Towards A UML Profile for
Context-Awareness Domain
Mohamed-Salah Benselim1 and Hassina
Seridi-Bouchelaghem2
1Department of Management Science,
University of “08 Mai 45”, Algeria
2Department
of Computer Science, University of Badji Mokhtar, Algeria
Abstract: Defining Unified Modelling Language (UML) profiles
allows adaptation of the UML metamodel for specific domain, area, platform,
etc. Context awareness is one of particular domains that need to be well
adapted when we use UML language to model specific situations of users and
applications. Therefore, it is necessary to create specific modelling notations
for this particular domain. In this paper, we present an extension of the UML
notations as a profile used for context-aware applications development in
ubiquitous computing environment. The proposed UML context-aware profile is a
package of specific profiles that extend the standard notations of three UML
diagrams chosen according to different views of a system (use case diagram,
sequence diagram and activity diagram). For each diagram, we propose UML extension
mechanisms such as stereotypes, constraints and tagged values that can model
any contextual situation by an adequate graphic representation. Each element of the context of use should be
able to be represented by this UML profile. To demonstrate the feasibility of
our work, an example in medical field is shown by using StarUML software
modelling platform. This work will complete the list of extended
notations (class diagram) presented in previous work in order to propose a more
complete UML profile.
Keywords: Software engineering, ubiquitous
computing, UML, profile, extension, context-aware, modelling, metamodelling.
Received
February 10, 2014; accepted December 23, 2014