Abstract: This paper provides a short review and a state of the art report on Webbased adaptive educational systems. The systems are analyzed according to applied adaptation technologies.

Abstract: We propose a new approach to programming Web applications that increases the Web's computational power, the Web's flexibility, and Web programmer productivity. Whereas Web servers have traditionally been responsible for producing all content, intermediaries now provide new places for producing and manipulating Web data. We define intermediaries as computational elements that lie along the path of a Web transaction. In this paper, we describe the fundamental ideas behind intermediaries and provide a collection of example applications. We also describe WBI, an implemented architecture for building intermediaries that we have used to construct many applications, including personal histories, password management, image distillation, collaborative filtering, targeted advertising, and Web advising.

Abstract: The World Wide Web currently has a huge amount of data, with practically no classification information, and this makes it extremely difficult to handle effectively. It has been realized recently that the only feasible way to radically improve the situation is to add to Web objects a metadata classification, to help search engines and Web-based digital libraries to properly classify and structure the information present in the WWW. However, having a few standard metadata sets is insufficient in order to have a fully classified World Wide Web. The first major problem is that it will take some time before a reasonable number of people start using metadata to provide a better Web classification. The second major problem is that no one can guarantee that a majority of the Web objects will be ever properly classified via metadata. In this paper, we address the problem of how to cope with such intrinsic limits of Web metadata, proposing a method that is able to partially solve the above two problems, and showing concrete evidence of its effectiveness. In addition, we examine the important problem of what is the required “critical mass” in the World Wide Web for metadata in order for it to be really useful.

Abstract: 1. ABsmcp‘ The ‘I’echndogy Acceptance Model (TAM) proposes that ease of use and usefulness predict atit~des toward information systems applications, and that these attitudes predict appkaticpm usage. Previous research has not tested TAM with the WorkI Wide Web as the appkatbn. The cm-rent research tested TAM in that context for work-related tasks. One hndred and sixty-three subjects who use the Web in their jobs responded to an e-mail survey. The results provide some support for TAM. They also help identify guidelines for develop-@ Web sites. 1-I

Abstract: This paper discusses the role of the Word Wide Web as communication tool for industrial marketers and its position in the business-to-business promotional mix Using the well-known industrial marketing concepts of purchasing decision processes and hierarchy of effects models, it introduces a conceptual framework for measuring the efficiency of a Web site Examples are given of both large and small industrial marketers who are currently using their Web sites to achieve these effects Efficiency indexes are defined for five Web communication activities and an overall measure of Web site efficiency measure is presented

Abstract: This paper examines the distinctives of relationship marketing, provides a simple taxonomy of the world wide web, and proposes that there is a high level of synergy between the inherent functionality and interactivity provided by the world wide web and the implementation of a relationship marketing perspective. This proposition is tested using data from a national survey of New Zealand organizations known to maintain and operate a web site, and the relationship is found to be significant. It is concluded that the inherent nature of emerging Internet technologies is supportive of the higher levels of customer interaction implicit in relationship marketing.

Abstract: From the Publisher: In just a couple of years, the Internet and World Wide Web have transformed communication, scholarship, and business. But what potential do they hold for changing higher education-the place where this technology, once called the ARPANET, originated over twenty years ago? Will they help universities reduce costs in the face of often-dramatic budget reductions? Will distance learning (dissemination of educational material and information through electronic and hardcopy media, rather than face-to-face), digital libraries, and new "virtual universities" make education available to students cheaply, and at any place or time? Or might the Web threaten higher education more than save it? Will nimble for-profit providers, who now increasingly use the Internet to deliver corporate training, soon turn to the education market and compete with traditional colleges and universities? If so, how might higher-education institutions respond to this challenge? How will they acquire the hardware and software needed to offer high-quality educational services at prices they can afford? And how can faculty quickly adapt to styles of teaching and learning that, for example, emphasize interactive mentoring instead of traditional lectures? This report is the product of a small RAND study that attempted to frame and develop some answers to these questions. It is intended both as a broad review of ongoing and planned applications of the Internet and Web in higher education, and as an analysis of key technical and educational issues-as well as broader social issues that these applications highlight. We hope that this report will stimulate discussions regarding the costs and benefits of Web technologies inlearning, the different models these technologies offer for providing education, and the changing relationships between traditional institutions of higher education and a new generation of providers. This paper was completed in fall of 1996 (with minor updates prior to official RAND publication in early 1998) and reflects the state of Web-based tools and practices in higher education at that time. Because the world of cyberspace is evolving rapidly "virtual" generations are measured in months, not years-examples, Web links, and even institutions discussed in the paper may be quickly out-of-date or extinct. The central ideas and issues, however, should have a much longer life, hopefully framing discussions until the Millennium and beyond. Decisionmakers who are concerned with these technical and policy issues are a main audience for this report. It should also be of interest to academic, research, and business professionals who are concerned with applications of information technology in education and the social implications of those applications. The study was sponsored by the California Education Round Table. It was carried out under the auspices of RAND Education, directed by Dr. Roger Benjamin. For further information on this study, contact Roger Benjamin (Roger_Benjamin@rand.org), Matthew Lewis (Matthew_Lewis@rand.org), or David McArthur (David_McArthur@rand.org). This report is also accessible on the World Wide Web at http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR975/ In the online version, the Web sites mentioned here are represented by active links to the sites themselves.

Abstract: The World Wide Web has already affected OR/MS work in a significant way, and holds great potential for changing the nature of OR/MS products and the OR/MS software economy. Web technologies are relevant to OR/MS work in two ways. First, the Web is a multimedia communication system. Originally based on an information pull model, it is-critically for OR/MS-being extended for information push as well. Second, it is a large distributed computing environment in which OR/MS products-interactive computational applications-can be made available, and interacted with, over a global network. Enabling technologies for Web-based execution of OR/MS applications are classified into those involving client-side execution and server-side execution. Methods for combining multiple client-side and server-side technologies are critical to OR/MS's use of these technologies. These methods, and various emerging technologies for developing computational applications, give the OR/MS worker a rich armament for building Web-based versions of conventional applications. They also enable a new class of distributed applications working on real-time data. Web technologies are expected to encourage the development of OR/MS products as specialized component applications that can be bundled to solve real-world problems. Effective exploitation, for OR/MS purposes, of these technological innovations will also require initiatives, changes, and greater involvement by OR/MS organizations.

Abstract: From the Publisher: Through an approach that is both conceptual and practical, this text helps mass communication and broadcast students understand the value and commercial uses of the World Wide Web in the mass communication professions. Students will learn to think critically about social, legal, and ethical issues related to the world wide Web, and they will get practical information about how different media domains (radio, TV, public relations, advertising) are currently using the Web for both marketing and content purposes.

Abstract: The lifecycle of Web applications covers the design, implementation, and maintenance of the services. First generation Web development tools just concentrated on the creation of single pages. Later Web engineering tools have been integrating the management of complete Web sites and the navigation model. But only few attempt to cover all the aspects of the lifecycle, and especially the maintenance task which is essential on a dynamic medium as is the case on the Web. To increase the manageability and introduce flexibility to large Web services we introduce the JESSICA engineering system that employs an object-oriented abstraction model for the hypermedia information. An object-oriented language describes components of the Web service that are easy to manage, reusable, highly dynamic and of polymorphic type, covering all elements of a complete Web site. The objects are accessible throughout the lifecycle for management and maintenance activities. A compiler maps the abstract service description to the file-based repository of a standard Web server. We demonstrate the feasibility of the engineering system on managing the Vienna International Festival Web site, a multilingual database Web application on culture and arts, containing 300+ static pages and several interactive services.

Abstract: Despite the tremendous penetration of the Web into a variety of markets, it has become increasingly clear that current Web structures are simply not well designed for customized information access. By creating CGI scripts, plug-ins, and gateways, and bolting all of it onto the Web in an ad hoc fashion, we have moved away from what could have been a carefully planned model for customized information access. If we implement changes now, before the current technology creates difficult-to-handle legacy structures, we might be able to make the Web a lot more useful. The author discusses the use of metatags, information customization and automated linking.

Abstract: Users tend to lose their way in the maze of information within hypertext. Much work done to address the \\lost in hyperspace\" problem is reactive, that is, doing remedial work to correct the de ciencies within hypertexts because they are (or were) poorly designed and built. What if solutions are sought to avoid the problem? What if we do things well from the start? This paper reviews the \\lost in hyperspace\" problem, and suggests a framework to understand the design and usability issues. The issues cannot be seen as purely psychological or purely computing, they are multi-disciplinary. Our proactive, multi-disciplinary approach is drawn from current technologies in sub-disciplines of hypertext, humancomputer interaction, cognitive psychology and software engineering. To demonstrate these ideas, this paper presents HyperAT, a hypertext research authoring tool, developed to help designers build usable web documents on the World Wide Web without getting \\lost.\

Abstract: We take a two-stage approach to engineering World Wide Web applications. First a Relationship-Navigation Analysis, analyzes an existing or new application specifically in terms of its intraand inter-relationships. Second, a dynamic hypermedia engine (DHymE), automatically generates links for each relationship and metaknowledge items at run-time. Links and navigation supplement the application’s primary functionality.

Abstract: The ubiquity and ease of use of the Web have made it an increasingly popular medium for communication of health-related information Web interfaces to commercially available clinical information systems are now available or under development by most major vendors To the extent that such interfaces involve the use of unprotected operating systems, they are vulnerable to security limitations of Web client software environments The Patient Centered Access to Secure Systems Online (PCASSO) project extends the protections for person-identifiable health data on Web client computers PCASSO uses several approaches, including physical protection of authentication information, execution containment, graphical displays, and monitoring the client system for intrusions and co-existing programs that may compromise security

Abstract: The World Wide Web is becoming an increasingly important factor in planning for enterprise distributed computing environments, both to support external access to enterprise systems and information (e.g., by customers, suppliers, and partners), and to support internal enterprise operations. Organizations perceive a number of advantages in using the Web in enterprise computing, a particular advantage being that it provides an information representation which• supports interlinking of all kinds of content• is easy for end-users to access• supports easy content creation using widely-available toolsHowever, as organizations have attempted to employ the Web in increasingly sophisticated applications, these applications have begun to overlap in complexity the sorts of distributed applications for which distributed object architectures such as OMG's CORBA, and its surrounding Object Management Architecture (OMA) [Sol95] were originally developed. Since the Web was not originally designed to support such applications, Web application development efforts increasingly run into limitations of the basic Web infrastructure.If the Web is to be used as the basis of complex enterprise applications, it must provide generic capabilities similar to those provided by the OMA (although these may need to be adapted to the more open, flexible nature of the Web, and specific requirements of Web applications). This involves such things as providing database-like services (such as enhanced query and transaction support) and their composition in the Web. However, the basic data structuring capabilities provided by the Web (its "object model") must also be addressed, since the ability to define and apply powerful generic services in the Web, and the ability to generally use the Web to support complex applications, depends crucially on the ability of the Web's underlying data structuring facilities to support these complex applications and services.

Abstract: This tutorial is inspired by our observations of users struggling with web sites and our consulting work with clients who face the many challenges of web site development. We've witnessed the effects of less-than-optimal web site design and the pain it causes users. Our client work and research have given us insights into the causes of unusable designs--we've seen similar patterns of behavior in the development processes of different organizations. Many web site designers are unaware of some of the most important factors that will affect the success of their site. By teaching web designers to think differently about their work, we can introduce changes in the development process that will lead to more usable web site designs.

Abstract: The World Wide Web has become an established platform for the development of various types of applications, including those in the area of computer supported cooperative work (CSCW). The Web provides a common infrastructure for building easily accessible applications, but these still suffer from inherent shortcomings of the underlying Web technology. We describe the BSCW shared workspace system, a Web based groupware system developed at GMD. The BSCW system provides basic cooperation support through 'shared workspaces' which can be used for information sharing by group members. We give an account of system limitations identified and how we overcame them. General requirements for further extensions of Web technology are stated and a short overview of current developments is given.

Abstract: Search Engines and Classified Directories have become essential tools for locating information on the World Wide Web. A consequence of increasing demand, as the volume of information on the Web has expanded, has been a vast growth in the number of tools available. Each one claims to be more comprehensive, more accurate and more intuitive to use than the last. This paper attempts to organise the available tools into a number of categories, according to their information acquisition and retrieval methods, with the intention of exposing the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches. The importance and implications of Information Retrieval (IR) techniques are discussed. Description of the evolution of automated tools enables an insight into the aims of recent and future implementations

Abstract: In this essay we review the special linguistic needs of language-disordered users who are potential users of the world wide web hypertext system. For the web to be a true information highway, there must be facilities to enhance the comprehension of those users who have special requirements, and who will benefit enormously from appropriately aided access to the web. We provide some guidelines for the development of such facilities.

Abstract: Integrating database and World Wide Web technologies is another topic where industrial and practical activities lead ahead of academic ones The purpose of this article is to survey the related activities from database people’s view and stimulate the interests among the database community It covers three aspects First, the efforts that apply established database techniques to retrieving Web information are summarized These efforts aim to overcome the inadequacy of file system technology on which the Web is based, so that information can be retrieved easily and quickly from the Web Second, various approaches to interfacing databases via the Web are discussed, with examples of accomplished prototypes and commercial products showing recent advances Finally, some possible extensions to the traditional database techniques are investigated for building fully fledged Web-based database applications

Abstract: The World Wide Web offers the prospect for a true distributed information system. Much of this information has a spatial framework, and so there is a need for mapping and GIS applications on the Web. However, with Web technology being deliberately designed to be simple, the prospects for such applications were limited. In the short existence of the Web many tools have become available which make it possible to overcome these limitations, so that the functionality of a non-distributed GIS is almost achievable. This paper reviews the development of the technology that has made this viable, and looks at some further developments and issues, such as cartographic design, which will play a part in the future of Web-GIS.

Abstract: Artificial life might come to play important roles for the World Wide Web, both as a source of new algorithmic paradigms and as a source of inspiration for its future development. New Web searching and managing techniques, based on artificial life principles, have been elicited by the striking similarities between the Web and natural environments. New Web interface designs, based on artificial life techniques, have resulted in increased aesthetic appeal, smart animations, and clever interactive rules. In this paper we exemplify these observations by surveying a number of meeting points between artificial life and the Web. We touch on a few implementation issues and attempt to draw some lessons to be learned from these early experiences.

Abstract: Educational Web design has been evolving since its inception. During its early stages, educators needed only basic knowledge of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) to develop Web sites. As experience with Web sites grew, educators went further and added graphics and animation to their sites. Such a focus on tools gave rise to the concept of ‘cool’ sites. As the evolution of Web design advances, we now need to find ways to make educational sites more effective, rather than just cool. To be effective, educators need to go beyond cool and apply a process that would allow them to integrate various components of the Web into their Web‐based instruction. This article addresses this need by first describing an existing online course and then by explaining the design process which made the site an effective learning and teaching tool.

Abstract: A recent research trend in Web applications is the integration of legacy applications on the World Wide Web. The motivations behind this research are the goals of producing a hybrid system where the Web can provide greater accessibility and distribution for legacy applications, and some standards to increase the interoperability and ease of use. For user interaction driven legacy applications, we propose a 3-tier conceptual architecture to support applications for the WWW, and present a approach to building sophisticated inactive Web systems. We benefit from this modelling approach in terms of universal accessibility, platform independency, modularity and migration efficiency. The interaction scenario between the client and server in the prototype implementation is an example to demonstrate the procedures for migrating a legacy application to the Web. Some basic technologies are reviewed and deployed for implementation of our design, including Java applet, servlet, JDBC and CORBA. Such an approach can also be extended to the newly developed Web based applications.

Abstract: ▪ Abstract High-energy physics and the World Wide Web (WWW) share a rich history. The Web, developed at CERN as a collaboration tool and quickly adopted by the Internet community, has become a communications phenomenon. This article reviews early WWW development and its basic technology. I also summarize some significant applications of Web technology, past and present, and discuss prospects for future use.