A Proposed Methodology for Identifying and Evaluating an E-Forms Application

In order to develop a specific methodology that can be followed by any organization or individual who needs tochoose the appropriate E-Forms application that could meet the required needs, this research proposes a methodology whichconsists of three phases: Identification phase, Evaluation phase and Testing phase. In the first phase, a general survey on EFormstypesandtechnologiesisintroducedwithfocusontherecenttrendsinorder to identify which type mostly meets theuser's general requirements. In the second phase, an evaluation to make an accurate selection is made to some of the topcompeting applications supporting the type identified in first phase by using a specific evaluation methodology, in thisresearch three of the widely used evaluation methodologies are discussed, in addition to a simple evaluation methodologywhich has been proposed and implemented using "Microsoft Excel Sheets" application. Finally in the third phase, a real test ismade using the winner application resulting from the second phase, where a four-stage testing plan is proposed in order toachieve this purpose. As an example, the E-Forms technology which is based on "Extensible Markup Language (XML)" isidentified due to its features and capabilities. Then the evaluation is made to the top applications supporting this technology,where "Adobe's XML Forms Architecture (XFA)" technology is selected as a winner. This winner application then is tested,where samples of forms were designed to show the extraordinary features this technology can offer including digital signature.The test includes the use of a proposed offline forms' data gathering technique and uses "Oracle 10g" as the back-enddatabase. It also includes a website to publish the designed forms in addition to an application developed using "OracleDeveloper 10g" to process the forms' data for one of the designed samples in order to prove these forms' accuracy

Using metadata to implement eforms and their associated databases

Web forms (eForms) and databases are at present widely used for data handling in most web applications. While eForms are used for data gathering and display, databases are used for data storage. To connect and interface an eForm to a database, an eForm processor is used. The eForm processor supports data saving, retrieval, update, and delete. In most web applications, eForms, eForm processors, and databases are designed and implemented separately. This leads to two main challenges: One, complexity in the manipulation of eForms and their associated database; and two, difficulty in the reproduction and reuse of existing eForms. To address the above-identified challenges, this thesis proposes the use of metadata in the creation and implementation of both eForms and their associated databases. Our approach comprises a two-part solution: One, modeling domain’s metadata and two, creating a tool, called Delk eForm Creator. To model domain metadata, Resource Description Framework Schema (RDFS) was used. However, to analyse the tool’s requirement, Putting Usability First (PUF) approach was used. In order to demonstrate the applicability of our solution approach, Delk eForm Creator was used to create a set of Metadata and three specific eForms based on a generic eForm. The created eForms were rendered in different web browsers and used to enter data into the associated databases. It was observed that Delk eForm Creator successfully generated a Generic eForm based on the Domain Metadata. Moreover, three different Specific eForms were successfully generated based on one Generic eForm, thereby leading to a reusable Generic eForm. We conclude that the metadata-based approach of implementing eForms, as proposed in this thesis, is a viable technique to creating eForms and their associated databases. The approach enables users to easily create, maintain, and reuse eForms and databases