Multimedia in a design rationale decision support system

摘要

The capture and use of design rationale information is widely recognized to be essential for the design and maintenance of large systems. Design rationale information needs to be captured from a variety of sources and contexts. A design rationale management system should be capable of representing and reasoning with both formal and informal information. REMAP/MM is a hypermedia decision support system that facilitates the capture of different types of design rationale knowledge using multiple media. The design rationale knowledge is represented using a conceptual model that includes the Issue Based Information Systems (IBIS) designed to model deliberations, a primary source of design rationale. The system incorporates models of multimedia components of design rationale, thereby facilitating reasoning with this knowledge. Decision support for the various stakeholders in systems development is provided in the areas of management of system evolution, system maintenance with changing requirements, design replay, and fulfilling ad hoc information requirements.