UTRECHT UNIVERSITY
A Method for Identifying Software
Requirements Based on Policy Commitments
Method Description
Robert Anthony Vroon (3440516)
8-2-2011
Introduction
The method discussed in this document is the Commitments Analysis Methodology. It is a method to
identify software requirements out of policy documents, such as privacy policies and terms of use.
Young and Antón (2010) developed this method during a formative case study of four healthcare
organizations’ policy documents. After the development of the method, they applied the method, in a
summative case study, to eight other healthcare organizations’ policy documents in order to validate
the method.
Jessica Young is a Ph.D. candidate on the North Carolina State University. She received her Master of
Science degree for the study Computer Science in December 2009. Her advisor is Dr. Annie I. Antón.
She is professor at the North Carolina State University and she has an academic background.
The Commitments Analysis Methodology consists of the following three main steps:
1. Parse Policy Document into Individual Statements
2. Classify Policy Statements
3. Operationalize Classified Statements Into Requirements
In the first step, parse policy document into individual statements, the requirements engineer will split
the policy document up in individual policy statements. Every sentence in the policy document will be
a single statement. After that, he needs to classify the individual statements and document the
statements attributes in step 2, classify policy statements. In order to classify the individual statements
there are 12 classifications. These classifications are divided into three aspects, scope, actor and
concept. Scope and actor consist of two possibilities and concept of three. This result into 12
classifications. In the final step, operationalize classified statements into requirements, the individual
statements are operationalized into requirements. (Young & Antón, 2010)
Policy document
Step 1:
Parse Policy Document into Individual statements
Policy Statements
Step 2:
Classify Policy Statements
Classified Statements
Key
Step
Step 3:
Operationalize Classified Statements into Requirements
Input / Output
Requirements
Figure 1: Commitments Analysis Methodology (Young & Antón, 2010, p. 3)
Flow
Example
In order to provide an example for the method described in the introduction I will use a paragraph
from the Facebook’s Privacy Policy. The paragraph is:
“To contact you. We may contact you with service-related announcements from time to time.
You may opt out of all communications except essential updates on your account notifications
page. We may include content you see on Facebook in the emails we send to you.” (Facebook,
2010)
Step 1: Parse Policy Document into Individual Statements
In the first step the paragraph will be split up into individual statements. This will result in the
following:
 To contact you.
 We may contact you with service-related announcements from time to time.
 You may opt-out of all communications except essential updates on your account notifications
page.
 We may include content you see on Facebook in the emails we send to you.
This parsing results in the above 4 individual statements which will then be classified in the following
step of the Commitments Analysis Method.
Step 2: Classify Policy Statements
The next step is to analyse the individual statements by assigning a classification. This step consists of
assigning an classification to the statements and document the attributes of each statement. This will
result in the following tables. The first table are the classifications of each statement and the second
table is the documentation of each individual statement. In the second table the examples are omitted.
Table 1: Classification assignment
Scope
(1) To contact you.
(2) We may contact you with service-related
announcements from time to time.
(3) You may opt-out of all communications except
essential updates on your account notifications page.
(4) We may include content you see on Facebook in the
emails we send to you.
Concept
procedural
Actor
unclassified
organization
procedural
user
privilege
procedural
organization
privilege
privilege
Table 2: Documented attributes
Actor
Action
Object
1
-
Object’s source
Target
Purpose
Conditions
-
2
Organization
Contact the user
with service-related
announcements
the user
from time to time
Examples
-
-
3
User
Opt-out
all
communications
except essential
updates
-
4
Organization
Email
content you see
on Facebook
the user
-
Step 3: Operationalize Classified Statements Into Requirements
In this step the individual statements are operationalized into requirements using templates. There are
two different templates. One template is for the privileges and rights and on is for the commitments.
Template for privileges and rights (Young & Antón, 2010):
The system shall allow the [actor] to [action] [object] from [object’s source] to/with [target] for/in
order to [purpose] given/if [conditions].
Template for commitments (Young & Antón, 2010):
The system shall require the [actor] to [action] [object] from [object’s source] to/with [target] for/in
order to [purpose] given/if [conditions].
This will result in the following requirements:
 The system shall allow the organization to contact with service-related announcements to/with
the user.
 The system shall allow the user to opt-out all communications given/if except essential updates.
 The system shall allow the organization to email content you see on Facebook from to/with the
user.
The main deliverable of the method are the requirements depict in the last enumeration.
Related literature
The method explained in this paper is described in the paper ‘A Method for Identifying Software
Requirements Based on Policy Commitments’ (Young & Antón, 2010). The relationship between
policies and software requirements is addressed by several researchers. This means that policy
documents can be used to identify (new) requirements. (Antón, Earp, & Carter, 2003).
In the paper of Breaux & Antón (2002) another methodology to derive security requirements from
regulation texts is explained. The paper of Antón, Earp and Reese (2002) is describing a method to
analyse website privacy requirements in order to derive software requirements from it. This is also the
case for ‘Commitment analysis to operationalize software requirements from privacy policies’ from
Young (2010).
References
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