Providing an Ontology for Extracting Functional and non-Functional Software Requirements of an Online Sales System

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Houbakht Attaran ¹

Esmaeil kheirkhah ²

Hassan Shakeri ¹

¹ Department of Computer Engineering, Ma.C., Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran

² Department of Computer Engineering, Ma. C., Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran

10.22067/cke.2026.96171.1178

Abstract

Requirements engineering represents one of the most significant challenges in the software development lifecycle, particularly for complex systems such as smart city applications. Inadequate requirement extraction often leads to project delays, cost overruns, and implementation failures. This paper presents a comprehensive ontology-based framework for automated extraction of both functional and non-functional requirements in online sales systems. The proposed ontology defines key classes including Administrator, Customer, Online-Shop, Supplier, and their respective properties, relationships, and constraints. Developed using Protégé 5.5.0 and formalized in OWL, the ontology enables systematic requirements extraction through SPARQL queries. A comparative evaluation against four commercial software development teams demonstrated that the ontology-based approach achieved over 90% requirement overlap while reducing extraction time by 75-85% and costs by 80-85%. Furthermore, the method significantly minimized late-stage design changes due to newly discovered requirements. The results substantiate the efficacy of ontology-driven approaches in enhancing requirements engineering for e-commerce systems within smart city ecosystems.

Keywords

Requirements Engineering

Ontology

Functional Requirements

Non-Functional Requirements

Online Sales System

Smart City

Subjects

• Software Engineering Internet of Thing (IoT)

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