that allows traceability of requirements into code.