Project description
Service and Software Architectures, Infrastructures and Engineering FAST wants to create a new visual programming environment that will facilitate the development of next-generation user interfaces. It tries to find a comprehensive solution for developing complex gadgets, involving multiple screens and process-execution flows that rely on back-end Semantic Web Services. As opposed to the majority of today's business process management technologies, FAST adopts a top-down user-centric approach rather than a program-centric one. This means, that instead of first building programs that orchestrate available Semantic Web Services and then try to figure out how to implement interaction with the users at given points of the process execution flow, software designers of FAST, will automatically create final applications by arranging gadgets with the enterprise's back-end. The way programmers will visually establish this connection will follow an approach similar to what sequence diagrams in UML look like. With a new user-oriented approach, FAST intends to overcome the limits of current business process engine approaches. Most citizens require and expect that they can easily locate and manage their administrative procedures on their own. However, this is usually not the case and most transactions and tasks need recurrent browsing, searching and discovering through a variety of websites and services allocated in disparate government portals. The FAST project intends to interlink the disparate information and functionality inside a unique mashup-based interface in order to make it more useful and valuable. The objective however, is not to develop the gadget mash-up platform but a tool that enables to develop mash-up-able gadgets which rely on screen-flow resources and semantic Web Services stored in a catalogue. FAST will contribute to a range of benefits in the course of three years: * Economic and societal benefits by bridging the gap between people, business and IT and by putting a visual face on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). * Users will be empowered from service consumer to producer. * Software development will benefit from concealing the complexity of programming, and from greater support for modelling loosely structured user-centric orchestrations, thereby surmounting the limitations of current business process engine approaches. * FAST also contributes to software industrialisation and improves the cost-effectiveness of application development.
FAST aims to provide an innovative visual programming environment that will facilitate the development of next-generation composite user interfaces.
The main objective of the project is to create a new a visual programming environment that will facilitate the development of complex front-end gadgets, involving execution of relatively complex business processes that rely on back-end Semantic Web Services. The approach adopted will be user-centric rather than program-centric: instead of first building programs that orchestrate available Semantic Web Services and then try to figure out how to implement interaction with the users at given points of the process execution flow, programmers will start from the front-end gadgets that the user will see and interact with, and then, afterwards, they will visually establish the connection to back-end Web Services going through process execution flows if necessary. The way programmers will visually establish this connection will follow an approach similar to what sequence diagrams in UML look like.
The FAST project believes that this new user-oriented approach is feasible and that it will overpass limitations of current business process engines approaches. In this approach, programmers will visually manage and connect front-end gadgets, screen-flow resources and back-end services.
It is worth pointing out that the programming tool to be developed will be conceived as a tool that can be compatible with existing and future mash-up platforms. Our goal is not to develop the gadget mash-up platform but a tool that enables to develop mash-up-able gadgets which rely on screen-flow resources and semantic Web Services stored in a catalogue.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
FP7-ICT-2007-1
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
CP - Collaborative project (generic)Coordinator
28050 Madrid
Spain