Developing a Framework and an Instrument for Measuring System Openness
This article describes the process of developing a framework and an instrument for measuring and ascertaining the openness of a system applicable to system architectures and their implementations. Our process includes an in-depth review of pertinent literature in the areas of Open Systems and Open Architecture, followed by a selection of the appropriate methodology to use. We chose the Goal-Question-Metric (GQM) methodology to allow us to select relevant goals, factors and metric that can be used to measure a system's level of openness. The article details these goals, factors and metrics. We carried out studies of these factors with fourteen experts in open systems engineering: an initial study with seven of these experts helping us refine the selected goals, factors and metrics, with a second confirmatory study performed in conjunction with the remaining seven experts. The goals, questions and metrics are detailed in the appendices.