Showing papers on "Web standards published in 2004"
TL;DR: This paper presents a middleware platform which addresses the issue of selecting Web services for the purpose of their composition in a way that maximizes user satisfaction expressed as utility functions over QoS attributes, while satisfying the constraints set by the user and by the structure of the composite service.
Abstract: The paradigmatic shift from a Web of manual interactions to a Web of programmatic interactions driven by Web services is creating unprecedented opportunities for the formation of online business-to-business (B2B) collaborations. In particular, the creation of value-added services by composition of existing ones is gaining a significant momentum. Since many available Web services provide overlapping or identical functionality, albeit with different quality of service (QoS), a choice needs to be made to determine which services are to participate in a given composite service. This paper presents a middleware platform which addresses the issue of selecting Web services for the purpose of their composition in a way that maximizes user satisfaction expressed as utility functions over QoS attributes, while satisfying the constraints set by the user and by the structure of the composite service. Two selection approaches are described and compared: one based on local (task-level) selection of services and the other based on global allocation of tasks to services using integer programming.
2,872 citations
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: DODDLE-R, a support environment for user-centered ontology development, consists of two main parts: pre-processing part and quality improvement part, which generates a prototype ontology semi-automatically and supports the refinement of it interactively.
Abstract: In order to realize the on-the-fly ontology construction for the Semantic Web, this paper proposes DODDLE-R, a support environment for user-centered ontology development. It consists of two main parts: pre-processing part and quality improvement part. Pre-processing part generates a prototype ontology semi-automatically, and quality improvement part supports the refinement of it interactively. As we believe that careful construction of ontologies from preliminary phase is more efficient than attempting generate ontologies full-automatically (it may cause too many modification by hand), quality improvement part plays significant role in DODDLE-R. Through interactive support for improving the quality of prototype ontology, OWL-Lite level ontology, which consists of taxonomic relationships (class sub class relationship) and non-taxonomic relationships (defined as property), is constructed effi-
2,006 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: The third edition of this widely used text has been thoroughly updated, with significant new material that reflects a rapidly developing field.
Abstract: The development of the Semantic Web, with machine-readable content, has the potential to revolutionize the World Wide Web and its uses. A Semantic Web Primer provides an introduction and guide to this continuously evolving field, describing its key ideas, languages, and technologies. Suitable for use as a textbook or for independent study by professionals, it concentrates on undergraduate-level fundamental concepts and techniques that will enable readers to proceed with building applications on their own and includes exercises, project descriptions, and annotated references to relevant online materials.The third edition of this widely used text has been thoroughly updated, with significant new material that reflects a rapidly developing field. Treatment of the different languages (OWL2, rules) expands the coverage of RDF and OWL, defining the data model independently of XML and including coverage of N3/Turtle and RDFa. A chapter is devoted to OWL2, the new W3C standard. This edition also features additional coverage of the query language SPARQL, the rule language RIF and the possibility of interaction between rules and ontology languages and applications. The chapter on Semantic Web applications reflects the rapid developments of the past few years. A new chapter offers ideas for term projects. Additional material, including updates on the technological trends and research directions, can be found at http://www.semanticwebprimer.org.
1,634 citations
06 Jul 2004
TL;DR: An overview of recent research efforts of automatic Web service composition both from the workflow and AI planning research community is given.
Abstract: In today’s Web, Web services are created and updated on the fly. It’s already beyond the human ability to analysis them and generate the composition plan manually. A number of approaches have been proposed to tackle that problem. Most of them are inspired by the researches in cross-enterprise workflow and AI planning. This paper gives an overview of recent research efforts of automatic Web service composition both from the workflow and AI planning research community.
1,216 citations
17 May 2004
TL;DR: A framework for understanding the underlying goals of user searches is described and the experience in using the framework to manually classify queries from a web search engine is illustrated.
Abstract: Previous work on understanding user web search behavior has focused on how people search and what they are searching for, but not why they are searching. In this paper, we describe a framework for understanding the underlying goals of user searches, and our experience in using the framework to manually classify queries from a web search engine. Our analysis suggests that so-called navigational" searches are less prevalent than generally believed while a previously unexplored "resource-seeking" goal may account for a large fraction of web searches. We also illustrate how this knowledge of user search goals might be used to improve future web search engines.
1,062 citations
06 Jul 2004
TL;DR: This paper shows how to use OWL-S in conjunction with Web service standards, and explains and illustrates the value added by the semantics expressed in OWl-S.
Abstract: Service interface description languages such as WSDL, and related standards, are evolving rapidly to provide a foundation for interoperation between Web services. At the same time, Semantic Web service technologies, such as the Ontology Web Language for Services (OWL-S), are developing the means by which services can be given richer semantic specifications. Richer semantics can enable fuller, more flexible automation of service provision and use, and support the construction of more powerful tools and methodologies. Both sets of technologies can benefit from complementary uses and cross-fertilization of ideas. This paper shows how to use OWL-S in conjunction with Web service standards, and explains and illustrates the value added by the semantics expressed in OWL-S.
896 citations
31 Aug 2004
TL;DR: Woogle supports similarity search for web services, such as finding similar web-service operations and finding operations that compose with a given one, and novel techniques to support these types of searches are described.
Abstract: Web services are loosely coupled software components, published, located, and invoked across the web. The growing number of web services available within an organization and on the Web raises a new and challenging search problem: locating desired web services. Traditional keyword search is insufficient in this context: the specific types of queries users require are not captured, the very small text fragments in web services are unsuitable for keyword search, and the underlying structure and semantics of the web services are not exploited.
We describe the algorithms underlying the Woogle search engine for web services. Woogle supports similarity search for web services, such as finding similar web-service operations and finding operations that compose with a given one. We describe novel techniques to support these types of searches, and an experimental study on a collection of over 1500 web-service operations that shows the high recall and precision of our algorithms.
828 citations
TL;DR: A sound and complete algorithm is provided to translate OWL-S service descriptions to a SHOP2 domain and it is proved the correctness of the algorithm by showing the correspondence to the situation calculus semantics of OWl-S.
819 citations
Book•
16 Apr 2004
TL;DR: This guide will help you dramatically reduce the risk, complexity, and cost of integrating the many new concepts and technologies introduced by the SOA platform.
Abstract: Web services is the integration technology preferred by organizations implementing service-oriented architectures. I would recommend that anybody involved in application development obtain a working knowledge of these technologies, and I'm pleased to recommend Erl's book as a great place to begin.-Tom Glover, Senior Program Manager, Web Services Standards, IBM Software Group, and Chairman of the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I).An excellent guide to building and integrating XML and Web services, providing pragmatic recommendations for applying these technologies effectively. The author tackles numerous integration challenges, identifying common mistakes and providing guidance needed to get it right the first time. A valuable resource for understanding and realizing the benefits of service-oriented architecture in the enterprise.-David Keogh, Program Manager, Visual Studio Enterprise Tools, Microsoft.Leading-edge IT organizations are currently exploring second generation web service technologies, but introductory material beyond technical specifications is sparse. Erl explains many of these emerging technologies in simple terms, elucidating the difficult concepts with appropriate examples, and demonstrates how they contribute to service-oriented architectures. I highly recommend this book to enterprise architects for their shelves.-Kevin P. Davis, Ph. D., Software Architect.Service-oriented integration with less cost and less riski? i? The emergence of key second-generation Web services standards has positioned service-oriented architecture (SOA) as the foremost platform for contemporary business automation solutions. The integration of SOA principles and technology is empowering organizations to build applications with unprecedented levels of flexibility, agility, and sophistication (while also allowing them to leverage existing legacy environments).This guide will help you dramatically reduce the risk, complexity, and cost of integrating the many new concepts and technologies introduced by the SOA platform. It brings together the first comprehensive collection of field-proven strategies, guidelines, and best practices for making the transition toward the service-oriented enterprise.Writing for architects, analysts, managers, and developers, Thomas Erl offers expert advice for making strategic decisions about both immediate and long-term integration issues. Erl addresses a broad spectrum of integration challenges, covering technical and design issues, as well as strategic planning. Covers crucial second-generation (WS-*) Web services standards: BPEL4WS, WS-Security, WS-Coordination, WS-Transaction, WS-Policy, WS-ReliableMessaging, and WS-Attachments Includes hundreds of individual integration strategies and more than 60 best practices for both XML and Web services technologies Includes a complete tutorial on service-oriented design principles for business and technical modeling Explores design issues related to a wide variety of service-oriented integration architectures that integrate XML and Web services into legacy and EAI environments Provides a clear roadmap for planning a long-term migration toward a standardized service-oriented enterpriseService-oriented architecture is no longer an exclusive discipline practiced only by expensive consultants. With this book's help, you can plan, architect, and implement your own service-oriented environments-efficiently and cost-effectively.About the Web SitesErl's Service-Oriented Architecture books are supported by two Web sites. http://www.soabooks.com provides a variety of content resources and http://www.soaspecs.com supplies a descriptive portal to referenced specifications.
627 citations
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: The Web Services Choreography Description Language (WS-CDL) as mentioned in this paper is an XML-based language that describes peer-to-peer collaborations of parties by defining, from a global viewpoint, their common and complementary observable behavior; where ordered message exchanges result in accomplishing a common business goal.
Abstract: 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 The Web Services Choreography Description Language (WS-CDL) is an XML-based language that describes peer-to-peer collaborations of parties by defining, from a global viewpoint, their common and complementary observable behavior; where ordered message exchanges result in accomplishing a common business goal. The Web Services specifications offer a communication bridge between the heterogeneous computational environments used to develop and host applications. The future of E-Business applications requires the ability to perform long-lived, peer-to-peer collaborations between the participating services, within or across the trusted domains of an organization. The Web Services Choreography specification is targeted for composing interoperable, peer-to-peer collaborations between any type of party regardless of the supporting platform or programming model used by the implementation of the hosting environment.
602 citations
17 May 2004
TL;DR: MWSAF (METEOR-S Web Service Annotation Framework), a framework for semi-automatically marking up Web service descriptions with ontologies, which has developed algorithms to match and annotate WSDL files with relevant ontologies.
Abstract: The World Wide Web is emerging not only as an infrastructure for data, but also for a broader variety of resources that are increasingly being made available as Web services. Relevant current standards like UDDI, WSDL, and SOAP are in their fledgling years and form the basis of making Web services a workable and broadly adopted technology. However, realizing the fuller scope of the promise of Web services and associated service oriented architecture will requite further technological advances in the areas of service interoperation, service discovery, service composition, and process orchestration. Semantics, especially as supported by the use of ontologies, and related Semantic Web technologies, are likely to provide better qualitative and scalable solutions to these requirements. Just as semantic annotation of data in the Semantic Web is the first critical step to better search, integration and analytics over heterogeneous data, semantic annotation of Web services is an equally critical first step to achieving the above promise. Our approach is to work with existing Web services technologies and combine them with ideas from the Semantic Web to create a better framework for Web service discovery and composition. In this paper we present MWSAF (METEOR-S Web Service Annotation Framework), a framework for semi-automatically marking up Web service descriptions with ontologies. We have developed algorithms to match and annotate WSDL files with relevant ontologies. We use domain ontologies to categorize Web services into domains. An empirical study of our approach is presented to help evaluate its performance.
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: This chapter introduces web services and explains their role in Microsoft’s vision of the programmable web and removes some of the confusion surrounding technical terms like WSDL, SOAP, and UDDI.
Abstract: Microsoft has promoted ASP.NET’s new web services more than almost any other part of the.NET Framework. But despite their efforts, confusion is still widespread about what a web service is and, more importantly, what it’s meant to accomplish. This chapter introduces web services and explains their role in Microsoft’s vision of the programmable web. Along the way, you’ll learn about the open standards plumbing that allows web services to work and removes some of the confusion surrounding technical terms like WSDL (Web Service Description Language), SOAP, and UDDI (universal description, discovery, and integration).
15 Sep 2004
TL;DR: This work presents a constraint driven Web service composition tool in METEOR-S, which allows the process designers to bind Web services to an abstract process, based on business and process constraints and generate an executable process.
Abstract: Creating Web processes using Web service technology gives us the opportunity for selecting new services, which best suit our need at the moment. Doing this automatically requires us to quantify our criteria for selection. In addition, there are challenging issues of correctness and optimality. We present a constraint driven Web service composition tool in METEOR-S, which allows the process designers to bind Web services to an abstract process, based on business and process constraints and generate an executable process. Our approach is to reduce much of the service composition problem to a constraint satisfaction problem. It uses a multiphase approach for constraint analysis. This work was done as part of the METEORS framework, which aims to support the complete lifecycle of semantic Web processes.
TL;DR: Through an empirical study, the authors develop the Website Preference Scale (WSPS) based upon the work in environmental psychology of Rachel Kaplan and Stephen Kaplan and provide insight into site design characteristics, which may lead to a higher likelihood of revisit.
17 May 2004
TL;DR: PANKOW (Pattern-based Annotation through Knowledge on theWeb), a method which employs an unsupervised, pattern-based approach to categorize instances with regard to an ontology, is proposed.
Abstract: The success of the Semantic Web depends on the availability of ontologies as well as on the proliferation of web pages annotated with metadata conforming to these ontologies. Thus, a crucial question is where to acquire these metadata from. In this paper wepropose PANKOW (Pattern-based Annotation through Knowledge on theWeb), a method which employs an unsupervised, pattern-based approach to categorize instances with regard to an ontology. The approach is evaluated against the manual annotations of two human subjects. The approach is implemented in OntoMat, an annotation tool for the Semantic Web and shows very promising results.
27 Sep 2004
TL;DR: This paper presents AO4BPEL, an aspect-oriented extension to BPEL4WS that captures web service composition in a modular way and the composition becomes more open for dynamic change.
Abstract: Web services have become a universal technology for integration of distributed and heterogeneous applications over the Internet. Many recent proposals such as the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML) and the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) focus on combining existing web services into more sophisticated web services. However, these standards exhibit some limitations regarding modularity and flexibility. In this paper, we advocate an aspect-oriented approach to web service composition and present AO4BPEL, an aspect-oriented extension to BPEL4WS. With aspects, we capture web service composition in a modular way and the composition becomes more open for dynamic change.
TL;DR: A survey was created, and data was collected from 175 webmasters, indicating their knowledge on the topic of web accessibility and the reasons for their actions related to web accessibility.
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: This specification enables messaging systems to support message transmission through networks that include processing nodes such as endpoint managers, firewalls, and gateways in a transport-neutral manner.
Abstract: WS-Addressing provides transport-neutral mechanisms to address Web services and http://www.w3.org/Submission/2004/SUBM-w... 1 7/29/2009 7:50 PM messages. Specifically, this specification defines XML [XML 1.0, XML Namespaces] elements to identify Web service endpoints and to secure end-to-end endpoint identification in messages. This specification enables messaging systems to support message transmission through networks that include processing nodes such as endpoint managers, firewalls, and gateways in a transport-neutral manner. Status of this Document This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. By publishing this document, W3C acknowledges that BEA, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and Sun Microsystems, Inc. have made a formal submission to W3C for discussion. Publication of this document by W3C indicates no endorsement of its content by W3C, nor that W3C has, is, or will be allocating any resources to the issues addressed by it. This document is not the product of a chartered W3C group, but is published as potential input to the W3C Process. Publication of acknowledged Member Submissions at the W3C site is one of the benefits of W3C Membership. Please consult the requirements associated with Member Submissions of section 3.3 of the W3C Patent Policy. Please consult the complete list of acknowledged W3C Member Submissions.
06 Jun 2004
TL;DR: It is argued that essential facets of Web services, and especially those useful to understand their interaction, can be described using process-algebraic notations and claimed that process algebras provide a very complete and satisfactory assistance to the whole process of Web service development.
Abstract: We argue that essential facets of Web services, and especially those useful to understand their interaction, can be described using process-algebraic notations. Web service description and execution languages such as BPEL are essentially process description languages; they are based on primitives for behaviour description and message exchange which can also be found in more abstract process algebras. One legitimate question is therefore whether the formal approach and the sophisticated tools introduced for process algebra can be used to improve the effectiveness and the reliability of Web service development. Our investigations suggest a positive answer, and we claim that process algebras provide a very complete and satisfactory assistance to the whole process of Web service development. We show on a case study that readily available tools based on process algebra are effective at verifying that Web services conform to their requirements and respect properties. We advocate their use both at the design stage and for reverse engineering issues. More prospectively, we discuss how they can be helpful to tackle choreography issues.
TL;DR: This paper shows how to check whether two or more Web services are compatible to interoperate or not, and, if not, whether the specification of adaptors that mediate between them can be automatically generated, enabling the communication of (a priori) incompatible Web services.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: This paper takes the position that if Web Services are going to be considered as reusable commercial of-the-shelf (COTS) components, their Quality of Service (QoS) needs to be expressed explicitly and measured independently.
Abstract: The World Wide Web is evolving from being a pure information repository to a more functional and service oriented platform thanks to technologies such as Web Services. This technology offers a homogeneous representation of Web elements and the ways they are communicating that make it possible to deal with the inherent structural and behavioural heterogeneities of the Web. A Web service can be seen as an autonomous functional element that is loosely coupled to other Web services and can be discovered and deployed in Web-based applications. Autonomity and loose coupling make Web services a viable light weight complementary componentbased approach for design and development of dynamic distributed systems for more heavy weight solutions such as OMG’s CORBA and Microsoft’ s DCOM. In this paper, we take the position that if Web Services are going to be considered as reusable commercial of-the-shelf (COTS) components, their Quality of Service (QoS) needs to be expressed explicitly and measured independently. More specifically, we present and discuss possible quality aspects that need to be represented and quantified for Web Services.
TL;DR: Agents will increasingly use the combination of semantic markup languages and Semantic Web Services to understand and autonomously manipulate Web content in significant ways and rely on policy-based management and control mechanisms to ensure respect for human-imposed constraints on agent interaction.
Abstract: Web Services power through explicit representations of Web resources underlying semantics and the development of an intelligent Web infrastructure that can fully exploit them. Semantic Web languages, such as OWL, extend RDF to let users specify ontologies comprising taxonomies of classes and inference rules. Both people and software agents can effectively use Semantic Web Services.' Agents will increasingly use the combination of semantic markup languages and Semantic Web Services to understand and autonomously manipulate Web content in significant ways. Agents will discover, communicate, and cooperate with other agents and services and-as we' 11 describe -will rely on policy-based management and control mechanisms to ensure respect for human-imposed constraints on agent interaction. Policy-based controls of Semantic Web Services can also help govern interaction with traditional (nonagent) clients.
01 Jul 2004
TL;DR: In this work, ontologies are proposed for modeling the high-level security requirements and capabilities of Web services and clients and helps to match a client's request with appropriate services-those based on security criteria as well as functional descriptions.
Abstract: Web services will soon handle users' private information. They'll need to provide privacy guarantees to prevent this delicate information from ending up in the wrong hands. More generally, Web services will need to reason about their users' policies that specify who can access private information and under what conditions. These requirements are even more stringent for semantic Web services that exploit the semantic Web to automate their discovery and interaction because they must autonomously decide what information to exchange and how. In our previous work, we proposed ontologies for modeling the high-level security requirements and capabilities of Web services and clients.1 This modeling helps to match a client's request with appropriate services-those based on security criteria as well as functional descriptions.
TL;DR: Spinning the Semantic Web is based on papers presented in a seminar in Germany in 2000, and sketches the vario elements of semantic Web, the issues in realising it as well as some visions of the future.
Abstract: From the quiet new born days of early 1990s, the World Wide Web has had an exponential growth in the last decade or so. From the original goal of sharing research resources, Web today portrays a virtual world spanning from research to entertainment and e‐commerce. This growth has necessitated substantial changes in the Web model. From the purely syntactic and relatively static framework of HTML, we have moved through DHTML and XML incorporating dynamicity and extensibility, and are now en route semantic frameworks starting with RDF. These allow Web documents to be comprehensible to machines (and not just to humans) allowing software agents to access and process such information on the Web. This leads us to semantic Web, and thus to a generation of Web applications based on Web services, adaptive content delivery, etc. Spinning the Semantic Web is based on papers presented in a seminar in Germany in 2000, and sketches the vario elements of semantic Web, the issues in realising it as well as some visions of the future. The stimulating forward to the book by Tim Berners‐Lee, recently Knighted and widely regarded as the father of the Web, portrays his vision of semantic Web. The chapters explore specific issues such as ontologies, schema languages, annotations, applications, etc. The chapters are largely unorganised and presented without any cross‐linking and most chapters use a fair amount of domain jargon. The book will be of value to those seriously interested in the field.
20 Sep 2004
TL;DR: This work proposes a method that uses UML Activity models to design Web service compositions, and OMG's Model Driven Architecture (MDA) to generate executable specifications in different composition languages.
Abstract: As the number of available Web services is steadily increasing, there is a growing interest for reusing basic Web services in new, composite Web services. Several organizations have proposed composition languages (BPML, BPMN, BPEL4WS, BPSS, WSCI), but no winner has been declared so far. This work proposes a method that uses UML Activity models to design Web service compositions, and OMG's Model Driven Architecture (MDA) to generate executable specifications in different composition languages. The method utilizes standard UML constructs with a minimal set of extensions for Web services. An important step in the method is the transformation of WSDL descriptions into UML This information is used to complete the composition models. Another key aspect of the method is its independence of the Web service composition language. The user can thus select his preferred composition language - and execution engine - for realizing the composite Web service. Currently, the method has been implemented to support two executable composition languages BPEL4WS and WorkSCo, with corresponding execution engines. WorkSco is a Web service enabled workflow composition language. The method is illustrated with an example from a crisis management scenario.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: A modular semantic-driven and service-based interoperability framework, in order to open up, share and reuse educational systems’ content and knowledge components, and focuses on content creation by proposing ontology-driven authoring tools that reflect the modularization in the educational systems.
Abstract: The big question for many researchers in the area of educational systems now is what is the next step in the evolution of e-learning? Are we finally moving from a scattered intelligence to a coherent space of collaborative intelligence? How close we are to the vision of the Educational Semantic Web and what do we need to do in order to realize it? Two main challenges can be seen in this direction: on the one hand, to achieve interoperability among various educational systems and on the other hand, to have automated, structured and unified authoring support for their creation. In the spirit of the Semantic Web a key to enabling the interoperability is to capitalize on the (1) semantic conceptualization and ontologies, (2) common standardized communication syntax, and (3) large-scale service-based integration of educational content and functionality provision and usage. A central role in achieving unified authoring support plays the process-awareness of authoring tools, which should reflect the semantic evolution of e-learning systems. The purpose of this paper is to outline the state-of-the-art research along those lines and to suggest a realistic way towards the Educational Semantic Web. With regard to the latter we first propose a modular semantic-driven and service-based interoperability framework, in order to open up, share and reuse educational systems’ content and knowledge components. Then we focus on content creation by proposing ontology-driven authoring tools that reflect the modularization in the educational systems, maintain a consistent view on the entire authoring process, and provide wide (semi-) automation of the complex authoring tasks.
TL;DR: The state of the art of current enabling technologies for Semantic Web Services is surveyed, and the infrastructure of SemanticWeb Services is characterized along three orthogonal dimensions: activities, architecture and service ontology.
Abstract: The next Web generation promises to deliver Semantic Web Services (SWS); services that are self-described and amenable to automated discovery, composition and invocation. A prerequisite to this, however, is the emergence and evolution of the Semantic Web, which provides the infrastructure for the semantic interoperability of Web Services. Web Services will be augmented with rich formal descriptions of their capabilities, such that they can be utilized by applications or other services without human assistance or highly con-strained agreements on interfaces or protocols. Thus, Semantic Web Services have the potential to change the way knowledge and business services are consumed and provided on the Web. In this paper, we survey the state of the art of current enabling technologies for Semantic Web Services. In addition, we characterize the infrastructure of Semantic Web Services along three orthogonal dimensions: activities, architecture and service ontology. Further, we examine and contrast three current approaches to SWS according to the proposed dimensions.
TL;DR: A framework that builds on current standards to help developers define extended service models and richer Web service abstractions is identified and its main feature is a conversation metamodel derived from an analysis of e-commerce portal sites.
Abstract: Web services are emerging as a promising technology for effectively automating interorganizational interactions. However, despite the growing interest, several issues remain to be addressed to provide Web services with benefits similar to what traditional middleware brings to intraorganizational application integration. We identify a framework that builds on current standards to help developers define extended service models and richer Web service abstractions. The framework's main feature is a conversation metamodel derived from our analysis of e-commerce portal sites.
TL;DR: A model to guide the design and the continuous management of customer-centric Web-based systems, or sites that support customer relationship management (CRM) activities, makes extensive use of current technologies for tracking the customers and their behaviors, and combines elements of data mining and statistical analyses.
Abstract: Customer-centric Web-based systems, such as e-commerce Web sites, or sites that support customer relationship management (CRM) activities, are themselves information systems, but their design and maintenance need to follow vastly different approaches from the traditional systems lifecycle approach. Based on marketing frameworks that are applicable to the online world, and following design science principles, we develop a model to guide the design and the continuous management of such sites. The model makes extensive use of current technologies for tracking the customers and their behaviors, and combines elements of data mining and statistical analyses. A case study based on a financial services Web site is used to provide a preliminary validation and design evaluation of our approach. The case study showed considerable measured improvement in the effectiveness of the company's Web site. In addition, it also highlighted an important benefit of the our approach: the identification of previously unknown or unexpected segments of visitors. This finding can lead to promising new business opportunities.