The System ZD-MIS

ZD-MIS stands for Zuse / Drabe Measure-Information-System. In order to give people of industry and academics guidelines to quantify software quality attributes by quantitative attributes, in 1993 the development of the System ZD-MIS has been started. The Project ZD-MIS was initiated by Horst Zuse in 1993, and it was mainly implemented by Karin Drabe. The major goal of ZD-MIS is to provide people with a comprehensive framework of software measurement.

   1.  ZD-MIS contains a large database with more than 1500 software measures of all kinds in a uniform description. Every measure is described by more than one dozen criteria, like: definition of the measure, captured quality attributes, type of measure, assumed empirical axioms, assumed scale types, applications in the software life-cycle, class of measures (product, resource or process measure). The database contains more than 180 object-oriented software measures, too. The measures can be selected by more than one dozen criteria. It is possible to create a handbook of measures by powerful user criteria. This database shall help scientists, students and practitioners to select measures for their needs.

  2. A large database with more than 1600 references to literature shall help people to find the literature for their needs.

  3. A glossary of more than 600 terms shall help the user to get a better understanding of the software measurement area.

ZD-MIS is a training tool, too. It provides many guidelines how to make a quantitative assessment of software quality by software measurement and it gives detailed information about the correct use of software measures. Education of students and scientists in software measurement is a major task. Our impression is that people sometimes think, that measurement is a simple procedure. Many scientists point out, that the current state of software measures is not satisfying. ZD-MIS provides, among others, the following components for education: