SACM — Integration issue: introductory text should cover SAEM introductory material

Integration issue: introductory text should cover SAEM introductory material

Replace section 7.5. Evidence Metamodel with the following:
7.5. Precise statements related to evidence
In the simplest form, evidence consists of a collection of documents or records that provide evidentiary
support to a set of claims. These claims are called subject claims, as the are made by an argument related to
some selected subject area. Subject claims are different from evidence claims, which are the assertions
about the evidence items that help establish the exact nature of the evidentiary support they provide to the
subject claims in a clear, comprehensive and defensible way. Evidence claims can be reused as opposed to
subject claims and arguments, which are specific to each subject area for which an assurance case is
developed. Thus the SACM Evidence Metamodel defines the evidence vocabulary for constructing precise
statements related to evidence. Evidence vocabulary is reused in every argument for various diverse subject
areas.
The Evidence Metamodel defines an interchange format for evidence (XSD schema defined through the
application of XMI rules defined by MOF and XMI specifications) in which each evidence element,
including claims about evidence, is represented by a specific XML tags. The evidence interchange format is
then utilized to exchange bodies of evidence related to specific projects that require argumentation, for
example, in presenting an assurance case. describing evidence-related efforts, including
Collection of evidence
Management of evidence
Interpretation of evidence
Evaluation of evidence
Collection of Evidence includes activities of identifying evidence items, and recording various information
about them, including their origin, timing and custody. Evidence Metamodel defines precise statements
related to the pedigree of an evidence item, including evidence collection method or tool used.
The primary items of evidence are Documents, Records, Assertions and Objects. Documents may have
Properties that are characteristics independent of an assurance case being developed.
Properties in the Evidence Metamodel include the following:
Fundamental characteristics of Documents, for example
Media of document
Language of document
Security classification of document
Quality of Documents, for example
Primary or secondary document
Original or derived document
Consistency
Completeness
Accuracy
Management of Evidence compliments evidence collection activities with some planning and tracking
activities. Important to the management of evidence is the set of Project Elements, including an Evidence
Container, for grouping evidence items and assertions, as well as several elements for planning
management collection Activities, including their dependencies, objectives, input and output data, and the
evidence requests, which are the placeholders for evidence items that are being planned to be obtained.
Combined with the evidence events, provenance, custody and timing clauses, these project elements are
powerful enough to support management of evidence-related efforts and interchange of the relevant
managerial data as part of evidence packages.
Provenance of Evidence Elements, for example
Who created
Who approved
Who owns
Custody of Evidence Elements, for example
Where the element was aquired
Where the element is located
Who is the custodian of the element
Timing of Evidence Elements, for example
When the element was created or acquired
Effective Time of an assertion
Interpretation of Evidence includes activities of assigning meaning to documents (what a document is,
what claims does it make, etc). Interpretation of evidence is an important step in legal community, when a
physical object is submitted as evidence.
The following assertions are made to establish the meaning of evidence items.
Meaning of Documents, for example
Definition
Meaning
Scope
Characteristics
Evaluation of Evidence includes the activities of making certain assertions about evidence items and their
relation to subject claims.
Evidence Assertions are defined within the Evidence Metamodel and include the following categories: Quality Attributes of Evidentiary Support
Direct or indirect
Relevance
Confidence
Strength
Significance
Nature of the Evidentiary support
Supports
Challenges
Observations and Resolutions
The entire evidence package needs to be evaluated
Relations between Evidence Items need to satisfy one of the well-defined “Standards of proof,” such as
Clean and Convincing Evidence (CCE)
Preponderance of evidence (POE)
Resolved Counter Evidence (RCE), often used in the field of Genealogy as the Genealogical Proof
Standard
Beyond the reasonable doubt (BRD)
The following diagram is related to the so-called Resolved Counter Evidence Proof Standard, which
illustrates the steps involved in evaluating evidence.
Remove section 7.8 Evaluation of Evidence
Remove section 7.9. Design Characteristics of the Evidence Metamodel
Replace introductory text to Part 3, page 33, with the following:
This part of the Strucutred Assurance Case Metamodel defines the normative SACM Evidence Metamodel.
SACM Evidence Metamodel consists of 18 class diagrams. SACM Evidence Metamodel is delivered as a
single UML subpackage ‘Evidence’ of SACM.
The SACM Evidence Metamodel consists of the following logical parts:
Evidence Items
Formal Elements
Evidence Assertions
Administration
The Evidence Items part defines the physical evidence, provided in the form of documents, records and
sometimes other material exhibits. The Formal Elements part defines the logical assertions, provided in
the form of individual propositions. These propositions use an external vocabulary related to the subject
area for which an argument is being provided. The Formal Elements part defines a subset of an OMG
Semantics of Business Vocabularies and Business Rules (SBVR) fact model in the form of atomic
formulations based on fact types with role bindings to individual concepts. SBVR is not used directly
because of the semantic differences between fact models in linguistic models as they are defined in SBVR,
conceptual models and “asserted fact models” involved in evidence collection and evaluation. Formal
Elements represent a conceptual model underlying the entire assurance case. Evidence Assertions part
defines various statements that can be made about the evidence items, such as documents, records and
exhibits, and their relations to the subject area claims. Evidence Assertions includes statements that are
related to various esential properties of evidence items. A large group of statements are the so-called
evidence evaluations, including assertions of the evidentiary support (relations between evidence items and
the subject area claims), assertions related to the interpretation of physical evidence and document,
assertions about the conflicts in evidenctiay support and resolutions of these conflicts. Other statements are
assertions related to provenance, custody and timing of the evidence items and evidence evaluations. The
last group of statements qualify the evidentiary support that evidence items confer on the subject area
claims. The Administration part defines an EvidenceContainer element which organizes individual
evidence items and evaluations into a package that becomes a unit of exchange. The Administrative part
also provides several means for managing evidence collection projects.
Remove Figure 10.1 in Part 3 (page 33)