A Multi-agent Approach for Semantic Annotation of Source Code Artefact

Abstract

A large volume of software project information is produced in software projects. Manually transforming or mapping them into a semantically rich form for shared understanding is time-consuming, laborious, tedious and prone to error. Hence, it is important to use a systematic approach to automate the knowledge capture of software project information. In this paper, the active Software Engineering Ontology through Multi-agent System (SEOMAS) approach for automated knowledge capture of software project information is proposed. The agents utilise the Software Engineering Ontology (SE Ontology) to capture knowledge from software development artefacts during the daily software development activity. The captured knowledge is populated as new instances in the SE Ontology repository to allow project team members and software agents to access it. It has been demonstrated that the captured knowledge can be put to practical use to clarify any ambiguity in remote communication and to facilitate effective and efficient coordination and knowledge sharing within a software development project.