A platform for semantic web studies

The Semantic Web can be seen as a large, heterogeneous network of ontologies and semantic documents. Characterizing these ontologies, the way they relate and the way they are organized can help in better understanding how knowledge is produced and published online. It also provides new ways to explore and exploit this large collection of ontologies. In this paper, we present the foundation of a research platform for characterizing the Semantic Web, relying on the collection of ontologies and the functionalities provided by the Watson Semantic Web search engine. We more specifically focus on formalizing and monitoring relationships between ontologies online, considering a variety of different relations (similarity, versioning, agreement, modularity) and how they can help us obtaining meaningful overviews of the current state of the Semantic Web

A literature review of the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education

This review focuses on the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education. It provides a synthesis of the research literature in the field and a series of illustrative examples of how these tools are being used in learning and teaching. It draws out the perceived benefits that these new technologies appear to offer, and highlights some of the challenges and issues surrounding their use. The review forms the basis for a HE Academy funded project, ‘Peals in the Cloud’, which is exploring how Web 2.0 tools can be used to support evidence-based practices in learning and teaching. The project has also produced two in-depth case studies, which are reported elsewhere (Galley et al., 2010, Alevizou et al., 2010). The case studies focus on evaluation of a recently developed site for learning and teaching, Cloudworks, which harnesses Web 2.0 functionality to facilitate the sharing and discussion of educational practice. The case studies aim to explore to what extent the Web 2.0 affordances of the site are successfully promoting the sharing of ideas, as well as scholarly reflections, on learning and teaching

Case studies in web sustainability

At the moment organisations often make significant investments in producing Web-based material, often funded through public money, for example from JISC. But what happens when some of those organisations are closed or there is no longer any money or resources to host the site? We are seeing cuts in funding or changes in governmental policy, which is resulting in the closure of some of these organisations. What happens to those Web resources when the organisations are no longer in existence? Public money has often been used to develop these resources - from that perspective it would be a shame to lose them. Moreover, the resources might be needed or someone may actually want to take over the maintenance of the site at a later date. How do we make these sites more sustainable? Is there any way we can move sites to somewhere that is free to host the Web pages, and can be left there or modified when needed? JISC previously funded three projects to look at this area through a programme called Sustaining ‘at risk’ online resources [1]. One of these projects, which ran at The University of Northampton, looked into ‘rescuing’ one of the recently closed East Midlands Universities Association’s online resources. This resource, called East Midlands Knowledge Network (EMKN), lists many of the knowledge transfer activities of 10 of the East Midlands universities. The project looked at options on how to migrate the site to a free hosting option to make it make it more sustainable even when it is no longer available on the original host’s servers. This article looks at this work as a case study on Web sustainability and also included a case study of another project where Web sustainability was centra

Forward, back and home again : analyzing user behavior on the web

In a period of less than two decades, the World Wide Web has evolved into one of the most important sources of information and services. Due to the infancy of the Web and its rapid growth, our knowledge on how users interact with the Web is limited - knowledge which is likely to provide pointers for improvements in the design of Web sites and Web browsers. In this thesis, we aim to provide an integrative overview of theoretical insights and empirical findings, and to extend this body of knowledge with results from a number of user studies

Reusable e-learning development: Case studies, practices and issues of awareness for knowledge-based organisations

Reusable e-learning development (RED) is defined as the cloning, modification and customisation of existing files or source codes for developing another website or another web-based application. RED does not imply just copying and changing existing files or source codes but rather, it provides a practical technique for time-saving, improving efficiency and maximising utility of existing resources for creating another website or another web-based application. RED is particularly useful for a large-scale web development, where there is an extremely high degree of overlapping of information, resources and web designs. Therefore, RED has been widely adopted by many knowledge-based organisations (KBO). In order to investigate the impacts of RED on KBO, various case studies, practices and issues of awareness for KBO are presented and analysed. This paper particularly focuses on studies and recommended practices from the University of Cambridge. Results from these case studies reveal a number of outcomes

Automated Dynamic Firmware Analysis at Scale: A Case Study on Embedded Web Interfaces

Embedded devices are becoming more widespread, interconnected, and web-enabled than ever. However, recent studies showed that these devices are far from being secure. Moreover, many embedded systems rely on web interfaces for user interaction or administration. Unfortunately, web security is known to be difficult, and therefore the web interfaces of embedded systems represent a considerable attack surface. In this paper, we present the first fully automated framework that applies dynamic firmware analysis techniques to achieve, in a scalable manner, automated vulnerability discovery within embedded firmware images. We apply our framework to study the security of embedded web interfaces running in Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) embedded devices, such as routers, DSL/cable modems, VoIP phones, IP/CCTV cameras. We introduce a methodology and implement a scalable framework for discovery of vulnerabilities in embedded web interfaces regardless of the vendor, device, or architecture. To achieve this goal, our framework performs full system emulation to achieve the execution of firmware images in a software-only environment, i.e., without involving any physical embedded devices. Then, we analyze the web interfaces within the firmware using both static and dynamic tools. We also present some interesting case-studies, and discuss the main challenges associated with the dynamic analysis of firmware images and their web interfaces and network services. The observations we make in this paper shed light on an important aspect of embedded devices which was not previously studied at a large scale. We validate our framework by testing it on 1925 firmware images from 54 different vendors. We discover important vulnerabilities in 185 firmware images, affecting nearly a quarter of vendors in our dataset. These experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach

One Year Later: September 11 and the Internet

Presents findings from a survey that looks at how the terror attacks affected Americans' views about access to online information, Internet use, and the Web after September 11. Contains scholarly studies built around analysis of hundreds of Web sites

From the visual book to the WEB book : the importance of design

This paper presents the results of two studies into electronic book production. The Visual book study explored the importance of the visual component of the book metaphor for the production of more effective electronic books, while the WEB book study took the findings of the Visual book and applied them to the production of books for publication on the World Wide Web (WWW). Both studies started from an assessment of which kinds of paper book are more suitable for translation into electronic form. Both also identified publications which are meant to be used for reference rather than those which are read sequentially, and usually in their entirety. This group includes scientific publications and textbooks which were both used as the target group for the Visual book and the WEB book experiments. In this paper we discuss the results of the two studies and how they could influence the design and production of more effective electronic books