UmpleOnline as a Testbed for Modeling Empirical Studies: A Position Paper

UmpleOnline is a widely used modeling tool that allows practitioners to create class diagrams, state diagrams and several other model types textually, with the option to edit class diagrams graphically. In this paper we propose how UmpleOnline can be used as a tool to conduct modeling empirical studies. UmpleOnline would be instrumented to allow any of its 180,000 annual visitors to volunteer to participate in one of many studies that would be pre-loaded by any member of the modeling research community. Studies could focus on research questions relating to model quality, modeling strategies, modeling errors or many other things. UmpleOnline would be an ideal vehicle for such studies since it is zero-footprint and has demonstrated high usability.