A Sociological Framework for Multi-agent Systems Validation and Verification

Social and intentional behaviours appear as two main components of the agent paradigm. Methods of conventional software engineering do not seem to be appropriate to gain a full knowledge of these behavioural aspects, as they are not traditional software components. Their study involves new concepts and techniques, belonging to social sciences, to be integrated into software development. In this paper we show how to use the Activity Theory as a support for current Multi-Agent System methodologies. The application of the same social concepts at every stage of the development cycle allows requirements traceability, and provides methods to describe social properties and decide whether the specification satisfies them or not. The use of the approach is shown with a case study. Keywords Multi-Agent Systems Development, Activity Theory, Activity Checklist, Requirements Elicitation

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: ER
• Authors: Rubén Fuentes, Jorge J. Gómez-Sanz, Juan Pavón
• Keywords: Activity Theory, ER 2004, Multi-agent Systems, Social