COSMIC Method Publications

The key starting point for all COSMIC publications is the International Standard ISO/IEC 19761:2003 which states the basic principles and rules of the COSMIC method. This document is under the control of ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and is available only from ISO ( www.iso.org ), in English. A Spanish translation is available of this standard from the Spanish National Standards Body . This standard is being updated in 2009 to be compatible with version 3.01 of the method - see further below.

It is the policy of COSMIC that all of its publications should be in the public domain and available free-of-charge. All COSMIC publications are available for download from the Dowloads section of the sitel; some are accessible directly from the home page.  .

The most important COSMIC publication is the COSMIC Measurement Manual (The COSMIC Implementation Guide to ISO/IEC 19761:2003), version 3.0.1. This sets out the basic principles and rules with a comprehensive explanation of how to use the method.

Translations of the Measurement Manual (v3.0 unless otherwsie stated) are available in Arabic (v2.2), Chinese, Dutch, French and Japanese. Translations of v3.0 into German and Italian should be available in 2009. (Version 3.0.1 is a minor update to Version 3.0,with some editorial changes and clarifications. Some of the translations of v3.0 are currently being updated to v3.0.1) 

Updates to the Measurement Manual between major versions are published as 'Method Update Bulletins'. Three Bulletins relevant to v3.0 have been published and are available for download from the Portal section of this site. Version 3.0.1 has been updated to include these corrections.

• MUB 3: Correction of an error in Fig. 4.1.8.1 (b) (January 2008)
• MUB 4: Clarification of the principle and rules for 'request to enter' functionality (June 2008)
• MUB 5: Proposed improvement to the definitions of 'Level of decomposition' and of 'Peer components' and to one of the principles for a 'Peer component' (February 2009)

In addition to the Measurement Manual, three other documents complete the documentation of version 3.0 of the method. They are:

• Documentation Overview and Glossary of Terms (3.01)
• Method Overview (3.0)
• Advanced and Related Topics (3.0)

In addition, there are Guidelines for the application of COSMIC to specific software domains. These give more details and examples on how to apply the rules in specific domains. Two Guidelines have been published:

• 'Guideline for sizing Business Application Software' version 1.1, compatible with version 3.0 of the method, May 2008. This Guideline should also help measurement specialists to convert from '1st generation' FSM Methods.
• 'Guideline for sizing Data Warehouse Application software', compatible with version 3.0, May 2009

One Method Update Bulletin has been published concerning a correction needed to the Guideline for sizing Business Application software.

• MUB 6: Correction of errors in the COSMIC Method v3.0: Guideline for sizing Business Application Software.

Other Guidelines under development include:

• Sizing real-time software
• Sizing software of service-oriented architectures

COSMIC also publishes a series of case studies to illustrate the application of the method to some very simple sets of Functional User Requirements. At the time of writing they are in the process of being upgraded to remove some possibilities of mis-interpretation of the requirements.

Change Requests to any of these publications that have been approved by the Measurement Practices Committee but not yet incorporated in the Measurement Manual or via Method Update Bulletins will be available for download from the Home page of this site or from the Portal

Finally, COSMIC also publishes general information such as these articles and occasional newsletters on this web-site.

Last updated 20 Mar, 2011