Modeling and Calculating Capabilities of Composite Web Applications for Assisted End User Development

People with diverse backgrounds and experiences are using the Internet as a medium to build Web applications. End users are envisioned developing customized Web applications. End users are at a disadvantage because they lack programming expertise and interest in learning the associated technical details. This paper proposes to overcome these barriers by designing tools and mechanisms that help end users test and debug Web applications. A brief description of to validate the proposed mechanisms in the realm of Web application development by end-user programmers is presented

End-user development is proposed as a solution to the issues business organisations face when developing web applications to support their business processes. We are proposing a meta-model based development approach to support End-User Development. End-users can actively participate in web application development using tools to populate and instantiate the meta-model. The meta-model has three abstraction levels: Shell, Application and Function. At Shell Level, we model aspects common to all business web applications such as navigation and access control. At Application Level, we model aspects common to specific web applications such as workflows. At Function Level, we model requirements specific to the identified use cases. In this paper we discuss how we have solved the issues in application development for business end-users such as need for central repository of data, common log in, optimizing user model, application portability and balance between “Do it Yourself” (DIY) and professional developers in hierarchical meta-model approach. These solutions are being incorporated into Component based EApplication Development and Deployment Shell (CBEADS) version 4, supporting meta-model implementation. We believe that these solutions will help end-users to efficiently and effectively develop web applications using meta-model based development approach.

End-user development is proposed as a solution to the issues business people have when getting web applications developed. In this paper, we have presented a meta-model for web based information systems to support End-user Development. End-users can actively participate in web application development using tools to populate and instantiate the meta-model. The meta-model we created is based on three abstraction levels: Shell, Application, and Function. At Shell Level, we model aspects common to all business web applications such as navigation and access control. At Application Level, we model aspects common to specific web applications such as workflows. At Function Level, we model requirements specific to the identified use cases. Inheritance and Overriding properties of the meta-model provide a balance between ease and flexibility when developing business information systems. The key aspect that underpinned this research work is the view- “software is a medium to capture knowledge rather than a product”. Meta-model will help end-users to participate in web application development activities.

In the development and design of Web application, the choice of framework development is very important. A good framework development can speed up the development of Web application, reduce development costs and the workload of developers. Meanwhile, Web application has good expansibility and portability. The framework based on SpringMVC + Spring + Mybatis (SSM) has good performance and rapid development efficiency, gradually becoming a mainstream development framework of Web application.

Due to problems in correctly understanding user requirements the Information System (IS) development community have recognised the need to involve end-users in the development and maintenance of web applications. End-users perceive web applications through user interfaces (UIs) and commonly use sketches of UIs to express their requirements. Thus, it would be desirable to provide an end-user development methodology centred on UI modelling techniques. In this paper a visual modelling approach is presented to empower end-users in developing data intensive web applications starting from user interface descriptions. The modelling language follows a holistic approach by representing both static and behavioural information of a web application in one visual model. The visual model allows the specification of the look-and-feel of the application through mock-ups, and the user interactions through links, annotations, and widget references. End-users are guided during the modelling process by providing a summary view to manage the design of complex applications and a data model view to improve the quality of the generated applications.

End User Development (EUD) of system applications is typically undertaken by end users for their own, or closely aligned colleagues, business needs. EUD studies have focused on activity that is small scale, is undertaken with management consent and will ultimately be brought into alignment with the organisation’s software development strategy. However, due to the increase pace of today’s organisations EUD activity increasing takes place without the full knowledge or consent of management, such developments can be defined as covert rather than subversive, they emerge in response to the dynamic environments in which today’s organisations operate. This paper reports on a covert EUD project where a wide group of internal and external stakeholders worked collaboratively to drive an organisation’s software development strategy. The research highlights the future inevitability of external stakeholders engaging in end user development as, with the emergence of wiki and blog-like environments, the boundaries of organisations’ technological artifacts become increasingly hard to define.

Gadgets have become indispensable attributes of our lives, but also applications. Using applications simplifies and speeds up users. It is the future computer science teachers who must be able to create their own applications for professional duties, because the possession of tools for creating software products is one of the software learning outcomes of future computer science teachers. The concept of "application" is analyzed in the article. An "application" is defined as a software product that can run on a PC and / or mobile device due to installation or opening by a browser without installation. Types of applications are presented: desktop applications, mobile, web applications. The existing classifications of applications are given, with their characteristics, namely: web application, rich Internet application, Internet application, mobile application, hybrid mobile application, composite web application (mashup). Describes the classification of Internet applications and composite web applications. Examples of web applications are given. Statistics on the use of mobile applications of social networks and messengers, according to which the most popular application is the YouTube application. The author's classification of applications is offered: desktop applications (applications that are installed on a PC), mobile applications (applications that are installed on mobile devices), Internet applications (web applications, applications that do not require installation, but are opened by a browser and a certain mostly use the Internet). The platforms for creating applications are given. The stages of application creation are characterized: selection of the target audience, definition of purpose and functionality, type of application interface, selection of tools for application creation, application creation, application testing, improvement of the developed application. Examples of applications that can be created by future computer science teachers for further use in professional activities are offered: own website, testing system, reference book, application with presentations to educational material and tasks, guest book, forum, etc. The creation and use of applications by future computer science teachers ensures the formation of pupils' interest in computer science lessons, because pupils often use applications for personal needs, rather than educational.

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End-User Programming

End-user software engineering (EUSE) is a research area that aims to invent new kinds of technologies that collaborate with end users to improve the quality of their software. The practice that EUSE research aims to support is end users using new tools and methods to improve the quality of the software that they and other end users have created. There is a need for this outcome because research shows both that the number of end users creating their own software greatly exceeds the number of professional software developers, and that the software they create is riddled with errors. In this paper, we describe the present state of EUSE, and challenges in moving forward toward a bright future. We show how the future of EUSE may become over-siloed, restricting future researchers' vision of what can be achieved. We then show that focusing on the in-the-moment intents of end-user developers can be used to derive a number of promising directions forward for EUSE researchers, and how theories can help us further de-silo future EUSE research. Finally, we discuss how overcoming challenges for the future of end-user software engineering may also bring direct benefits to the future of "classic" software engineering.

The Semantic Web and the Web service paradigm are currently the most important trends on the way to the next generation of the Web. They promise new opportunities for content and service provision, enabling manifold and flexible new applications and improved support for individual and cooperative tasks. The use of the Web service paradigm in the development of Web applications, that typically couple application databases with user dialogs, is quite obvious. The development of Web applications that can be operated effectively in the Semantic Web context (Semantic Web Applications), however, imposes some challenges. Two main challenges towards extended (conceptual) modeling support are addressed in this talk:

In the field of ubiquitous computing, one of the most important challenges is the proper involvement of end users in the control of the system. They should be aware of what is happening and why in the smart environment. A well known approach for end user involvement in the controlling of IT systems is end user programming. There are numerous approaches for enabling the end users to define the business logic starting with decision trees and ending with domain specific languages.

End user development of applications forms a significant part of organizational systems development. This study investigates the role that developing an application plays in the eventual success of the application for the user developer. The results of this study suggest that the process of developing an application not only predisposes an end user developer to be more satisfied with the application than they would be if it were developed by another end user, but also leads them to perform better with it. Thus, the results of the study highlight the contribution of the process of application development to user developed application success.Request access from your librarian to read this chapter's full text.

Clinical researchers in rehabilitation technology have often called for exercise customization to address patient specific needs. Where such customization transcends simple parameter setting, the need for End-User Development (EUD) arises. EUD in this field can potentially tap on the expertise of highly skilled workers, but presents serious challenges regarding acceptance by end users and the feasibility of embedding EUD in their professional practice. This paper describes the deployment and adoption process of TagTrainer, a physical rehabilitation technology that supports EUD. TagTrainer was deployed in four rehabilitation clinics and was used by 24 rehabilitation therapists. We analyze how they engaged in EUD activities and we discuss decisions that we took in the design and deployment of TagTrainer. Based on these case studies, we present guidelines for the deployment of EUD systems.

Web application frameworks are a proven means to accelerate the development of interactive web applications. However, implementing collaborative real-time applications like Google Docs requires specific concurrency control services (i.e. document synchronization and conflict resolution) that are not included in prevalent general-purpose frameworks like jQuery or Knockout. Hence, developers have to get familiar with specific collaboration frameworks (e.g. ShareJS) which substantially increases the development effort. To ease the development of collaborative web applications, we propose a set of source code annotations representing a lightweight mechanism to introduce concurrency control services into mature web frameworks. Those annotations are interpreted at runtime by a dedicated collaboration engine to sync documents and resolve conflicts. We enhanced the general-purpose framework Knockout with a collaboration engine and conducted a developer study comparing our approach to a traditional concurrency control library. The evaluation results show that the effort to incorporate collaboration capabilities into a web application can be reduced by up to 40 percent using the annotation-based solution.