Computer Science and Information Systems 2014 Volume 11, Issue 4, Pages: 1271-1289
https://doi.org/10.2298/CSIS140815077P
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Cited by
XML schema metrics for quality evaluation
Pušnik Maja (Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Maribor, Slovenia)
Heričko Marjan (Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Maribor, Slovenia)
Budimac Zoran (Faculty of Sciences, Novi Sad)
Šumak Boštjan (Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Maribor, Slovenia)
In XML Schema development, the quality of XML Schemas is a crucial issue for
further steps in the life cycle of an application, closely correlated with
the structure of XML Schemas and different building blocks. Current research
focuses on measuring complexity of XML Schemas and mainly do not consider
other quality aspects. This paper proposes a novel quality measuring
approach, based on existing software engineering metrics, additionally
defining quality aspect of XML Schemas in the following steps: (1) definition
of six schema quality aspects, (2) adoption of 25 directly measurable XML
Schema variables, (3) proposition of six composite metrics, applying 25
measured variables and (4) composite metrics validation. An experiment using
250 standard XML Schemas collected from available e-business information
systems was conducted. The results illustrate influence of XML Schema
characteristics on its quality and evaluate applicability of metrics in the
measurement process, a useful tool for software developers while building or
adopting XML Schemas.
Keywords: XML Schema, metrics, quality variables, quality index, evaluation, validation