A framework for variable content document generation with multiple actors

“NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Information and Software Technology. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Information and Software Technology, Volume 56, Issue 9, September 2014, Pages 1101–1121 DOI10.1016/j.infsof.2013.12.006Context - Advances in customization have highlighted the need for tools supporting variable content document management and generation in many domains. Current tools allow the generation of highly customized documents that are variable in both content and layout. However, most frameworks are technology-oriented, and their use requires advanced skills in implementation-related tools, which means their use by end users (i.e. document designers) is severely limited. Objective - Starting from past and current trends for customized document authoring, our goal is to provide a document generation alternative in which variants are specified at a high level of abstraction and content reuse can be maximized in high variability scenarios. Method Based on our experience in Document Engineering, we identified areas in the variable content document management and generation field open to further improvement. We first classified the primary sources of variability in document composition processes and then developed a methodology, which we called DPL based on Software Product Lines principles to support document generation in high variability scenarios. Results - In order to validate the applicability of our methodology we implemented a tool DPLfw to carry out DPL processes. After using this in different scenarios, we compared our proposal with other state-of-the-art tools for variable content document management and generation. Conclusion - The DPLfw showed a good capacity for the automatic generation of variable content documents equal to or in some cases surpassing other currently available approaches. To the best of our knowledge, DPLfw is the only framework that combines variable content and document workflow facilities, easing the generation of variable content documents in which multiple actors play different roles.This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad under Grant TIPEx (TIN2010-19859-C03-03).Gómez Llana, A.; Penadés Gramage, MC.; Canos Cerda, JH.; Borges, MR.; Llavador Campos, M. (2014). A framework for variable content document generation with multiple actors. Information and Software Technology. 56(9):1101-1121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2013.12.006S1101112156

Document Automation Architectures: Updated Survey in Light of Large Language Models

This paper surveys the current state of the art in document automation (DA). The objective of DA is to reduce the manual effort during the generation of documents by automatically creating and integrating input from different sources and assembling documents conforming to defined templates. There have been reviews of commercial solutions of DA, particularly in the legal domain, but to date there has been no comprehensive review of the academic research on DA architectures and technologies. The current survey of DA reviews the academic literature and provides a clearer definition and characterization of DA and its features, identifies state-of-the-art DA architectures and technologies in academic research, and provides ideas that can lead to new research opportunities within the DA field in light of recent advances in generative AI and large language models.Comment: The current paper is the updated version of an earlier survey on document automation [Ahmadi Achachlouei et al. 2021]. Updates in the current paper are as follows: We shortened almost all sections to reduce the size of the main paper (without references) from 28 pages to 10 pages, added a review of selected papers on large language models, removed certain sections and most of diagrams. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2109.1160

Enforcing reuse and customization in the development of learning objects: a product line approach

© ACM 2015.This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in ACM, In Proceedings of the 30th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (pp. 261-263). http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2695664.2695991.The growing use of information technologies in the educational cycles has raised new requirements for the development of In-teractive Learning Materials in terms of content reuse, customi-zation, and ease of creation and efficiency of production. In practical terms, the goal is the development of tools for creating reusable, granular, durable, and interoperable learning objects, and to compose such objects into meaningful courseware pieces. Current learning object development tools require special technical skills in the instructors to exploit reuse and customization features, leading sometimes to unsatisfactory user experiences. In this paper, we explore a new way to reuse and customization following Product Line Engineering principles and tools. We have applied product line-based document engineering tools to create the so-called Learning Object Authoring Tool (LOAT), which supports the development of learning materials following the Cisco s Reusable Information Object strategy. We describe the principles behind LOAT, outline its design, and give clues about how it may be used by instructors to create learning ob-jects in their own disciplines.This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. The work of J.H. Canós and M.C. Penadés is partially funded by the Spanish MEC under grant TIPEx (TIN2010-19859-C03-03).Ezzat Labib Awad, A.; Penades Gramage, MC.; Canos Cerda, JH.; Gómez Llana, A. (2015). Enforcing reuse and customization in the development of learning objects: a product line approach. ACM. doi:10.1145/2695664.2695991SIEEE LTSC, http://ieee-sa.centraldesktop.com/ltsc/Cisco Systems. 1999. Reusable information object strategy, "Definition, Creation over view, and guidelines".Cisco Systems. 2003. Reusable learning object strategy: Designing and developing learning objects for multiple learning approaches, Version 4.5 {white paper}.Merrill, M. D. 1983. Component display theory. In: Instructional design theories and models. Erlbaum Associates.Clark, R. 1989. Developing technical training: a structured approach for the development of classroom and computer-based instructional materials. Performance Technology Press, New York.A. Gómez, M. C. Penadés, J. H. Canós, M. R. S. Borges, M. Llavador. 2014. A framework for variable content document generation with multiple actors. Information and Software Technology, 2014, ISSN 0950--5849.Bloom, BS (ed.). 1956. "Taxonomy of Educational Objectives". Vol. 1: Cognitive Domain. New York: McKay

Product Line-based customization of e-Government documents

International audienceContent personalization has been one of the major trends in recent Document Engineering Research. The "one docum ent for n users" paradigm is being replaced by the "one user, one document" model, where the content to be delivered to a particular user is generated by some means. This is a very promising approach for e-Government, where personalized government services, including document generation, are more and more required by users. In this paper, we introduce a method to the generation of personalized documents called Document Product Lines (DPL). DPL allows generating content in domains with high variability and with high levels of reuse. We describe the basic principles underlying DPL and show its application to the e-Government field using the personalized tax statement as case study

DPLFW: a Framework for the Product-Line-Based Generation of Variable Content Documents

International audienceDocument Product Lines (DPL) is a document engineering methodology that applies product-line engineering principles to the gen-eration of documents in high variability contexts and with high reuse of components. Instead of standalone documents, DPL promotes the defi-nition of families of documents where the members share some common content while differ in other parts. The key for the definition is the avail-ability of a collection of content assets which can be parameterized and instantiated at document generation time. In this demonstration, we show the features of the DPL framework (DPLfw), the tool that supports DPL. DPLfw implements the domain engineering and application engineering stages of typical product line engineering approaches, supports different asset repositories, and gener-ates customized documents in different output formats. We use the case study of the generation of customized emergency plans in a University campus [http://youtu.be/ueKGfmfkyI0]

RANCANG BANGUN APLIKASI PEMBANGKIT PANDUAN PENGGUNA APLIKASI BERBASIS WEB

Panduan pengguna adalah dokumen yang menyediakan informasi dari suatu produk untuk pengguna. Dalam pengembangan aplikasi web paduan pengguna digunakan oleh pengembang untuk menjelaskan fungsi dari aplikasi web yang dikembangkan, pada umumnya panduan pengguna adalah benda pertama yang dilihat oleh pengguna aplikasi web. Panduan pengguna dianggap hal yang krusial dimana kesuksesan dan kegagalan dari suatu produk dapat bergantung pada kesan pertama pengguna. IEEE Standard for Software User Documentation digunakan sebagai dasar struktur dari pembuatan panduan pengguna. Pembangkitan dokumen panduan pengguna secara otomatis dilakukan dengan bantuan penelusur web (Web Crawler) menggunakan Selenium dan penulisan dokumen menggunakan Apache POI. Hasil pengujian black box menunjukkan aplikasi bekerja sesuai dengan rancangan dan pengujian UAT mendapatkan hasil 86,67% dari developer dan 87,78% dari umum menunjukkan dokumen hasil dari aplikasi berhasil dibangun, sehingga dapat disimpulan pembangunan aplikasi pembangkit panduan pengguna aplikasi berbasis web berhasil dilakukan

Profiling the publish/subscribe paradigm for automated analysis using colored Petri nets

UML sequence diagrams are used to graphically describe the message interactions between the objects participating in a certain scenario. Combined fragments extend the basic functionality of UML sequence diagrams with control structures, such as sequences, alternatives, iterations, or parallels. In this paper, we present a UML profile to annotate sequence diagrams with combined fragments to model timed Web services with distributed resources under the publish/subscribe paradigm. This profile is exploited to automatically obtain a representation of the system based on Colored Petri nets using a novel model-to-model (M2M) transformation. This M2M transformation has been specified using QVT and has been integrated in a new add-on extending a state-of-the-art UML modeling tool. Generated Petri nets can be immediately used in well-known Petri net software, such as CPN Tools, to analyze the system behavior. Hence, our model-to-model transformation tool allows for simulating the system and finding design errors in early stages of system development, which enables us to fix them at these early phases and thus potentially saving development costs

Enforcing Customization in e-Learning Systems: an ontology and product line-based approach

In the era of e-Learning, educational materials are considered a crucial point for all the stakeholders. On the one hand, instructors aim at creating learning materials that meet the needs and expectations of learners easily and effec-tively; On the other hand, learners want to acquire knowledge in a way that suits their characteristics and preferences. Consequently, the provision and customization of educational materials to meet the needs of learners is a constant challenge and is currently synonymous with technological devel-opment. Promoting the personalization of learning materials, especially dur-ing their development, will help to produce customized learning materials for specific learners' needs. The main objective of this thesis is to reinforce and strengthen Reuse, Cus-tomization and Ease of Production issues in e-Learning materials during the development process. The thesis deals with the design of a framework based on ontologies and product lines to develop customized Learning Objects (LOs). With this framework, the development of learning materials has the following advantages: (i) large-scale production, (ii) faster development time, (iii) greater (re) use of resources. The proposed framework is the main contribution of this thesis, and is char-acterized by the combination of three models: the Content Model, which addresses important points related to the structure of learning materials, their granularity and levels of aggregation; the Customization Model, which con-siders specific learner characteristics and preferences to customize the learn-ing materials; and the LO Product Line (LOPL) model, which handles the subject of variability and creates matter-them in an easy and flexible way. With these models, instructors can not only develop learning materials, but also reuse and customize them during development. An additional contribution is the Customization Model, which is based on the Learning Style Model (LSM) concept. Based on the study of seven of them, a Global Learning Style Model Ontology (GLSMO) has been con-structed to help instructors with information on the apprentice's characteris-tics and to recommend appropriate LOs for customization. The results of our work have been reflected in the design of an authoring tool for learning materials called LOAT. They have described their require-ments, the elements of their architecture, and some details of their user inter-face. As an example of its use, it includes a case study that shows how its use in the development of some learning components.En la era del e¿Learning, los materiales educativos se consideran un punto crucial para todos los participantes. Por un lado, los instructores tienen como objetivo crear materiales de aprendizaje que satisfagan las necesidades y ex-pectativas de los alumnos de manera fácil y efectiva; por otro lado, los alumnos quieren adquirir conocimientos de una manera que se adapte a sus características y preferencias. En consecuencia, la provisión y personaliza-ción de materiales educativos para satisfacer las necesidades de los estudian-tes es un desafío constante y es actualmente sinónimo de desarrollo tecnoló-gico. El fomento de la personalización de los materiales de aprendizaje, es-pecialmente durante su desarrollo, ayudará a producir materiales de aprendi-zaje específicos para las necesidades específicas de los alumnos. El objetivo fundamental de esta tesis es reforzar y fortalecer los temas de Reutilización, Personalización y Facilidad de Producción en materiales de e-Learning durante el proceso de desarrollo. La tesis se ocupa del diseño de un marco basado en ontologías y líneas de productos para desarrollar objetos de aprendizaje personalizados. Con este marco, el desarrollo de materiales de aprendizaje tiene las siguientes ventajas: (i) producción a gran escala, (ii) tiempo de desarrollo más rápido, (iii) mayor (re)uso de recursos. El marco propuesto es la principal aportación de esta tesis, y se caracteriza por la combinación de tres modelos: el Modelo de Contenido, que aborda puntos importantes relacionados con la estructura de los materiales de aprendizaje, su granularidad y niveles de agregación, el Modelo de Persona-lización, que considera las características y preferencias específicas del alumno para personalizar los materiales de aprendizaje, y el modelo de Línea de productos LO (LOPL), que maneja el tema de la variabilidad y crea ma-teriales de manera fácil y flexible. Con estos modelos, los instructores no sólo pueden desarrollar materiales de aprendizaje, sino también reutilizarlos y personalizarlos durante el desarrollo. Una contribución adicional es el modelo de personalización, que se basa en el concepto de modelo de estilo de aprendizaje. A partir del estudio de siete de ellos, se ha construido una Ontología de Modelo de Estilo de Aprendiza-je Global para ayudar a los instructores con información sobre las caracterís-ticas del aprendiz y recomendarlos apropiados para personalización. Los resultados de nuestro trabajo se han plasmado en el diseño de una he-rramienta de autor de materiales de aprendizaje llamada LOAT. Se han des-crito sus requisitos, los elementos de su arquitectura, y algunos detalles de su interfaz de usuario. Como ejemplo de su uso, se incluye un caso de estudio que muestra cómo su empleo en el desarrollo de algunos componentes de aprendizaje.En l'era de l'e¿Learning, els materials educatius es consideren un punt crucial per a tots els participants. D'una banda, els instructors tenen com a objectiu crear materials d'aprenentatge que satisfacen les necessitats i expectatives dels alumnes de manera fàcil i efectiva; d'altra banda, els alumnes volen ad-quirir coneixements d'una manera que s'adapte a les seues característiques i preferències. En conseqüència, la provisio' i personalitzacio' de materials edu-catius per a satisfer les necessitats dels estudiants és un desafiament constant i és actualment sinònim de desenvolupament tecnològic. El foment de la personalitzacio' dels materials d'aprenentatge, especialment durant el seu desenvolupament, ajudarà a produir materials d'aprenentatge específics per a les necessitats concretes dels alumnes. L'objectiu fonamental d'aquesta tesi és reforçar i enfortir els temes de Reutilització, Personalització i Facilitat de Producció en materials d'e-Learning durant el procés de desenvolupament. La tesi s'ocupa del disseny d'un marc basat en ontologies i línia de productes per a desenvolupar objec-tes d'aprenentatge personalitzats. Amb aquest marc, el desenvolupament de materials d'aprenentatge té els següents avantatges: (i) produccio' a gran esca-la, (ii) temps de desenvolupament mes ràpid, (iii) major (re)ús de recursos. El marc proposat és la principal aportacio' d'aquesta tesi, i es caracteritza per la combinacio' de tres models: el Model de Contingut, que aborda punts im-portants relacionats amb l'estructura dels materials d'aprenentatge, la se-ua granularitat i nivells d'agregació, el Model de Línia de Producte, que ges-tiona el tema de la variabilitat i crea materials d'aprenentatge de manera fàcil i flexible. Amb aquests models, els instructors no solament poden desenvolu-par materials d'aprenentatge, sinó que també poden reutilitzar-los i personalit-zar-los durant el desenvolupament. Una contribucio' addicional és el Model de Personalitzacio', que es basa en el concepte de model d'estil d'aprenentatge. A partir de l'estudi de set d'ells, s'ha construït una Ontologia de Model d'Estil d'Aprenentatge Global per a ajudar als instructors amb informacio' sobre les característiques de l'aprenent i recomanar els apropiats per a personalitzacio'. Els resultats del nostre treball s'han plasmat en el disseny d'una eina d'autor de materials d'aprenentatge anomenada LOAT. S'han descrit els seus requi-sits, els elements de la seua arquitectura, i alguns detalls de la seua interfície d'usuari. Com a exemple del seu ús, s'inclou un cas d'estudi que mostra com és el desenvolupament d'alguns components d'aprenentatge.Ezzat Labib Awad, A. (2017). Enforcing Customization in e-Learning Systems: an ontology and product line-based approach [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/90515TESI

Aplicación de ingeniería de dominio para la generación de dashboards personalizados

Trabajo de Fin de Máster en Ingeniería Informática. Curso 2017-2018[ES]Los paneles de información (dashboards, en inglés), juegan un papel clave en el proceso de análisis y visualización de datos sobre un tema o dominio específico. En esencia, los dashboards muestran información y permiten a los usuarios generar conocimiento y llegar a conclusiones para poder realizar una toma de decisiones con una consistente base informativa. Sin embargo, los usuarios finales pueden presentar una serie significativa de necesidades que difieren entre sí, incluyendo la información mostrada, características de diseño o incluso funcionalidades. Aplicar un enfoque de ingeniería de dominio (dentro del paradigma de las líneas de productos software) trae consigo valiosos beneficios, permitiendo producir dashboards personalizados y adaptados a los requisitos particulares de cada usuario (o grupo de usuarios) implicado mediante la identificación de similitudes y puntos de variabilidad de cada producto que podría ser parte de la línea. A través de la parametrización de características y la configuración de los componentes de presentación y fuentes de datos, es posible obtener una línea de productos software de paneles de control, donde podrán irse variando los diversos componentes que conforman el panel, así como sus funcionalidades o fuentes de datos. La creación de esta línea de productos puede llegar a incrementar la productividad, la mantenibilidad y la trazabilidad en cuanto a la evolución de los requisitos de los dashboards, junto a otros beneficios. Para validar esta aplicación, se ha realizado un caso de estudio en el contexto del Observatorio de Empleabilidad y Empleo Universitarios, donde los usuarios (universidades españolas y administradores), podrán controlar sus propios dashboards para explorar datos sobre la empleabilidad y el empleo de sus graduados. Dichos dashboards serán generados automáticamente a través de un lenguaje específico de dominio (DSL), donde se podrán especificar los requisitos de cada usuario, y un generador de código basado en plantillas