Empirical study on the maintainability of Web applications: Model-driven Engineering vs Code-centric

Model-driven Engineering (MDE) approaches are often acknowledged to improve the maintainability of the resulting applications. However, there is a scarcity of empirical evidence that backs their claimed benefits and limitations with respect to code-centric approaches. The purpose of this paper is to compare the performance and satisfaction of junior software maintainers while executing maintainability tasks on Web applications with two different development approaches, one being OOH4RIA, a model-driven approach, and the other being a code-centric approach based on Visual Studio .NET and the Agile Unified Process. We have conducted a quasi-experiment with 27 graduated students from the University of Alicante. They were randomly divided into two groups, and each group was assigned to a different Web application on which they performed a set of maintainability tasks. The results show that maintaining Web applications with OOH4RIA clearly improves the performance of subjects. It also tips the satisfaction balance in favor of OOH4RIA, although not significantly. Model-driven development methods seem to improve both the developers’ objective performance and subjective opinions on ease of use of the method. This notwithstanding, further experimentation is needed to be able to generalize the results to different populations, methods, languages and tools, different domains and different application sizes.

Applying model-driven engineering to the development of Rich Internet Applications for Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence (BI) applications have been gradually ported to the Web in search of a global platform for the consumption and publication of data and services. On the Internet, apart from techniques for data/knowledge management, BI Web applications need interfaces with a high level of interoperability (similar to the traditional desktop interfaces) for the visualisation of data/knowledge. In some cases, this has been provided by Rich Internet Applications (RIA). The development of these BI RIAs is a process traditionally performed manually and, given the complexity of the final application, it is a process which might be prone to errors. The application of model-driven engineering techniques can reduce the cost of development and maintenance (in terms of time and resources) of these applications, as they demonstrated by other types of Web applications. In the light of these issues, the paper introduces the Sm4RIA-B methodology, i.e., a model-driven methodology for the development of RIA as BI Web applications. In order to overcome the limitations of RIA regarding knowledge management from the Web, this paper also presents a new RIA platform for BI, called RI@BI, which extends the functionalities of traditional RIAs by means of Semantic Web technologies and B2B techniques. Finally, we evaluate the whole approach on a case study—the development of a social network site for an enterprise project manager.

An Interdisciplinary Practical for Multimedia Engineering Students

Interdisciplinary projects in the industry typically require collaboration between professionals from various fields. However, this relationship is not generally addressed in the training offered by university programs, which often ignore this interdisciplinary approach. This paper offers an example of interdisciplinary interaction through joint laboratory activities in the curricula of two very different degree programs, i.e., Multimedia Engineering and Teacher Training in Primary Education. The programs' students formed an interdisciplinary team of multimedia engineers and trainee teachers to develop a Web product for children's cognitive development. The complexity of the task required students to engage in close and strong interdisciplinary cooperation and communication; in turn, they benefited from the synergy offered by collaborative work. The results of this paper, presented from the perspective of the multimedia engineering students, demonstrate a significant increase in their academic performance compared to the control group. This paper shows that university studies can incorporate an interdisciplinary perspective to engineering education without the need to introduce a specific course on the topic, thus avoiding further demands on the curriculum schedule.