A Formalized Classification Schema for Model Consistency

Although consistency is a widely used term, there is no common understanding in the modeling community on what consistency precisely means for model-based engineering. Nevertheless, most engineers would agree that models should be consistent to a certain degree to be useful. Although there are use case specific definitions of consistency and its properties, none of them are generally and independently applicable. As a result, we observed that engineers rarely employ a precise definition for their consistency notion. In addition, most engineers consider that models are consistent, neglecting that consistency usually relates model elements instead. To remedy these issues, we established a focus group of domain experts to derive a generally applicable and fine-grained notion of consistency. Using this fine-grained notion of consistency, we introduce a formalized classification schema for consistency covering seven dimensions. Afterwards this classification schema was applied by each domain expert to one of seven widely different model-based engineering scenarios. In turn, our schema provides a precise model-element-based definition of consistency and vocabulary for the modeling community to distinguish consistency relations. ... mehrAbove all, we aim to raise awareness for different consistency notions and facilitate a common understanding of consistency in the MBE community.