Situational requirements engineering for the development of Content Management System-based web applications

Abstract

Web applications are evolving towards strong content-centered Web applications. The development processes and implementation of these applications are unlike the development and implementation of traditional information systems. In this paper we propose WebEngineering Method; a method for developing content management system (CMS) based Web applications. Critical to a successful development of CMS-based Web applications, is the adaptation to the dynamic business. We first define CMS-based Web applications and identify their specific characteristics. Combining these characteristics with situational factors in projects, we show that by taking parts of proven methods such as UML based Web-engineering (UWE) and the Unified Software Development Process (UP), a unique method can be assembled for situational development of CMS-based Web applications. We successfully validated the method at GX, a web-technology specialized in developing and implementing CMS-based Web applications. Future research focuses on optimizing the development method, and creating reference models and modeling tools for the development of CMS-based Web applications.Keywords: Requirements Engineering, Web application, Content Management System, Method Engineering. Web Application Development and ImplementationNowadays, organizations rely on the Web to support their business processes and use Internet as a way create competitive advantage, global collaboration and integration with external partners [19]. Applications based on Web-technology are considered of strategic importance [28]. With the unrestrained growth of unstructured information, the need for a system to control the information emerges. Content Management System-based Web applications are applications which combine both enabling the Web technology and managing the unstructured information. CMS-based Web applications are therefore implemented to support the organization with the creation, management and publishing of information in an efficient en effective way. Examples of CMS-based Web applications are Mediasurface, Tridion, Vignette, Documentum, Microsoft Content Management Server, GX WebManager, and the open source product Zope. These Web applications should be agile enough to respond to the dynamic business and the ever-changing customer demands [1]. However, existing methods for the requirements engineering (i.e. the capturing and specification of the requirements) of Web applications often fail to capture and specify the business dynamics, fail to implement the desired system, and often lack the Web focus [19]. The literature gives a plausible explanation by suggesting that the Web applications differ from conventional information system [8], [9] and [18]. Since there is no literature on specific CMS, we developed a method specific for CMS-based Web applications, constructed using components of two pre-existing methods: UML-based Web Engineering (UWE) [16] and the Unified Development Process (UP) [6]. The method is integrated into a generic development method consisting ...

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