This paper seeks to identify one of the key problems faced by academic institutions seeking accreditation. The accreditation process requires academic institutions to conduct a self-study analyzing how well a given program is meeting the learning outcomes the accreditation board uses in its assessment. This self-study by schools often contains qualitative or subjective data and does not directly correlate the learning outcomes being measured to student performance. The lack of quantitative measurements at a granular level means that it is difficult for the academic institution to prove that it was effective in meeting a particular outcome. I propose in this paper a tool that is both efficient and effective in capturing quantitative data at the student level. The tool maps specific coursework to learning outcomes and shows how students performed towards that outcome over the duration of a particular course or program. Additionally, the data collected by the tool can be used to assess course and program design. / Master of Science

In an era where web applications are pivotal for global information dissemination and user engagement, ensuring the performance and accessibility of static web content is paramount. This need is particularly significant given the diverse accessibility requirements worldwide, influenced by varying network generations and the real-time rendering of static elements such as text, images, and videos on devices ranging from laptops to cell phones. This thesis embarks on a comparative study of client-side rendering (CSR) and server-side rendering (SSR), two fundamental techniques determining how various platforms present static content. Through detailed examination, the study aims to shed light on the nuances of web performance optimization, particularly how CSR and SSR affect content loading times, interactivity, and overall user experience. This investigation covers popular web browsers like Google Chrome, Brave Browser, and Microsoft Edge while considering network generations from 2G Good to 4G/LTE Regular. The analysis will utilize performance metrics such as First Contentful Paint (FCP), Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and Finish Time to provide a comprehensive evaluation. These metrics are essential for assessing the performance impact of CSR and SSR under different network conditions, offering a tangible measurement of user experience. By exploring the interplay between rendering techniques, device capabilities, and network environments, the research seeks to demystify the complexities of web performance optimization, ultimately offering strategies to enhance web application performance across different digital ecosystems.

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The project developed eBay Learning Center System (ELCS), a web-based application that provides current and potential eBay users a way to learn about the many functions of the popular online auction and shopping web site and be successful eBay traders. ELCS provides end users with online tutorials, available both in multimedia and text formats, and methods of communicating with system administrators and other users by means of a message box and a discussion forum to facilitate learning and collaborative problem solving. The system employs current technologies such as SQL, HTML, ASP.NET, VBScript, XML, ODBC, and ADO.

World Wide Web (WWW) has become the greatest repository of information that man has ever assembled and it is continuously growing. WWW transformed itself into a generative environment that fosters innovation through the advance of technologies and a shift in people's perception of the Weband how they use it. The new WWW or Future Internet is that of an Internet of Services and Internet of Things.Naturally, a series of questions arise from this context: how do you filter things to create more value than you currently get? how do you aggregate things in an intelligent and easy way instead of doing it in your head? The world cannot be described unambiguously, so how can you allow users to deal with the world in their own way, based on their understanding? Levine in his book "Cluetrain manifesto" was arguing that markets are conversations so how can users be involved in the conversation? how can users be empowered with easy consumption of the services, information, things that they found around?However design and deployment of such software capable of direct interaction and empowerment of the end-user is still an issue. We have on one side users that have ideas, but do not have technical background and lack programming skills to do the development by themselves. On the other side, we have large amounts of data, resources and services that could be aggregated both in terms of data, but most important in terms of behavior to innovate and create new things.Our goal in this thesis is to address this lack of tools that are capable of direct interaction andempowerment of end-users, in a unified manner. Thus our main contribution in this thesis is the development of a holistic approach for web based systems that are user-centric and that integrate data, services and behavior available on the Web 2.0.

Surfing the web has moved from the stationary computers to mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. As the technology moves further and more devices comes out on the market this is a trend that will continue. This makes it more important for web developers to adapt and make their websites fit not only for one device. The website needs to fit all devices. Since many of these devices are using wireless connections, the website performance has also become even more important in order to give the users a good experience.   Responsive web design is an approach for designing and developing web pages. By using the three techniques of flexible grid layout, flexible images and media, and media queries, websites can get a design that fits all devices. Responsive web techniques will also make the web page perform better on each device since it makes the web page adapt to its environment. There are several performance techniques that can be applied to a website in order to increase performance and loading time. Responsive web design including performance techniques can together make a great impact on a website's loading speed and user experience.   This thesis embraces this approach for web development. By developing a design theory, a website emerges where these approaches of web development have been implemented. During the development of the website the experiences implementing this approach and techniques is discussed. The website developed for this thesis was able to finish loading below 4 seconds on a mobile device using a 3G connection. We argue that responsive web design and performance techniques can help a website immensely to increase its user experience and performance.

Le Web2.0 est envisagé comme un espace ouvert aux services et met les gens au centre de cette optique. Le succès de contenus générés par utilisateur laisse entrevoir une nouvelle perspective en permettant aux utilisateurs de créer eux-même leurs propres services. La première contribution de la thèse consiste à en fournir un état de l'art complet. Nous donnons une description précise des UGS, puis analysons leurs défis par un parcours de différentes technologies. Notre deuxième contribution repose sur la conception et l'implémentation d'une plate-forme de mashups simple dont le but est une plus grande motivation dans l'utilisation des mashups. Nous présentons, pour le consommateur, un système de mashup basé sur les activités quotidiennes en reliant les événements du calendrier à des gadgets utiles. Le système, appelé EBSP, a été évalué par 131 utilisateurs finaux pour tester sa convivialité. De plus, il est utilisé comme un exemple représentatif dans la proposition d'un modèle d'acceptation par l'utilisateur des mashups de consommateur. Notre troisième contribution focalisée sur le problème d'utilisation de l'annotation sociale à soutenir la découverte widget web. Un modèle de découverte de gadgets amélioré est proposé en se basant sur des annotations sociales. En utilisant le service en ligne Widgetbox.com, nous démontrons la validité et l'efficacité de notre modèle. En quatrième lieu, nous avons conçu un système original en ligne de réseaux sociaux orienté activités. Le système, appelé Dig-Event, fournit un espace social ouvert pour les utilisateurs afin de partager les événements et découvrir les activités d'intérêt mutuel parmi les contacts sociaux / Web 2.0 is envisioned as an open garden for services and it puts people into the centre of the vision. The success of the user generated content raises the new idea of enabling end-users to create their own services. The first contribution of the thesis is to provide a comprehensive survey of the state–of-the-art development in this area. We give the specific description of UGS, and then go through different technologies to analyze their challenges. Our second contribution lies in designing and implementing a simple mashup platform which provides the greater motivation for mashups usage. We present a consumer mashup framework based on daily activities, by relating every-day calendar events to useful gadgets. The system, named EBSP, was evaluated by 131 end-users to test for its usability. Also, as a representative example, the system is used in a proposed user-acceptance model for consumer mashups. Our third contribution focuses on the problem of using social annotation to support web widget discovery. An enhanced web gadget discovery model is proposed based on social tagging. Using the online service Widgetbox.com, we demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of our proposed model. Fourthly, we designed a novel system for activity-oriented online social networking named Dig-Event. Dig-Event provides an open, social space for users to share events and discover the activities of mutual interests among social contacts. It allows users to share their activities, to customize their social circles, to conduct events, and to socialize around them. The features of event recommendation and integration with existing social networks further boost the event socializing experience

A automação de tarefas como descoberta, composição e invocação de Serviços Web é um requisito importante para o sucesso da Web Semântica. Nos casos de insucesso na busca por um serviço, por não existir disponível um serviço completo que atenda plenamente a requisição do usuário, uma possibilidade de contorno é compor o serviço procurado a partir de elementos básicos que atendam parcialmente a requisição inicial e que se completem. A composição de Serviços Web pode ser realizada de forma manual ou de forma automática. Na composição manual, o desenvolvedor de Serviços Web pode tirar proveito da sua expertise sobre os serviços envolvidos na composição e sobre o resultado que se deseja alcançar. Esta tese aborda problemas e apresenta contribuições relacionadas ao processo de composição automática de Serviços Web. A composição automática de Serviços Web requer que os serviços sejam descritos e publicados de forma a modelar o conhecimento (semântica explícita) que o desenvolvedor utiliza para realizar a composição manual. A descoberta automática baseada nas descrições semânticas do serviço é também um passo crucial na direção da composição automática, pois é um estágio anterior necessário para a seleção dos serviços candidatos à composição. Trabalhos da área de pesquisa em Serviços Web Semânticos exploram a utilização dos padrões da Web Semântica para enriquecer, com semântica explícita, a descrição dos Serviços Web. O problema da composição automática de Serviços Web é tratado neste trabalho por meio de três linhas de investigação: modelagem dos Serviços Web Semânticos; descoberta automática de Serviços Web Semânticos; e composição automática de Serviços Web Semânticos. As contribuições desta tese incluem: a plataforma RALOWS para modelagem de aplicações Web como Serviços Web Semânticos, tendo como estudo de caso aplicações para realização de experimentos remotos; um algoritmo para descoberta automática de Serviços Web Semânticos; uma proposta baseada em grafos e caminhos de custo mínimo para prover composição automática de Serviços Web Semânticos; uma infra-estrutura e ferramentas de apoio à descrição, publicação, descoberta e composição de Serviços Web Semânticos / The automation of the discovery, composition and invocation of Web Services is an important step to the success of the Semantic Web. If no single Web Service satisfies the functionality required by one user, an alternative is to combine existing services that solve parts of the problem in order to reach a complete solution. Web Services composition can be achieved manually or automatically. When composing services manually, Web Service developers can take advantage of their expertise and knowledge about the composition services and the target service. This thesis addresses issues and presents contributions related to the process of automating Web Services composition. The automatic composition of Web services requires the description and publication of the services in order to model the necessary knowledge (explicit semantics) that the developer uses to perform the manual composition. The automatic Web Service discovery is a crucial step toward the automatic composition, because it is a previous stage necessary to the selection of composition service candidates. Semantic Web Services researches explore the use of the Semantic Web technologies to enrich the Web Services descriptions with explicit semantics. Three main lines of investigation are adopted in this thesis to explore the process of automatic composition of Web Services. They are the following: Semantic Web Services modeling; automatic discovery of Semantic Web Services; and automatic composition of Semantic Web Services. The main contributions of this thesis include: the RALOWS platform for modeling Web applications as Semantic Web Services; an algorithm for the automatic discovery of Semantic Web Services; a graph-based approach to the automatic composition of Semantic Web Services; and an infrastructure and tools to support the Semantic Web Services description, publishing, discovery and composition

[pt] Essa dissertação propõe um modelo para o desenvolvimento de aplicações hipermídia na Web Semântica estendendo o método SHDM (Semantic Hypermedia Design Method), e apresenta uma arquitetura de implementação deste modelo. Na extensão proposta, as aplicações são visões navegacionais especificadas sobre modelos conceituais definidos por quaisquer ontologias da Web Semântica. As classes navegacionais são caracterizadas por um padrão para recuperação de dados da ontologia conceitual a partir de um recurso específico, podendo incorporar regras para filtragem de instâncias. Estruturas de acesso passam a se distinguir quanto à origem de seus dados, podendo ser arbitrárias, derivadas de consultas, derivadas de contextos ou facetadas. Elos especializam um relacionamento com base nos tipos de sua origem e destino, e podem ser definidos a partir de uma composição de relacionamentos conceituais. A especificação do modelo navegacional é dada através de um vocabulário definido como uma ontologia, tornando-a independente do ambiente de inferência e consulta empregado em qualquer implementação do modelo. Os modelos propostos são utilizados como dados para a geração de aplicações, com suporte na arquitetura de implementação definida e implementada. / [en] This dissertation proposes a development model for hypermedia applications on the Semantic Web extending the Semantic Hypermedia Design Method (SHDM), and presents an implementation architecture for this model. In the proposed extension applications are seen as navigational views over conceptual models defined by any Semantic Web ontology. Navigational classes are characterized by a retrieval pattern of conceptual ontology data from a specific resource, and can also incorporate rules for instances filtering. Access structures are now distinguished by their data source, and are categorized as arbitrary, query based, context based or faceted. Links specialize conceptual relationships based on the data types of its origin and destination, and can also map relationship compositions. A vocabulary defined as an ontology is used for the specification of the navigational model, making it independent from the query and inference environment used by any implementation of the model. The implementation architecture specified and implemented generates applications directly from the data contained in the proposed models.

A automação de tarefas como descoberta, composição e invocação de Serviços Web é um requisito importante para o sucesso da Web Semântica. Nos casos de insucesso na busca por um serviço, por não existir disponível um serviço completo que atenda plenamente a requisição do usuário, uma possibilidade de contorno é compor o serviço procurado a partir de elementos básicos que atendam parcialmente a requisição inicial e que se completem. A composição de Serviços Web pode ser realizada de forma manual ou de forma automática. Na composição manual, o desenvolvedor de Serviços Web pode tirar proveito da sua expertise sobre os serviços envolvidos na composição e sobre o resultado que se deseja alcançar. Esta tese aborda problemas e apresenta contribuições relacionadas ao processo de composição automática de Serviços Web. A composição automática de Serviços Web requer que os serviços sejam descritos e publicados de forma a modelar o conhecimento (semântica explícita) que o desenvolvedor utiliza para realizar a composição manual. A descoberta automática baseada nas descrições semânticas do serviço é também um passo crucial na direção da composição automática, pois é um estágio anterior necessário para a seleção dos serviços candidatos à composição. Trabalhos da área de pesquisa em Serviços Web Semânticos exploram a utilização dos padrões da Web Semântica para enriquecer, com semântica explícita, a descrição dos Serviços Web. O problema da composição automática de Serviços Web é tratado neste trabalho por meio de três linhas de investigação: modelagem dos Serviços Web Semânticos; descoberta automática de Serviços Web Semânticos; e composição automática de Serviços Web Semânticos. As contribuições desta tese incluem: a plataforma RALOWS para modelagem de aplicações Web como Serviços Web Semânticos, tendo como estudo de caso aplicações para realização de experimentos remotos; um algoritmo para descoberta automática de Serviços Web Semânticos; uma proposta baseada em grafos e caminhos de custo mínimo para prover composição automática de Serviços Web Semânticos; uma infra-estrutura e ferramentas de apoio à descrição, publicação, descoberta e composição de Serviços Web Semânticos / The automation of the discovery, composition and invocation of Web Services is an important step to the success of the Semantic Web. If no single Web Service satisfies the functionality required by one user, an alternative is to combine existing services that solve parts of the problem in order to reach a complete solution. Web Services composition can be achieved manually or automatically. When composing services manually, Web Service developers can take advantage of their expertise and knowledge about the composition services and the target service. This thesis addresses issues and presents contributions related to the process of automating Web Services composition. The automatic composition of Web services requires the description and publication of the services in order to model the necessary knowledge (explicit semantics) that the developer uses to perform the manual composition. The automatic Web Service discovery is a crucial step toward the automatic composition, because it is a previous stage necessary to the selection of composition service candidates. Semantic Web Services researches explore the use of the Semantic Web technologies to enrich the Web Services descriptions with explicit semantics. Three main lines of investigation are adopted in this thesis to explore the process of automatic composition of Web Services. They are the following: Semantic Web Services modeling; automatic discovery of Semantic Web Services; and automatic composition of Semantic Web Services. The main contributions of this thesis include: the RALOWS platform for modeling Web applications as Semantic Web Services; an algorithm for the automatic discovery of Semantic Web Services; a graph-based approach to the automatic composition of Semantic Web Services; and an infrastructure and tools to support the Semantic Web Services description, publishing, discovery and composition