Universal Modelling Language (UML)

Training Course for the Digital Repositories Programme

e-Science Institute, Edinburgh
5-6 January 2006

Introduction

Structure and goals of the event; who everyone is

Lecture: Review of Scenarios and Use Cases

To remind those who attended the prior workshop; and cover main points for those who didn't. An introduction to following exercise

Exercise: Looking at the input scenarios/use cases

A collection of scenarios and use case definitions will be provided. Working in groups, each group will read through one of these, from two perspectives - do you understand it? What are its merits/deficiencies as a use case according to the criteria identified in the preceding lecture.

Discussion - Feedback from preceding exercise; any common issues?

Break

Lecture: Introduction to UML

Emphasis: Universal, not just Software Engineering

Lecture: Structure Diagrams

The three structural relationships - extends, includes, specialises. Introduction to following exercise.

Exercise: Use Case Elaboration

Working on same use case as in previous exercises. Working in groups. Each group will invent variant scenarios related to the original use case, in order to construct new use cases which illustrate the relationships covered in the preceding lecture.

Checkpoint

Lunch

Exercise: Use Case Elaboration - continued

Continuation of the exercise, resulting in outputs: use case documentation and UML structure diagram

Break - collection of outputs in preparation for next exercise

Exercise: Exchange of documents

Each group will receive from two other groups their outputs from the previous exercise - UML structure diagram and supporting use case definitions - and consider them with respect to: to what extent does the explicit representation of the relationships between the use cases aid understanding? Is the UML diagram a help or a hindrance? 

16:15

Discussion  - Feedback from previous exercise; any common issues?

16:45

Review of day 1

17:00

Break

Presenters consider outputs from the Use Case Elaboration Exercise - how well will they work as starting points for Day 2 exercises?

Lecture: Sequence Diagrams in Business Modelling

Sequence diagrams - notation for showing the actors involved and the sequence of interactions between them that constitute one scenario. An introduction to following exercise.

Exercise: Sequence Diagrams - 1

Individual work. Each member of a group will take one of the scenarios for the use case structure as developed for that group in the "Use Case Elaboration" exercise, and put that in the form of a UML sequence diagram.

Exercise: Sequence Diagrams - 2

Each group will jointly look at the sequence diagrams produced by all its members.

Discussion - Feedback from previous exercise; any issues?

Lecture: Activity Diagrams and Class Diagrams in Business Modeling

Activity Diagram = flowchart; which allows multiple related sequences to be shown on one diagram.
Class Diagram - shows types of actors involved and their relationships. Introduction to the next exercise

Break

Exercise: business process model - start

Each group will construct an activity diagram and a class diagram for the overall business process of which their use case is a part.

Discussion - Feedback from preceding exercise; any common issues?

Lunch

Lecture: Class Diagrams

Class diagrams for entity/relationship models. Viewpoint: software can be viewed as a dynamic model of real-world entities; developers and clients should be able to discuss the model; UML can provide a language for that discussion. Introduction to following exercise.

Exercise - Constructing an Entity/Relationship model

The business process being developed will involve (part of) some computing system. In this exercise one of the group members will play the role of a software developer (preferably someone with appropriate experience) and the others the role of clients. Jointly they will evolve an entity relationship model for the entities managed by that computing system

Break

Discussion - Feedback from preceding exercise; any common issues?

Lecture - Other aspects of UML for modelling computing systems

Appreciation of other kinds of UML diagrams (+ some mention of UML tools)

Discussion - Review of whole event

END