Jahresbericht Forschung und Entwicklung 2005

Forschungsjahresbericht 2005 der Fachhochschule Konstan

Model-driven development of web applications with UWA, MVC and JavaServer faces

This paper presents a model-driven approach to the development of web applications based on the Ubiquitous Web Application (UWA) design framework, the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern and the JavaServer Faces technology. The approach combines a complete and robust methodology for the user-centered conceptual design of web applications with the MVC metaphor, which improves separation of business logic and data presentation. The proposed approach, by carrying the advantages of Model-Driven Development (MDD) and user-centered design, produces Web applications which are of high quality from the user's point of view and easier to maintain and evolve.Laboratorio de Investigación y Formación en Informática Avanzad

25 Years of Model-Driven Web Engineering : What we achieved, what is missing

Model-Driven Web Engineering (MDWE) approaches aim to improve the Web applications development process by focusing on modeling instead of coding, and deriving the running application by transformations from conceptual models to code. The emergence of the Interaction Flow Modeling Language (IFML) has been an important milestone in the evolution of Web modeling languages, indicating not only the maturity of the field but also a final convergence of languages. In this paper we explain the evolution of modeling and design approaches since the early years (the 90’s) detailing the forces which drove that evolution and discussing the strengths and weaknesses of some of those approaches. A brief presentation of IFML is accompanied with a thorough analysis of the most important achievements of the MDWE community as well as the problems and obstacles that hinder the dissemination of model-driven techniques in the Web engineering field.Laboratorio de Investigación y Formación en Informática Avanzada (LIFIA

An Analysis of Model-Driven Web Engineering Methodologies

In the late 1990’s there was substantial activity within the “Web engineering” research community and a multitude of new Web approaches were proposed. However, numerous studies have revealed major gaps in these approaches, including coverage and interoperability. In order to address these gaps, the Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) paradigm offers a new approach which has been demonstrated to achieve good results within applied research environments. This paper presents an analysis of a selection of Web development methodologies that are using the MDE paradigm in their development process and assesses whether MDE can provide an effective solution to address the aforementioned problems. This paper presents a critical review of previous studies of classical Web methodologies and makes a case for the potential of the MDWE paradigm as a means of addressing long-standing problems of Web development, for both research and enterprise. A selection of the main MDWE development approaches are analyzed and compared in accordance with criteria derived from the literature. The paper concludes that this new trend opens an interesting new way to develop Web systems within practical projects and argues that some classical gaps can be improved with MDWE.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN2010-12312-EJunta de Andalucía TIC-578

Un generador automático de sitios web

Internet, con la llegada de la web 2.0, ha dejado de ser un medio de mera consulta para ser un lugar donde el usuario genera el contenido y lo hace además de manera constante. En este nuevo paradigma, la importancia de una marca viene intrínsecamente ligada a su presencia en la red y esto denota la importancia de tener su propio sitio web. A d a de hoy, infinidad de metodologías permiten la producción de páginas web, cada una de ellas plantea diferentes soluciones al problema mediante técnicas diversas, pero en muchos casos realizan tareas similares. Esta falta de homogeneidad provoca en los desarrolladores la necesidad de conocer múltiples tecnologías para distintos contextos. La herramienta para la generación automatizada de sitios web presentada en este proyecto se ha basado en el desarrollo guiado por modelos y el uso de generadores de código, que permiten un alto nivel de abstracción y hacen que los detalles técnicos asociados a la utilización de diferentes tecnologías sean transparentes al diseñador. En este caso, la solución que se presenta se ha especializado en la producción de sitios web destinados a grupos de investigación. Para ello, se han implementado numerosos componentes web que encapsulan funcionalidades como la conexión a bases de datos externas, la comunicación con APIs o la representación de gráficos. Como caso de estudio, se ha validado la solución diseñada con la creación del sitio Web del Grupo de Aprendizaje Automático de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.Web 2.0 arrival few years ago has changed completely the way we use the Internet. It is no longer a system just to search for information since it has become a place where the users constantly generate new contents. With this new paradigm, the importance of a brand is directly related to its presence on the Internet and therefore, having its own Web site is an essential aspect. Nowadays, there are lots of methodologies that allow us to create web pages and they each propose di erent solutions using diverse techniques, but in most cases they carry out similar tasks. This lack of homogeneity makes the developers have to know a big variety of technologies to be used in di erent contexts. The tool to automatically generate websites presented in this project is based on model-driven development and code generators. These techniques entail a high abstraction layer making the technical details transparent to the designer. In this case, the solution proposed has been focused on producing websites for researcher groups. To this end, a lot of di erent Web components able to connect to external data bases, to communicate to API's, and to represent graphs have been implemented. As study case, the tool has been validated creating the Web Site for the Machine Learning Group of the Universidad Aut onoma de Madrid

25 Years of Model-Driven Web Engineering : What we achieved, what is missing

Model-Driven Web Engineering (MDWE) approaches aim to improve the Web applications development process by focusing on modeling instead of coding, and deriving the running application by transformations from conceptual models to code. The emergence of the Interaction Flow Modeling Language (IFML) has been an important milestone in the evolution of Web modeling languages, indicating not only the maturity of the field but also a final convergence of languages. In this paper we explain the evolution of modeling and design approaches since the early years (the 90’s) detailing the forces which drove that evolution and discussing the strengths and weaknesses of some of those approaches. A brief presentation of IFML is accompanied with a thorough analysis of the most important achievements of the MDWE community as well as the problems and obstacles that hinder the dissemination of model-driven techniques in the Web engineering field.Laboratorio de Investigación y Formación en Informática Avanzada (LIFIA

Forum - Ausgabe 2007/2008

Informiert über die Forschungsaktivitäten an der Hochschule Konstanz im Jahr 2007/2008

Ontology-based personalisation of e-learning resources for disabled students

Students with disabilities are often expected to use e-learning systems to access learning materials but most systems do not provide appropriate adaptation or personalisation to meet their needs.The difficulties related to inadaptability of current learning environments can now be resolved using semantic web technologies such as web ontologies which have been successfully used to drive e-learning personalisation. Nevertheless, e-learning personalisation for students with disabilities has mainly targeted those with single disabilities such as dyslexia or visual impairment, often neglecting those with multiple disabilities due to the difficulty of designing for a combination of disabilities.This thesis argues that it is possible to personalise learning materials for learners with disabilities, including those with multiple disabilities. This is achieved by developing a model that allows the learning environment to present the student with learning materials in suitable formats while considering their disability and learning needs through an ontology-driven and disability-aware personalised e-learning system model (ONTODAPS). A disability ontology known as the Abilities and Disabilities Ontology for Online LEarning and Services (ADOOLES) is developed and used to drive this model. To test the above hypothesis, some case studies are employed to show how the model functions for various individuals with and without disabilities and then the implemented visual interface is experimentally evaluated by eighteen students with disabilities and heuristically by ten lecturers. The results are collected and statistically analysed.The results obtained confirm the above hypothesis and suggest that ONTODAPS can be effectively employed to personalise learning and to manage learning resources. The student participants found that ONTODAPS could aid their learning experience and all agreed that they would like to use this functionality in an existing learning environment. The results also suggest that ONTODAPS provides a platform where students with disabilities can have equivalent learning experience with their peers without disabilities. For the results to be generalised, this study could be extended through further experiments with more diverse groups of students with disabilities and across multiple educational institutions