A machine learning approach, estimation by analogy, is the focus of a research project being undertaken at Bournemouth University. Estimation by analogy involves searching for similarities between a target entity, such as a proposed software project, and a set of historical entities of the same class. Each entity is characterised by a number of attributes that are available at the point when estimates are required. These attributes are used to minimise the Euclidean distance in n dimensional space between a target entity and source entities and thus find the closest 'analogies'. Once a historical analogy has been found, the 'actual' values for the attribute (for example cost) that is to be estimated can form the basis of an estimate for that attribute in the target entity.
The following papers present a more in-depth discussion of the analogy approach in relation to cost estimation
Effort Estimation Using Analogy
Presented at the 18th International Conference on Software Engineering, Berlin March 1996
Software Support for Cost Estimation by Analogy
Presented at the European Software Cost Modelling Conference, Rolduc, NL, May1995
Effort Estimation by Analogy: A Case Study
Presented at the European Control and Metrics Conference, Wilmslow, UK, May 1996
A windows beta version of the analogy estimation tool ANGEL-lite is available for installation.
Coming Soon! - A set of instructions.......
Each zipped up file contains one template (*.tmp) and one datamodel (*.mdb) for use with ANGEL.
Kemerer.zip - Data ( 15 Projects ) collected from a national computer consulting and services firm specialising in design and development of data processing software.
Taken from : Kemerer, C.F. 'An Empirical Validation of Software Cost Estimation Models', CACM, 30(5), pp416-429,1987.
Kemerer Data items :
| Actual Effort | Actual Project Effort (Measured in Man Months.) |
| Duration | Project Duration (Measured in Months) |
| KSLOC | Thousand Source lines of Code |
| UA_FP | Unadjusted Function Point Count |
| FP | Adjusted Function Points |
Albrecht.zip - Data on 24 applications developed by the IBM DP services organisation.
Taken from : Albrecht, A.J. and J.R. Gaffney, 'Software Function Source Lines of Code, and Development Effort Prediction: A Software Science Validation', IEEE trans. on Softw. Eng., 9(6), pp639-648,1983 Albrecht Data items :
| Actual Effort | Actual Project Effort (Measured in Thousand Work Hours.) |
| SLOC | Thousand Source Lines of Code |
| IN | No. of Inputs |
| OUT | No. of Outputs |
| FILE | No. of Master Files |
| INQ | No. of Inquiries |
| Function Points | Function Point Count |
This page was updated by Dan. Snell - 25th January 1997
Please address any enquires to cschofie@bournemouth.ac.uk