Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) uses loosely coupled services as basic constructs to compose larger systems in a relatively low-cost and rapid fashion. However, current service composition techniques and tools are mainly designed for professional SOA developers to solve complex business problems across organizations. It is challenging for end users without professional SOA knowledge to compose services and automate their frequently reoccurring activities, such as planning a trip. The goal of this project is to develop techniques that hide the complexity of web services standards and tools and automatically compose services which reflect the changing contexts of users. The work will centre around three dimensions: 1) Context aware service discovery: We will create techniques that automatically capture the context of a user's environment, and use the context to assist in service discovery; 2) Dynamic service composition: We will devise techniques that dynamically search and compose services on-the-fly to assist users in fulfilling their desired goals (such as planning a trip); and 3) Collaborative service mashup environment: We aim to provide an environment where an end user can collaboratively compose, comment and share services. Such an environment will permit the integration of disparate web resources (e.g., web services and data-driven websites) to make the most benefits of the web resources. The results of this research will permit companies, like IBM, SAP and RIM, to expedite the delivery and wide adaption of their software products to end users over the web. The results of this project will shift the traditional server centric model, with pre-defined on-line services, to a new user centric paradigm, where an end user can personalize their web space and build services which adapt to their needs. This project will train 11 HQP (2 Ph.D., 4 MSc, and 5 BSc students) in the important area of software engineering of SOA software.