Using Semantic Web to Establish Traceability Links Between Heterogeneous Artifacts

Semantic Web enables the users of the World Wide Web (WWW) to create non-traditional data repositories. The data can be linked in a flat hierarchy structure that allows the extensibility of data without the need for changing the structure itself. The linked data along with other rules can be used to infer or extract other data. We propose a semantic web technique that employs the Resource Description Framework (RDF) for building a trace links taxonomy. The taxonomy can be utilized to link heterogeneous artifacts coming from different domains of expertise. This technique allows users to refer to any trace link type in the taxonomy using a unique Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). The taxonomy can also be integrated to a traceability framework using the Open Service for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) in order to accommodate the traceability of heterogeneous artifacts. We present validation criteria for validating the taxonomy requirements and validate the solution through a set of test cases. A simple case study is used in order to provide meaningful results.