What do we know about the defect types detected in conceptual models?

Abstract

In Model-Driven Development (MDD), defects are managed at the level of conceptual models because the other artefacts are generated from them, such as more refined models, test cases and code. Although some studies have reported on defect types at model level, there still does not exist a clear and complete overview of the defect types that occur at the abstraction level. This paper presents a systematic mapping study to identify the model defect types reported in the literature and determine how they have been detected. Among the 282 articles published in software engineering area, 28 articles were selected for analysis. A total of 226 defects were identified, classified and their results analysed. For this, an appropriate defect classification scheme was built based on appropriate dimensions for models in an MDD context.