A Comparative Analysis of Argumentation Languages in the Context of Safety Case Development

Abstract: The safety case creation has become an explicit requirement in most of the safety-critical domains to ensure the safety of a system or an application. In the process of developing a safety case, the foremost requirement is choosing an efficient argumentation language which fulfills all the functionalities needed to develop a safety case.   In general, there are text-based argumentation notations and graphics-based argumentation notations to represent a safety case. In this paper we are comparing and analyzing the graphics-based argumentation notations like Goal Structuring Notation (GSN), Claims Arguments and Evidence (CAE), Structured Assurance Case Metamodel (SACM, the standardized modelling language to describe the safety case), NOR-STA Services (software platform which support graphics-based notations), Resolute (which is both language and tool that supports graphics-based notations) and Dynamic Safety Cases (special type of safety case which supports graphics-based notations such as GSN).   In this thesis, we compared the argumentation notations with respect to different aspects in the context of safety case development. We present our findings like the types of stakeholders gaining benefits from different types of notations, the list of domains where these types of notations are applicable. We also presented the major advantages and disadvantages of using different argumentation notations considering certain features like understandability, standardization, consistency, maintenance, traceability, and assessment in the context of safety case development.