Template-Based Design in COLIBRI Studio

Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) and software generation share a common conceptual model of reusing components to obtain new solutions. Based on this model, in this paper we describe a novel development process for generating CBR systems based on the idea of reusing previous system designs. Template-Based Design (TBD) is the most significant activity in this development process and defines several actors (researcher, developer, student, etc.) involved in the development process of CBR systems with different backgrounds, motivations and goals. The TBD activity is supported by several tools integrated into the COLIBRI Studio Development Environment. These tools rely on semantic descriptions of workflows and components by means of an ontology that supports the reasoning regarding the correctness of the application being generated. We claim that the conceptualization of system behavior into templates and its reuse through the TBD serves to reduce the development effort required to build CBR applications. Thus, we present an experimental evaluation of the viability of the approach.