UML2 by example: use-cases

For this part of the course we provide some sample use-cases taken from work on a CMS-type application for a Spanish-university departmental web site. In specifying this application, conceptual-level and physical-level data models were defined using UML class diagrams and the external funcionality was specifed using UML use-cases.Though the use-case templates sometimes refer explicitly to elements of the conceptual data model, we do not provide the latter here since you do not need to understand the use-cases at that level of detail.

The details of these use-cases are not important for the purposes of this course. What is important is to be aware of the role of the use-case templates: a use-case diagram without such templates is of limited utility. However, the UML standard does not specify any particular format for use-case templates so that different formats have been defined by particular companies, particular authors or particular projects. For example, a widely-used format, on which the use-case templates given here are more or less based, is that of Alistair Cockburn.

Finally, note that the numbers labelling the extend and include relations of the use-case diagram below, and the key containing the meaning of these numbers, are not syntactically-correct UML. They could (and should!) be made correct by putting them inside a UML comment box.

The sample use-cases given here are those that deal with taught courses of the department (warning: all the following information is in Spanish):

• full use-case diagram (JPG)
• simplified use-case diagram (without the "Notificar_Interesados" use-case) (JPG)
• templates for main use-cases of the diagram (PDF)