Type of Publication: Article in Collected Edition

A Proposal for More Realistic Case Descriptions in Modeling Exercises

Author(s):

Maier, Pierre; Kadziolka, Vicky

Title of Anthology:

ACM/IEEE 29th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS Companion 2026), October 04--09, 2026, Málaga, Spain

Publication Date:

2026

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

doi:10.1145/3837062.3838916

Citation:

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Abstract

Modeling education relies on modeling exercises that are constituted by case descriptions. Many case descriptions explicitly state all required abstractions, reducing modeling activity largely to the translation of a natural-language text into the constructs of a modeling language. This paper proposes a set of five guidelines, abbreviated by the acronym L.I.C.I.A., for formulating more realistic case descriptions that expose students to modeling decisions more commonly encountered in practice. We apply the guidelines for formulating an example case description tailored to modeling a UML class diagram. Our first experiences with this case description suggest that case descriptions following the L.I.C.I.A. guidelines confront students with additional modeling decisions, such as choosing the data type of an attribute based on example values. Future work should investigate the guidelines for case descriptions in various kinds of modeling exercises and conduct a more comprehensive evaluation of using case descriptions following the guidelines in different teaching contexts.