bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Project Management and Web Software Engineering
Authors: Brandon Daniel M.
Published: May 2010

The process involved with the development of Web applications is significantly different from the process of developing applications on older traditional platforms. This is a difference not only in technologies but in the overall business process and associated methodology, in other words the project management. Web applications generally manage content and not just data, and many Web applications are document centric versus data centric. In addition, there are many more people involved in the definition, design, development, testing, usage, and approval for Web applications. The pace of business life is much quicker today than in the past, thus Web applications need to be deployed much quicker than earlier IT applications and they need to be engineered for more flexibility and adaptability in terms of changing requirements, changing content, changing presentation, and perhaps mass user customization. In addition, security concerns are more prevalent in Web applications since the end users are outside as well as inside the corporate virtual perimeter. Web applications can serve a global audience and thus there are more diverse stakeholders for these applications. Issues such as language, culture, time zones, weights and measures, currency, and international standards need to be considered. This chapter examines the project management issues involved with Web applications.
Utilizing Past Web for Knowledge Discovery
Authors: Jatowt Adam , Kawai Yukiko , Tanaka Katsumi
Published: May 2010

The Web is a useful data source for knowledge extraction, as it provides diverse content virtually on any possible topic. Hence, a lot of research has been recently done for improving mining in the Web. However, relatively little research has been done taking directly into account the temporal aspects of the Web. In this chapter, we analyze data stored in Web archives, which preserve content of the Web, and investigate the methodology required for successful knowledge discovery from this data. We call the collection of such Web archives past Web; a temporal structure composed of the past copies of Web pages. First, we discuss the character of the data and explain some concepts related to utilizing the past Web, such as data collection, analysis and processing. Next, we introduce examples of two applications, temporal summarization and a browser for the past Web.
ICT and Interculture Opportunities Offered by the Web
Authors: Corazza Laura
Published: May 2010

In Italy, as in other European countries such as Germany and France, the words “multicultural” and “intercultural” have distinct meanings1. In some ways the passage the one from the other indicates the evolution of a concept that, when examined in detail, forces us to re-examine educational political, and cultural choices in a society. “In Italy, especially in the field of pedagogy, the term multicultural indicates a situation where cultures co-exist side by side but as yet, have not found a means of comparison and relating to each other . . The term intercultural, which originated in France and then spread to other European countries, on another hand, describes a situation of interaction between different cultures, often describing a prospect, a possible point of arrival or an objective to strive for; a situation in which the people of different cultures begin to open up to reciprocal relationships, thereby bringing about the possibility of integration, characterised by a political and cultural pluralism which aims at reciprocal respect and appreciation between the respective cultures”2. With Multiculturalism, people accept to live with those from other cultures with tolerance but without promoting forms of exchange and democratic co-existence. The form of social organization that derives from this is that of the “melting pot” which encourages the development of ghettos or “Little Italy” and “China towns”. However the Intercultural approach is reciprocal. It is for those who accept and listen, those who are tolerant, those who are not afraid of “contamination” but constantly seek to mediate between different points of view and backgrounds.
New Paradigms
Authors: Holewa Hamish
Published: May 2010

The chapter aims to document the challenges associated with the management of an international research program and to look at innovative, information technology (IT) based ways of tackling these. Through the medium of a case study, insights gained from practical experience developing and implementing an original web based collaborative research management tool are discussed. This tool is based on a centralised model of information distribution and access. It was designed following a reductionist analysis of existing research processes and procedures. The ways in which the integration of responsive IT processes into the management of a large international research program have removed redundancies and increased automation and research efficiency is also discussed.
Identifying Users Stereotypes for Dynamic Web Pages Customization
Authors: José Rigo Sandro
Published: May 2010

Adaptive Hypermedia is an effective approach to automatic personalization that overcomes the difficulties and deficiencies of traditional Web systems in delivering the appropriate content to users. One important issue regarding Adaptive Hypermedia systems is the construction and maintenance of the user profile. Another important concern is the use of Semantic Web resources to describe Web applications and to implement adaptation mechanisms. Web Usage Mining, in this context, allows the generation of Websites access patterns. This chapter describes the possibilities of integration of these usage patterns with semantic knowledge obtained from domain ontologies. Thus, it is possible to identify users’ stereotypes for dynamic Web pages customization. This integration of semantic knowledge can provide personalization systems with better adaptation strategies.
A New System for the Integration of Medical Imaging Processing Algorithms into a Web Environment
Authors: Seoane Fernández José Antonio , Pérez Ordóñez Juan Luis , Veiguela Blanco Noha
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents an architecture for the integration of various algorithms for digital image processing (DIP) into web-based information systems. The proposed environment provides the development of tools for intensive image processing and their integration into information systems by means of JAVA applets. The functionality of the system is shown through a set of tools for biomedical application. The main feature of this architecture is that it allows the application of various types of image processing, with different computational costs, through a web browser and in a transparent and user-friendly way.
Probabilistic Models for the Semantic Web
Authors: Predoiu Livia
Published: May 2010

Recently, there has been an increasing interest in formalisms for representing uncertain information on the Semantic Web. This interest is triggered by the observation that knowledge on the web is not always crisp and we have to be able to deal with incomplete, inconsistent and vague information. The treatment of this kind of information requires new approaches for knowledge representation and reasoning on the web as existing Semantic Web languages are based on classical logic which is known to be inadequate for representing uncertainty in many cases. While different general approaches for extending Semantic Web languages with the ability to represent uncertainty are explored, we focus our attention on probabilistic approaches. We survey existing proposals for extending semantic web languages or formalisms underlying Semantic Web languages in terms of their expressive power, reasoning capabilities as well as their suitability for supporting typical tasks associated with the Semantic Web.
Paving the Way to an Effective and Efficient Retrieval of Data over Semantic Overlay Networks
Authors: Mandreoli Federica , Martoglia Riccardo , Penzo Wilma , Sassatelli Simona , Villani Giorgio
Published: May 2010

In a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) system, a Semantic Overlay Network (SON) models a network of peers whose connections are influenced by the peers’ content, so that semantically related peers connect with each other. This is very common in P2P communities, where peers share common interests, and a peer can belong to more than one SON, depending on its own interests. Querying such a kind of systems is not an easy task: The retrieval of relevant data can not rely on flooding approaches which forward a query to the overall network. A way of selecting which peers are more likely to provide relevant answers is necessary to support more efficient and effective query processing strategies. This chapter presents a semantic infrastructure for routing queries effectively in a network of SONs. Peers are semantically rich, in that peers’ content is modelled with a schema on their local data, and peers are related each other through semantic mappings defined between their own schemas. A query is routed through the network by means of a sequence of reformulations, according to the semantic mappings encountered in the routing path. As reformulations may lead to semantic approximations, we define a fully distributed indexing mechanism which summarizes the semantics underlying whole subnetworks, in order to be able to locate the semantically best directions to forward a query to. In support of our proposal, we demonstrate through a rich set of experiments that our routing mechanism overtakes algorithms which are usually limited to the only knowledge of the peers directly connected to the querying peer, and that our approach is particularly successful in a SONs scenario.
SWARMS
Authors: Tang Jie , Liang Bangyong , Li Juanzi
Published: May 2010

This chapter describes the architecture and the main features of SWARMS, a platform for domain knowledge management. The platform aims at providing services for 1) efficiently storing and accessing the ontological information; 2) visualizing the networking structure in the ontological data; 3) searching and mining the semantic data. One advantage of the system is that it provides a suite of components for not only supporting efficient semantic data storage but also searching and mining the semantics. Another advantage is that the system supports visualization in the process of search and mining, which would greatly help a normal user to understand the knowledge inside the ontological data. SWARMS can be easily customized to adapt to different domains. The system has been applied to several domains, such as News, Software, and Social Network. In this chapter, we will also present the performance evaluations of the system.
SWELS
Authors: Elia Gianluca , Secundo Giustina , Taurino Cesare
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents a prototypal e-learning system based on the Semantic Web paradigm, called SWELS (Semantic Web E-Learning System). The chapter starts by introducing e-learning as an efficient and just-in-time tool supporting the learning processes. Then a brief description of the evolution of distance learning technologies will be provided, starting from first generation e-learning systems through the current Virtual Learning Environments and Managed Learning Environments, by underling the main differences between them and the need to introduce standards for e-learning with which to manage and overcome problems related to learning content personalization and updating. Furthermore, some limits of the traditional approaches and technologies for e-learning will be provided, by proposing the Semantic Web as an efficient and effective tool for implementing new generation e-Learning systems. In the last section of the chapter, the SWELS system is proposed by describing the methodology adopted for organizing and modeling its knowledge base, by illustrating its main functionalities, and by providing the design of the tool followed by the implementation choices. Finally, future developments of SWELS will be presented, together with some remarks regarding the benefits for the final user in using such system.
Empirical Studies for Web Effort Estimation
Authors: Di Martino Sergio , Ferrucci Filomena , Gravino Carmine
Published: May 2010

Web technologies are being even more adopted for the development of public and private applications, due to the many intrinsic advantages. Due to this diffusion, estimating the effort required to develop Web applications represents an emerging issue in the field of Web engineering since it can deeply affect the competitiveness of a software company. To this aim, in the last years, several estimation techniques have been proposed. Moreover, many empirical studies have been carried out so far to assess their effectiveness in predicting Web application development effort. In the chapter, we report on and discuss the results of the most significant empirical studies undertaken in this field.
Profiling of Web Services to Measure and Verify their Non-Functional Properties
Authors: Abramowicz Witold
Published: May 2010

The following chapter focuses on the problem of the proper definition of non-functional properties and methods that may be applied in order to estimate their values. First of all, a reader is familiarized with the concept of non-functional properties and different views on the quality of Web services. Then, selected approaches to obtain values of non-functional properties are presented. The focus of attention is Web services profiling that seems to be one of the most promising methods to perform this task. The framework presented in this chapter was implemented and tested within the EU Adaptive Services Grid project.
Enhancing the Web Service Description and Discovery Processes with QoS
Authors: Kritikos Kyriakos
Published: May 2010

As the Web service (WS) paradigm gains popularity for its promise to transform the way business is conducted, the number of deployed WSs grows with a fast rate. While sophisticated semantic discovery mechanisms have been devised to overcome the UDDI’s syntactic discovery solution in order to increase recall and precision, the amount of functionally equivalent WSs returned is still large. One solution to this problem is the description of the nonfunctional aspects of WSs, including quality of service (QoS). QoS encompasses the performance of WSs and can be used as a discriminating factor for refining WS advertisement results. However, most efforts presented so far are purely syntactic in nature and do not capture all aspects of QoS-based WS description, leading to imprecise syntactic discovery mechanisms. In this chapter, a definition of QoS for WSs is provided and its important role in WS management is emphasized. An analysis of the requirements that are imposed on the WS description and discovery processes based on QoS is given along with a review of related work in QoS-based WS description and discovery, highlighting the main deficiencies of recent approaches. Then, a complete semantic approach for QoS-based WS description and discovery is presented and analyzed. The chapter concludes by drawing directions for further research.
A Logic Programming Based Framework for Intelligent Web Service Composition
Authors: Pontelli Enrico , Cao Son Tran , Baral Chitta
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents a comprehensive logic programming framework designed to support intelligent composition of Web services. The underlying model relies on the modeling of Web services as actions, each described by a logic programming theory. This view allows the use of logic-based planning to address the Web service composition problem, taking advantage of the fact that logic-based planning enables the elegant introduction of a number of extensions and generalizations (e.g., dealing with incomplete knowledge and preferences). The theory describing each Web service is encoded as a logic programming module, and different semantics are allowed within different modules, thus better reflecting the practical use of different service description formalisms and ontologies.
Enhancing the Testability of Web Services
Authors: Brenner Daniel , Paech Barbara , Merdes Matthias , Malaka Rainer
Published: May 2010

For the foreseeable future, testing will remain the mainstay of software quality assurance and measurement in all areas of software development, including Web services and service-oriented systems. In general, however, testing Web services is much more challenging than testing normal software applications, not because they are inherently more complex, but because of the limited control and access that users of Web services have over their development and deployment. Whereas the developers of normal applications, by definition, have full control over their application until release time, and thus, can subject them to all kinds of tests in various combinations (e.g., integration testing, system testing, regression testing, acceptance testing, etc.), users of Web services can often only test them at run-time after they have already been deployed and put into service. Moreover, users of Web services often have to share access to them with other concurrent users. In order to effectively test Web services under these conditions special measures and approaches need to be taken to enhance their testability. Right from the early phases of development, the testability of services needs to be taken into account and “designed into” services. In this chapter we consider these issues and with the aid of a case study we present a methodology that can be used to enhance the testability of Web services.
Aspect-Oriented Framework for Web Services (AoF4WS)
Authors: Kouadri Mostefaoui Ghita , Maamar Zakaria , Narendra Nanjangud C.
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents our research initiative known as aspect-oriented framework for Web services (AoF4WS). This initiative looks into the role of aspect-oriented programming in enhancing Web services with nonfunctional properties that are orthogonal to the primary functional properties of Web services, without the need for extensive reprogramming. This enhancement achieves a separation between the functional and nonfunctional aspects of Web services, thereby resulting in easier adaptability and maintainability. We have initially chosen to focus on security and self-healing nonfunctional requirements. The AoF4WS initiative is therefore demonstrated using two projects, SC-WS and SH-WS, which respectively stand for security concerns of Web services and self-healing Web services. Our contributions are relevant to the design phase in an aspect-oriented software development lifecycle.
Providing Web Services Security SLA Guarantees
Authors: Dwivedi Vishal
Published: May 2010

This chapter underlines the importance of security service level agreements (SLAs) for Web services. As Web services are increasingly incorporated in the mainstream enterprises, the need for security has led to various standards. However unlike nonfunctional requirements such as performance, scalability and so forth, which are quantitative and are enforced through SLAs, security is represented only through policies. There exist quite a few frameworks for security at different levels of enactment; however, what is clearly missing is an approach to represent security SLAs and enacting them for a Web service environment. In this chapter, we primarily focus on two aspects. We first focus on the security requirements for Web services and the currently available stack of security mechanisms and frameworks for achieving security at various levels of Web service implementation. The second focus is on how these could be utilized to build security SLAs, which could be enforced on Web services. Later in the chapter we suggest a conceptual model to represent these SLA clauses and present an approach to enact them.
Adoption of Web Services in Digital Libraries
Authors: Oguz Fatih
Published: May 2010

This chapter describes a research study with an objective to explore and describe decision factors related to technology adoption. The study utilized theories of diffusion of innovations and communities of practice as frameworks and a case study of Web services (WS) technology in the digital library (DL) environment to develop an understanding of the decision-making process. A qualitative case study approach was used to investigate the research problems and data was collected through semistructured interviews, documentary evidence (e.g., meeting minutes), and a comprehensive member check. Face-to-face and phone interviews were conducted with respondents from five different DL programs in the U.S., selected based on distinctive characteristics (e.g., size of the DL program). Findings of the research suggest that the decision-making process is a complex procedure in which a number of factors are considered when making WS adoption decisions. These factors are categorized as organizational, individual, and technology-specific factors.
Using Semantic Web Services in E-Banking Solutions
Authors: Cicurel Laurent , Luis Bas Uribe José , Bellido Gonzalez Sergio , Contreras Jesús , López-Cobo José-Manuel , Losada Silvestre
Published: May 2010

Offering public access to efficient transactional stock market functionalities is of interest to all banks and bank users. Traditional service oriented architecture (SOA) technology succeeds at providing reasonable, good Web-based brokerage solutions, but may lack extensibility possibilities. By introducing Semantic Web Services (SWS) as a way to integrate third party services from distributed service providers, we propose in this chapter an innovative way to offer online real-time solutions that are easy-to-use for customers. The combined use of ontologies and SWS allows different users to define their own portfolio management strategies regardless of the information provider. In deed the semantic layer is a powerful way to integrate the information of many providers in an easy way. With due regard for more development of security technological issues, research on SWS has shown that the deployment of the technology in commercial solutions is within sight.
A Proposed Template for the Evaluation of Web Design Strategies
Authors: Xanthidis Dimitrios , Nicholas David , Argyrides Paris
Published: May 2010

This chapter is the result of a two years effort to design a template aiming at standardizing, as much as such a task is feasible, the evaluation of Web sites. It is the product of a few publications in international conferences and journals. A thorough review of the international literature on the subject led the authors to conclude there is a very large number of opinions, thoughts and criteria from different professionals involved, directly or indirectly, with the process of designing a good Web site. To make matters even more complicated there are a number of different terms used by various scholars, scientists and professionals around the world that often refer to similar, if not the same, attributes of a Web site. However, it seems that all these differences could boil down to a systematic approach, here called evaluation template, of 53 points that the design strategies of the Web sites should be checked against. This template was tested on a significant number (232) of Web sites of Greek companies and proved it can be used to evaluate the quality of Web sites not only by technology experts but by non-experts alike. The evaluation template, suggested here, is by no means the solution to the problem of standardizing the process of evaluating a Web site but looking at other work done on the subject worldwide it is a step ahead.
Explaining Semantic Web Applications
Authors: McGuinness Deborah L. , Furtado Vasco , Pinheiro da Silva Paulo , Ding Li
Published: May 2010

In this chapter, we introduce the concept of explanation for Semantic Web applications by providing motivation, description, and examples. We describe the Inference Web explanation toolkit that provides support for a broad range of explanation tasks ranging from explaining deductive reasoning, to information extraction, to hybrid integrated learning systems. We argue that an explanation solution such as the one we endorse is required if we are to realize the full potential of hybrid, distributed, intelligent Web agents that users can trust and use.
Semantic Annotation and Ontology Population
Authors: Amardeilh Florence
Published: May 2010

This chapter deals with issues related to semantic annotation and ontology population within the framework defined by the Semantic Web (SW). The vision of the Semantic Web, initiated in 1998 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, aims to structure the information available on the Web. To achieve that goal, the resources, textual or multimedia, must be semantically tagged by metadata so that software agents can utilize them. The idea developed in this chapter is to combine the information extraction (IE) tools with knowledge representation tools from the SW for the achievement of the 2 parallel tasks of semantic annotation and ontology population. The goal is to extract relevant information from the resources based on an ontology, then to populate that ontology with new instances according to the extracted information, and finally to use those instances to semantically annotate the resource. Despite all integration efforts, there is currently a gap between the representation formats of the linguistic tools used to extract information and those of the knowledge representation tools used to model the ontology and store the instances or the semantic annotations. The stake consists in proposing a methodological reflexion on the interoperability of these technologies as well as designing operational solutions for companies and, on a broader scale, for the Web.
From Databases to Ontologies
Authors: Barzdins Guntis
Published: May 2010

This chapter introduces the UML profile for OWL as an essential instrument for bridging the gap between the legacy relational databases and OWL ontologies. We address one of the long-standing relational database design problems where initial conceptual model (a semantically clear domain conceptualization ontology) gets “lost” during conversion into the normalized database schema. The problem is that such “loss” makes database inaccessible for direct query by domain experts familiar with the conceptual model only. This problem can be avoided by exporting the database into RDF according to the original conceptual model (OWL ontology) and formulating semantically clear queries in SPARQL over the RDF database. Through a detailed example we show how UML/OWL profile is facilitating this new and promising approach.
RapidOWL
Authors: Auer Sören
Published: May 2010

In this chapter we give a brief overview on the recently emerging concepts of Social Software and Web 2.0. Both concepts stress the adaptive, agile methodological character of communication and collaboration. In order to lift the adaptive collaboration and communication patterns of Social Software and the Web 2.0 towards a truly semantic collaboration, we outline an adaptive knowledge engineering methodology–RapidOWL. It is inspired by adaptive software development methodologies from software engineering and emphasises support for small end-user contributions to knowledge bases.
Benchmarking in the Semantic Web
Authors: García-Castro Raúl
Published: May 2010

The Semantic Web technology needs to be thoroughly evaluated for providing objective results and obtaining massive improvement in its quality; thus, the transfer of this technology from research to industry will speed up. This chapter presents software benchmarking, a process that aims to improve the Semantic Web technology and to find the best practices. The chapter also describes a specific software benchmarking methodology and shows how this methodology has been used to benchmark the interoperability of ontology development tools, employing RDF(S) as the interchange language.
City Brands and their Communication through Web Sites
Authors: Fernández-Cavia José , Huertas-Roig Assumpció
Published: May 2010

City marketing tries to position cities in the mind of the public, although the process of creating and communicating city brands is still at an early stage of its development. One of the main tools for the communication of these brands is now the World Wide Web. This chapter describes the results of two combined studies (qualitative and quantitative) that analyzes a sample of official city Web sites. The results show that official Web sites of cities give much attention to ease of navigation, but interactivity is much less implemented, especially between users. Furthermore, some lack of attention to the communication aspects of city brands can also be found. Finally, the chapter submits a number of improvement proposals.
E-Tourism Image
Authors: Prats-Planagumà Lluís , Camprubí Raquel
Published: May 2010

The competitiveness of tourism destinations is a relevant issue for tourism studies, moreso, is a key element on the daily basis of tourism destinations. In this sense, the management of tourism destinations is essential to maintain competitive advantages. In this chapter tourism destination is considered as a relational network, where interaction and cooperation is needed among tourism agents, to achieve major levels of competitive advantage and a more effective destination management system. In addition, the perceptions of tourists are obtained from two main sources. The first one is the social construction of a tourism destination previous to the visit and the second one is obtained from the interaction between tourists and tourism destination agents during the visit. In this sense, the management of tourism destination to emit a homogenous and collective image is a factor that can reduce the gap if dissatisfaction from the previous and real tourist perception. The authors specifically discuss the importance of a common agreement of tourism agents on virtual tourism images projected through official Web sites, considering that the literature focused mainly in how to promote and sell destinations trough Internet but not in terms of exploiting a destination joint image. Finally, in order to analyze the integration of a tourism product and determine their consequences in tourism promotion an empirical research has been done, using the case of Girona’s province. The main findings determine that, although interactions among tourism agents can improve destination competitiveness, little cooperation in tourism promotion on Web sites is achieved, as well as a few uses of technological resources in the Web sites to facilitate to tourists a better understanding of tourism resources in the area.
WEB 2.0, Social Marketing Strategies and Distribution Channels for City Destinations
Authors: Sigala Marianna
Published: May 2010

During the last decades, the use of Web 2.0 applications for the generation, dissemination, and sharing of user-generated content (UGC) and the creation of new value added services are enormous. Web 2.0 tools have tremendously changed the way people search, find, read, gather, share, develop, and consume information, as well as on the way people communicate with each other and collaboratively create new knowledge. UGC and Web 2.0 are also having a tremendous impact not only on the behaviour and decision- making of Internet users, but also on the e-business model that organizations need to develop and/or adapt in order to conduct business on the Internet. Organizations responsible to market and promote cities on the Internet are not an exception from these developments. This chapter aims to inform city tourism organizations responsible for the development of city portals about (a) the use of the major Web 2.0 tools in tourism and their impact on the tourism demand and supply; and (b) the ways and practices for integrating the use of Web 2.0 into their e-business model and e-marketing practices.
Social Aspects of Mobile Technologies on Web Tourism Trend
Authors: Ferri Fernando , Grifoni Patrizia , Guzzo Tiziana
Published: May 2010

This chapter analyzes how the development and use of mobile and Web technologies are changing the way to search information, to plan, to buy, and to travel. The new technologies are changing several aspects of our life, such as the way in which people work, buy, learn, travel, and how they relate to each other, and so on. The tourist sector certainly represents one of the most dynamic markets, able to capture innovations and opportunities provided by the Web, in such a way that gets to be an out-and-out model of e-business. Internet access now is not restricted to personal computer. In fact the use of mobile devices is becoming increasingly important. The chapter’s goal is to analyze social implications of Web applications and mobile devices and how they are improving the attitude of the customers both the fruition of tourism services and to development of sustainable tourism.
New Forms of Deep Learning on the Web
Authors: DeSchryver Mike
Published: May 2010

We claim that the Web has the potential to be a quintessential multimedia environment for complex learning, particularly in ill-structured domains. This chapter explores the cognitive load considerations associated with several aspects of deep and extended learning on the Web. We also propose the need for a reconceptualization of Cognitive Load Theory for comprehension and learning in more ill-structured conceptual arenas. This reconceptualization emphasizes the need for learning approaches that promote flexible knowledge assembly through processes of organic, reciprocal, and deep Web learning.
A Context-Based Approach to Web 2.0 and Language Education
Authors: Motteram Gary , Brown Susan
Published: May 2010

Web 2.0 offers potentially powerful tools for the field of language education. As language teacher tutors exploring Web 2.0 with participants on an MA in Educational Technology and TESOL at the University of Manchester, UK, we see that the potential of Web 2.0 is intimately linked with teachers’ perceptions of their teaching contexts. This chapter will describe a “context-based” approach to the exploration of Web 2.0 on a module focusing on the potential role of distributed courseware in language education. It will begin by giving an overall picture of where and how the exploration of Web 2.0 tools fits into the MA program. It will then describe the main aims and aspects of the module and discuss in some detail our context-based approach in relation to participants as well as Web 2.0 in existing literature. The chapter will conclude with two case studies concerning how teachers incorporate Web 2.0 technologies in courseware for their contexts.
The Pedagogical Implications of Web 2.0
Authors: Sturm Matthias , Kennell Trudy , McBride Rob , Kelly Mike
Published: May 2010

Web 2.0 tools like blogs, Wikis, and podcasts are new to the vocabulary of language acquisition. Teachers and students who take full advantage of these emerging tools will participate in more dynamic, immediate, and communicative environments that provide opportunities for meaningful experiences through social constructivist learning. This chapter aims to bring perspectives rooted in educational theory to a domain too often dominated by the technological implications of its tools and argues that social constructivism is the pedagogical paradigm for learning and teaching facilitated by the next generation of Web technology. It reviews basic theoretical tenets and discusses their implications. Social constructivism lays the foundation for learning environments that foster the participation of students and teachers in today’s knowledge and information-based society to their full potential.
Interactive Whiteboards in the Web 2.0 Classroom
Authors: Miller David , Glover Derek
Published: May 2010

This chapter summarizes the work underway to chart, critically evaluate, and systematize the introduction of interactive whiteboards (IWB) into modern foreign language classrooms in England. It is suggested that there is a developmental cycle whereby teachers take some time to understand the technology and become competent in its use. They then look to its advantages in presentation and the motivation of students before becoming aware of its pedagogical value and develop a changed classroom practice. This cycle is based upon enhanced teacher understanding of the nature of interactivity and the potential offered by the IWB in meeting a variety of learning needs. The relationship between IWB use and Web 2.0 arises from the potential of both to add impetus for teachers to structure lesson development and enhance activity. It is supported by teacher understanding of questioning techniques, and increasingly, by consideration of the use of gestures at the IWB. While IWBs are not a solution to all learning problems, it is suggested that they offers scope for greater student involvement and understanding in the learning process.
On the Management Performance of Networked Environments Using Web Services Technologies
Authors: Granville Lisandro Zambenedetti , Neisse Ricardo , Vianna Ricardo Lemos , Fioreze Tiago
Published: May 2010

The management of telecommunication and data networks has been based on standards defined in historical contexts quite different than the current times. As a consequence, traditional management technologies are not able to address important challenges posed by the modern infrastructures. Web Services technologies enable the proper communication of processes deployed on quite hostile environments such as the Internet. The use of Web Services for management allows the integration of low-level activities (e.g., retrieving monitoring information from gateways) with high-level business processes (e.g., creating a new product and its marketing strategy.) Despite clear advantages, Web Services-based management does not come for free; since Web Services are based on XML documents, its performance, compared with traditional management technologies, may represent an important drawback. This chapter covers the aspects of using Web Services for management focusing on the different interactions between managers and devices and the performance associated with it.
Exploiting Collaborative Tagging Systems to Unveil the User-Experience of Web Contents
Authors: Malizia A. , De Angeli A. , Levialdi S. , Cuevas I. Aedo
Published: May 2010

The User Experience (UX) is a crucial factor for designing and enhancing the user satisfaction when interacting with a computational tool or with a system. Thus, measuring the UX can be very effective when designing or updating a Web site. Currently, there are many Web sites that rely on collaborative tagging: such systems allow users to add labels (tags) for categorizing contents. In this chapter the authors present a set of techniques for detecting the user experience through Collaborative Tagging Systems and we present an example on how to apply the approach for a Web site evaluation. This chapter highlights the potential use of collaborative tagging systems for measuring users’ satisfaction and discusses the future implications of this approach as compared to traditional evaluation tools, such as questionnaires, or interviews.
The Life Event Cycle
Authors: Siems Florian U. , Walcher Dominik
Published: May 2010

In this chapter it is argued that service stores most often offer standardized services, which may not hit the customers’ demands. As a new possibility to customize service offerings the life event cycle is introduced, which builds on traditional lifecycle concepts but refines them by a stronger individual perspective. In the first part of the chapter, a short introduction in service management, kinds of services and the relevance of a long term customer relationship for service stores is given. Then the idea of life cycles is shown in general, before in the main part the life event cycle is explained. It is shown that all marketing instruments could be used to enhance individualization of services and to respect the implications of the life event cycle. The chapter ends with limitations and future trends.
Resource Implications of Manufacturer- Customer Interactions in Mass Customization
Authors: Kodzi Jr. Emmanuel T. , Gazo Rado
Published: May 2010

This chapter explores the relationship between the capabilities of a manufacturing system and the participation of end-users in order determination. Using a simulated customer-direct mode for the customization of selected wood products, the authors examine manufacturing system attributes that enhance direct interaction with customers. The authors discuss strategic implications of the choice of customization-mode on fundamental resource requirements, and set out practical recommendations for deploying mass customization as a competitive strategy. End-user participation in configuring customized products requires that beyond desirable attributes such as agility in manufacturing systems, compelling service capability be developed to enhance customer experience.
A Dynamic User Centric Framework for Enhancing eServices Effectiveness Aiming at Mass Customization
Authors: Belk Mario , Germanakos Panagiotis , Tsianos Nikos , Lekkas Zacharias , Mourlas Constantinos
Published: May 2010

Mass customization should be more than just configuring a specific component (hardware or software), but should be seen as the co-design of an entire system, including services, experiences and human satisfaction at the individual as well as at the community level. The main objective of this chapter is to introduce a framework, smartTag, for the dynamic reconstruction of Web content based on human factors. Human factors and users’ characteristics play the most important role during the entire design and implementation of the framework which has the inherent ability to interact with its environment and the user and transparently adapt its behaviour using intelligent techniques, reaching high levels of usability, user satisfaction, effectiveness and quality of service presentation. The initial results of the evaluation have proven that the proposed framework do not degrade the efficiency (in terms of speed and accuracy) during the Web content adaptation process as well as increases users’ satisfaction and efficiency of information processing (both in terms of accuracy and task completion time), while users navigating in the personalized condition rather than the original one.
Affective Human Factors Design with Ambient Intelligence for Product Ecosystems
Authors: Jiao Roger J. , Xu Qianli
Published: May 2010

The fulfillment of affective customers needs may award the producer extra premium in gaining a competitive edge. This entails a number of technical challenges to be addressed, such as, the elicitation, evaluation, and fulfillment of affective needs, as well as the evaluation of capability of producers to launch the planned products. To tackle these issues, this research proposes an affective human factor design framework to facilitate decision-making in designing product ecosystems. In particular, ambient intelligence techniques are applied to elicit affective customer needs. An analytical model is proposed to support affective design analysis. Utility measure and conjoint analysis are employed to quantify users’ affective satisfaction, while the producers’ capability to fulfill the respective customer needs is evaluated using a capacity index. Association rule mining techniques are applied to model the mapping of affective needs to design elements. Configuration design of product ecosystems is optimized with a heuristic genetic algorithm. A case study of designing the living room ecosystem is reported with dual considerations of customers’ satisfaction and producer’s capacities. It is demonstrated that the affective human factors design framework can effectively manage the elicitation, analysis, and fulfillment of affective customer needs.
Expected and Realized Costs and Benefits from Implementing Product Configuration Systems
Authors: Edwards Kasper
Published: May 2010

Product configuration systems (PCS) are a technology well suited for mass customization and support the task of configuring the product to the individual customer’s needs. PCS are at the same time complex software systems that may be tailored to solve a variety of problems for a firm, e.g. supporting the quotation process or validating the structure of a product. This chapter reports findings from a study of 12 Danish firms, which at the time of the study have implemented or are in the process of implementing product configuration systems. 12 costs and 12 benefits are identified in literature, and using radar diagrams as a tool for data collection the relative difference are identified. While several of the firms are mass customizers it is not the primary driver for implementing PCS. The analysis reveals that expected and realized benefits are consistent: 1) Improved quality in specifications, 2) Using less resources, and 3) Lower turnaround time. Interestingly, the realized benefits are all higher than the expected benefits. The expected benefits highlight the motivation, and this has implications for human factors as they point in the direction of significant changes to come in the adopting organization. It is observed that product configuration projects are treated as simple technical projects although they should be regarded as organizational change projects.
Context-Aware Applications for the Web
Authors: Daniel Florian
Published: May 2010

Adaptivity (the runtime adaptation to user profile data) and context-awareness (the runtime adaptation to generic context data) have been gaining momentum in the field of Web engineering over the last years, especially in response to the ever growing demand for highly personalized services and applications coming from end users. Developing context-aware and adaptive Web applications requires addressing a few design concerns that are proper of such kind of applications and independent of the chosen modeling paradigm or programming language. In this chapter we characterize the design of context-aware Web applications, the authors describe a conceptual, model-driven development approach, and they show how the peculiarities of context-awareness require augmenting the expressivepower of conceptual models in order to be able to express adaptive application behaviors.
Web Content Recommendation Methods Based on Reinforcement Learning
Authors: Taghipour Nima , Kardan Ahmad
Published: May 2010

Information overload is no longer news; the explosive growth of the Internet has made this issue increasingly serious for Web users. Recommender systems aim at directing users through this information space, toward the resources that best meet their needs and interests. In this chapter the authors introduce their novel machine learning perspective toward the Web recommendation problem, based on reinforcement learning. Our recommendation method makes use of the Web usage and content data to learn a predictive model of users’ behavior on the Web and exploits the learned model to make Web page recommendations. Unlike other recommender systems, this system does not use the static patterns discovered from Web usage data, instead it learns to make recommendations as the actions it performs in each situation. In the proposed method the authors combined the conceptual and usage information in order to gain a more general model of user behavior and improve the quality of web recommendations. A hybrid Web recommendation method is proposed by making use of the conceptual relationships among Web resources to derive a novel model of the problem, enriched with semantic knowledge about the usage behavior. The method is evaluated under different settings and it is shown how this method can improve the overall quality of recommendations.