Qualitative vs. Quantitative Contribution Labels in Goal Models: Setting an Experimental Agenda.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract. One of the most useful features of goal models of the i * family is their ability to represent and reason about satisfaction influence of one goal to another. This is done through contribution links, which represent how satisfaction or denial of the origin of the link constitutes evidence of satisfaction/denial of its destination. Typically in the i * family, the nature and level of contribution is represented through qualitative labels (“+”, “−”, “++ ” etc.), with the possibility of alternatively using numeric values, as per various proposals in the literature. Obviously, our intuition seems to suggest, labels are easier to comprehend and to come up with, while the use of numbers raises the question of where they come from and what they mean, adds unwarranted precision and overwhelms readers. But are such claims fair? Based on some early experimental results, we make the case for more empirical work on the matter in order to better clarify the differences and understand how to use contribution representations more effectively. Key words: requirements engineering, goal modeling, i-star 1
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.064 | 0.336 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.013 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.017 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".