Welcome from the Con. Gen Chair
Web Eng. Workshop Report
Window on the World
Issue 1
Workshop 2: Web Engineering – A New Discipline Poised for Rapid Growth
By San Murugesan and Yogesh Deshpande, Co-Chairs, ICSE Workshop on Web Engineering
Interest in the emerging area of Web Engineering (WebE) is rapidly growing as we increasingly depend on Web-based systems in a variety of applications. The Second ICSE Workshop on Web Engineering, held on June 4 and 5, focussed on systematic and disciplined approaches to successful development and operation of large, complex Web-based systems. The workshop was attended by over 30 people who also participated actively in some very interesting and fruitful discussions. A major outcome of the workshop was identification of important areas for further research and development in this emerging new discipline.
Specifically, the participants highlighted the commonalities and differences between Web engineering and software engineering and how some of the well-known concepts and techniques of software engineering could be suitably adapted for Web-based systems development. There was a call for closer collaborative work on overlapping areas.
This was the second in the ICSE series of workshops on Web Engineering, following the first one held last year in Los Angeles.
Web Engineering
Many practitioners and researchers have now begun to realise that, though there has been a proliferation of Web-based systems in recent years, in most cases the development approaches used for these have been ad hoc and lack rigour and quality control and assurance. Consequently, large, complex, high volume, Web-based systems face a variety of problems as regards to their maintenance, scalability, real-time performance, integrity, configuration and content management and other technical and non-technical issues.
Even the fundamental aspects like the purpose and requirements of a Web site or an application are often not properly articulated or defined. Also, the specific characteristics and nature of the Web medium and the extra dimensions of Web-based systems (such as information structuring and management, navigation, graphic design, security, legal and social issues and the vastly varying user profiles) are not given due consideration in Web-based system development.
As a result there is now a legitimate and growing concern among developers, researchers and academics about the manner in which Web-based systems are developed and about the lack of consideration of a number of multifaceted issues.
Web Engineering (WebE) aims to address and resolve the multifaceted problems of Web-based systems development. This will happen through the establishment and use of sound scientific, engineering and management principles and disciplined and systematic approaches to the successful development, deployment and maintenance of high quality Web-based systems and applications.
Workshop
The Workshop assessed some of the problems of Web-based application systems development and discussed the need for better approaches for specification, design, development and evaluation of complex Web-based systems. It also discussed how other disciplines, specifically software engineering, could contribute to these efforts.
The participants of the workshop were Web-based systems developers, software engineers and academics and researchers in software engineering and Web engineering. The workshop included 10 contributed papers/presentations, two keynote speeches, an open forum and a panel discussion.
Prof Athula Ginige, University of Western Sydney, Australia, in his keynote address titled “Web Engineering in Action”, emphasised, using a case study. He noted that “development of most Web sites and applications is not an event, but a process, and we need to divide the overall process into a set of subprocesses that are well defined and have measurable outcomes.” He also stressed the importance of appropriate architecture of the Web-based system to ensure the consistency of information provided by the system.
Paul Dantzing, IBM Watson Research Center, in his keynote address discussed some of the challenging experiences an IBM team faced in developing high performance, large Web-based systems (Web sites of the 1996 Atlanta, 1998 Nagano and 2000 Sydney Olympic games). He highlighted how they have used several techniques to improve the performance, availability and scalability.
The contributed presentations covered development processes, Web metrics, Web engineering education and case studies.
A major highlight of the workshop was a stimulating and insightful open discussion on “What is Web engineering?” and “Is there a need for it?”
The discussions led to a consensus that there is indeed a need for a discipline of Web Engineering to provide a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to the unique challenges facing development and operation of large, complex Web-based systems. It should draw on and adapt techniques and approaches from software engineering and other disciplines and develop new approaches where required.
The concluding panel discussion on “Agenda for Further Development of Web Engineering” was lively and fruitful. The participants agreed to pursue a more active agenda than simply meeting once a year. Specifically, they decided to:
set up task forces to address specific areas of research and practice
carry out collaborative work transcending traditional boundaries of academic disciplines
conduct more empirical research
create awareness among practitioners and developers of the roles and benefits of Web engineering approaches in large-scale Web-based systems and Web site design
share information among, and interact closely with interested persons through a WebE mailing list/discussion group
Full text of the papers presented in the workshop and other selected articles on Web Engineering will be available in the forthcoming publication Web Engineering, San Murugesan and Yogesh Deshpande (editors), Lecture Notes in Computer Science – Hot Topics, Springer Verlag, Oct/Nov 2000.
For further information and resources on Web Engineering and online proceedings of earlier workshops, please see:
WebE Home at http://fistserv.macarthur.edu.au/san/WebEhome
Special issue on Web Engineering, IEEE Multimedia, Spring 2001 (to be published)
CFP http://vision.macarthur.uws.edu.au/multimedia-WebE/
To join the WebE discussion group, send an email to the authors: {s.murugesan, y.deshpande} @uws.edu.au
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