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Project: Web-Service Configuration
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An increasing number of web services is being made available on the
Internet: the Semantic Web is becoming a fact. Web services, however,
are often not complete solutions; they often need to be combined.
Automated support of web service configuration is needed. Web
services, from our perspective are: "loosely coupled, reusable
software components that semantically encapsulate discrete
functionality and are distributed and programmatically accessible over
standard Internet protocols" (see [1]).
Automation requires reasoning about (semantic descriptions of) the web
services. Semantic descriptions of Web services are needed to this
purpose. DAML-S [2] provides this functionality. WSDL provides a
means to describe the web services at a lower level. Our configuration
service, based on the concepts developed within our Agent Factory
research, distinguishes between the Retrieval Process, Design Centre
and the Assembly process. The Retrieval Process retrieves components
that meet the requirements, the Design Process creates a
configuration, and an Assembly Process creates a usable description of
the new Web service configuration. This project combines insights from
the Semantic Web community, the Software Agent community, and the
Design community.
The domain of application chosen is that of portal design: existing
services such as translation services (e.g. x to BibTex) are combined
to build portals in which references are made available.
This research is done in close collaboration with dr Debbie Richards
of Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia and the
Knowledge Representation group at the VU (in particular with Marta
Sabou MSc).
