EzWeb/FAST: Reporting on a Successful Mashup-based Solution for Developing and Deploying Composite Applications in the Upcoming Web of Services

Service oriented architectures (SOAs) based on Web Services have attracted a great interest and IT investments during the last years, principally in the context of business-to-business integration within corporate intranets. However, they are nowadays evolving to break through enterprise boundaries, in a revolutionary attempt to make the approach pervasive, leading to what we call a user-centric SOA, i.e. a SOA conceived as a Web of Services made up of compositional resources that empowers end-users to ubiquitously exploit these resources by collaboratively remixing them. In this paper we explore the architectural basis, technologies, frameworks and tools considered necessary to face this novel vision of SOA. We also present the rationale behind EzWeb/FAST: an undergoing EU funded project whose first outcomes could serve as a preliminary proof of concep

Developing front-end Web 2.0 technologies to access services, content and things in the future Internet

The future Internet is expected to be composed of a mesh of interoperable web services accessible from all over the web. This approach has not yet caught on since global user?service interaction is still an open issue. This paper states one vision with regard to next-generation front-end Web 2.0 technology that will enable integrated access to services, contents and things in the future Internet. In this paper, we illustrate how front-ends that wrap traditional services and resources can be tailored to the needs of end users, converting end users into prosumers (creators and consumers of service-based applications). To do this, we propose an architecture that end users without programming skills can use to create front-ends, consult catalogues of resources tailored to their needs, easily integrate and coordinate front-ends and create composite applications to orchestrate services in their back-end. The paper includes a case study illustrating that current user-centred web development tools are at a very early stage of evolution. We provide statistical data on how the proposed architecture improves these tools. This paper is based on research conducted by the Service Front End (SFE) Open Alliance initiative

The Structure of Social Documents

Enterprise collaboration platforms are large scale, highly integrated information infrastructures that enable many hundreds of employees to work collaboratively and share information. In this paper, we lay the theoretical and analytical foundations for the use of social documents as digital traces of collaborative activity in enterprise collaboration platforms. Through a review of related research and an empirical analysis of social documents, we identify key concepts and structures, providing the foundation for the Social Document Ontology (SocDOnt). SocDOnt expresses the generic structure of social documents and extends previous work in two important ways. At the micro-level a social document is defined as a composition of an intellectual entity enhanced by both intellectual and simple components and at the macro-level a collection is defined as an aggregation of social documents. These analytical constructs enable a more nuanced and granular analysis of social documents to understand collaborative activity in enterprise collaboration platforms

EzWeb/FAST: Reporting on a Successful Mashup-based Solution for Developing and Deploying Composite Applications in the Upcoming "Ubiquitous SOA"

Service oriented architectures (SOAs) based on Web services have attracted a great interest and IT investments during the last years, principally in the context of business-to-business integration within corporate Intranets. However, they are nowadays evolving to break through enterprise boundaries, in a revolutionary attempt to make the approach pervasive, leading to what we call the ubiquitous SOA, i.e. a SOA conceived as a Web of services made up of compositional resources that empowers end-users to ubiquitously exploit these resources by collaboratively remixing them. In this paper we explore the architectural basis, technologies, frameworks and tools considered necessary to face this novel vision of SOA. We also present the rationale behind EzWeb/FAST: an undergoing EU funded project whose first outcomes could serve as a preliminary proof of concep

Using Unified Personal Information in Workspaces

Knowledge workers (KWers) deal with personal information and use tools like, e.g., desktop workspaces to support their work. But KWer support is hindered by personal information fragmentation, i.e., applications keep a set of personal information while not interconnecting it. This thesis addresses this in the domains personal task management and meeting management by using a common unified personal information model as offered by the semantic desktop personal information management (PIM) system

A Service based Development Environment on Web 2.0 Platforms

Governments are investing on the IT adoption and promoting the socalled e-economies as a way to improve competitive advantages. One of the main government’s actions is to provide internet access to the most part of the population, people and organisations. Internet provides the required support for connecting organizations, people and geographically distributed developments teams. Software developments are tightly related to the availability of tools and platforms needed for products developments. Internet is becoming the most widely used platform. Software forges such as SourceForge provide an integrated tools environment gathering a set of tools that are suited for each development with a low cost. In this paper we propose an innovating approach based on Web2.0, services and a method engineering approach for software developments. This approach represents one of the possible usages of the internet of the future

Student-Centered Learning: Functional Requirements for Integrated Systems to Optimize Learning

The realities of the 21st-century learner require that schools and educators fundamentally change their practice. "Educators must produce college- and career-ready graduates that reflect the future these students will face. And, they must facilitate learning through means that align with the defining attributes of this generation of learners."Today, we know more than ever about how students learn, acknowledging that the process isn't the same for every student and doesn't remain the same for each individual, depending upon maturation and the content being learned. We know that students want to progress at a pace that allows them to master new concepts and skills, to access a variety of resources, to receive timely feedback on their progress, to demonstrate their knowledge in multiple ways and to get direction, support and feedback from—as well as collaborate with—experts, teachers, tutors and other students.The result is a growing demand for student-centered, transformative digital learning using competency education as an underpinning.iNACOL released this paper to illustrate the technical requirements and functionalities that learning management systems need to shift toward student-centered instructional models. This comprehensive framework will help districts and schools determine what systems to use and integrate as they being their journey toward student-centered learning, as well as how systems integration aligns with their organizational vision, educational goals and strategic plans.Educators can use this report to optimize student learning and promote innovation in their own student-centered learning environments. The report will help school leaders understand the complex technologies needed to optimize personalized learning and how to use data and analytics to improve practices, and can assist technology leaders in re-engineering systems to support the key nuances of student-centered learning

Enhancing User-Service Interaction Through a Global User-Centric Approach to SOA

Considered as enablers of seamless application-to- application integration both within company boundaries and on a global scale, Web Services-based SOAs have traditionally focused on automating service-to-service collaboration. However, they have never featured a "face " to human users. This gap between human users and services still prevents enterprises from realizing how innovations at the SOA front-end help to make people more productive. And, ultimately, it hinders the emergence of a real Web of Services driven by a global, user-centric SOA. In this paper, we revisit the notion of SOA and analyze its major shortcomings with regard to the emergence of a Web of Services enhancing user-service interaction and increased service usability. We then elaborate on novel, currently emerging technologies that facilitate the establishment of the global mesh of interoperable user-centric services. A novel platform architecture is presented that builds on all the key technical enablers

Towards the Improvement of the Software Quality: An Enterprise 2.0 Architecture for Distributed Software Developments.

Software development is tightly dependent on the tools available for supporting its processes. Organizational and sociotechnical peculiarities such as indefinition of roles, geographically distributed development teams, new business models and diverse cultural interactions steer these tools. Software development supported by web-based services, built on top of Web 2.0 technologies, is emerging as a new paradigm for distributed software development. New generation software forges (web-based development environments) such as EzForge are becoming the infrastructure that provides the required features for hosting collections of software development projects. They are composed of an integrated set of tools, interacting in a mashup-like environment, each one suited for a specific task, and therefore simple enough to keep total complexity low. An adequate selection of tools helps developers to focus on the implementation of the requirements, while at the same time they cope with complex information coming from many individuals and organizations. The complexity of distributed software development requires a controlled and a strong collaboration amongst developers, which has to be supported by the selected architecture. Moreover, an increased demand on quality assurance is required by the many organizations aiming to achieve a certain quality level. A new architecture based on the Web 2.0 core ideas and methods overcomes these challenges in software development, representing a cornerstone to achieve satisfactory results in this ambitious environment

Enabling Innovation across the Enterprise through Mashup-oriented Collaboration Environments

Nowadays enterprise collaboration is becoming essential for valuable innovation and competitive advantage. This collaboration must be brought a step forward from technical collaboration till collective smart exploitation of global intelligence. The Internet of Future is expected to be composed of a mesh of interoperable Web Services accessed from all over the Web. This approach has not yet caught on since a global user-service interaction is still an open issue. This paper states our vision with regard to the next generation front-end web technology that will enable integrated access to services, contents and things in the Future Internet. This approach will enable the massive deployment of services over Internet in a user-centric fashion. Having this in mind, the rationale behind EzWeb, a reference architecture and implementation of an open Enterprise 2.0 Collaboration Platform that empower its users to co-produce and share instant applications is presente