Identifying common and persistent errors made by novice analysts when modeling business processes using UML activity diagram: utilizing a hierarchical error classification

Dizza Beimel, Arava Tsoury, Shirly Bar Lev

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Accurate process modeling is critical to the successful design of information systems. Therefore, learning to design correct, complete, and irredundant process models is an important part of training for systems analysts, yet it is very challenging, especially for novice analysts. To teach high-quality modeling skills, it is essential to identify the common difficulties encountered in designing process models. Motivated by this insight, we formulated two research objectives: (1) identify the errors made by novices during process modeling, and analyze and classify them in light of three quality criteria—completeness, irredundancy, and correctness; (2) identify the most common errors, particularly the most persistent ones, that is, those most resistant to training. To this end, we analyzed 525 models built by 181 students (two or three models per student) during an academic course. We classified the students’ modeling errors, based on the principles of the modeling language, and carried out a frequency analysis, wherein we counted the prevalence of each error type. Our analysis produced a four-layer hierarchical classification of errors with 52 elements, including 38 error categories, subcategories, and irreducible types. We also identified the most common and most persistent error categories, both of which pertained mainly to difficulties in abstracting from a given scenario. This hierarchical classification plays an important role in establishing ways to improve the quality of process models designed by systems analysts, especially novices. Moreover, identifying persistent errors and “cracking” them is an essential step in designing a learning methodology that will help novice analysts to recognize such errors and, indeed, avoid them in the first place.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1149-1178
Number of pages30
JournalSoftware Quality Journal
Volume31
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2023
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Keywords

  • Business processes modeling
  • Modeling quality criteria
  • Process modeling errors
  • Requirements engineering education
  • UML activity diagram

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

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