WSE 2003	SIGPC Vol. 7, No. 8 Nov. 18, 2003

by Damiano Distante

The 5th IEEE International Workshop on Web Site Evolution (WSE 2003) was held on September 22 at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. This year the WSE workshop was focused on the theme of “Architecture.” I fully enjoyed WSE 2003, thanks to the collegial atmosphere of the workshop, and to the glamour of the most culturally-diverse city in Europe, Amsterdam.

In the last five years the Web has become a preferred platform for developing new software applications and complex information systems. Large scale Web sites that appeared more then five years ago can now be considered legacy systems--with all the challenges that go with that moniker.

Even more than traditional legacy systems, legacy Web applications need to be maintained and evolved with care, due to rapidly changing business goals and user requirements. The availability of new design techniques and development methodologies is a facilitating factor of both maintenance and evolution processes for the Web.

In this context, since its inception in 1999, the Web Site Evolution (WSE) series of workshops has provided a forum for researchers and practitioners to present original work on subjects related to the disciplined evolution of large-scale Web sites.

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Theme: Architecture

As Web sites evolve from disorganized sets of hypermedia pages to well-engineered software systems designed around user-centered interface principles, issues related to their architecture become a key factor in their effectiveness. This fact was one of the primary motivations for the selection of "Architecture" as the theme for WSE 2003.

In the context of Web site evolution, research activities around this theme deal with extracting architectures from existing systems, modeling architectural aspects of complex applications, and performing tradeoff analysis between quality attributes of proposed architectures.

The goal of bringing together members of the software architecture, system maintenance, and Web engineering communities to discuss architectural issues of large-scale Web sites in a one-day workshop was fulfilled, as the final program of the program and the people attending the workshop can attest.

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Workshop Structure

WSE 2003 followed the structure used with success in previous years. The eleven accepted papers were scheduled in four technical sessions listed below, according to the papers' main topic(s). Following the presentation of each paper by its lead author, the workshop participants engaged in stimulating discussion led by the session chair. This resulted in vigorous exchanges of ideas and information in an informal manner, and still kept the workshop on schedule. The final program for WSE 2003 can be found here.

The workshop had four main topics, corresponding to the technical sessions of its final program:

1. Web Site Reverse Engineering and Maintenance
2. Web Site Clustering and Clone Detection
3. Web Technologies
4. Web Site Architecture Analysis and Evolution

In addition, a special Invited Paper session titled “Past, Present, and Future of Web Site Evolution” gave the participants an opportunity to revisit all five years of WSE and to propose possible themes that the workshop might focus on in the years ahead. The summary of the past of WSE was effectively presented by Scott Tilley, who was also General Chair of WSE 2003.

I personally suggested an edition of WSE focused on the theme of conceptual modeling for Web site evolution. This is because of my personal conviction that the adoption of user-centered conceptual modeling in both reverse- and forward-engineering processes can help improve the quality of Web sites from a user perspective. The wealth of information available from the research community offers several models and methodologies suitable for Web application design and modeling that the WSE community could leverage.

The Invited Paper session was followed by the conclusions and acknowledgments given by the Program Chair, Kenny Wong, to a workshop I found fully worthwhile from both an academic and social point of view.

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Looking Forward to WSE 2004

Preparations are already underway for the next workshop. WSE 2004 will be held on September 16, 2004 in Chicago, IL. It will be co-located with ICSM 2004. The theme of  WSE 2004 is “Testing,” which is another essential aspect to be faced in the Web site evolution thread. The Program Chair for WSE 2004 is Cem Kaner of the Florida Institute of Technology, USA; Paolo Tonella from ITC-irst, Italy is the General Chair. You are invited to join us in Chicago next autumn and take part in this exciting WSE event.

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Final Comments and Photos

I'm sure that I speak for the majority of the participants at WSE 2003 when I say that the workshop fulfilled my expectations for a rich and rewarding experience. It was an  invaluable opportunity to meet pleasant and lively people, motivated in doing their research work, who are actively contributing both from academic and industrial experiences to the growing community of Web site evolution.

I also had the opportunity to know and become fascinated by Amsterdam, a city that I visited for the first time (even though it is close to my home country of Italy). I would describe Amsterdam as one of the most colorful, varied, open, pleasant, modern and at same time rich in history and art city of the world. It was wonderful, in all senses. Needless to say, bikes are ten times more numerous than cars!

Photography is one of my preferred hobbies; some would even say it's an obsession of mine. Here are just few of the pictures I took during the WSE 2003 workshop and in Amsterdam. You can view the full-size version of the image by clicking on the corresponding thumbnail image on the left.

	A view of the participants on the left side of the hall in the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences during one of the paper presentation. In the front on the left side is Scott Tilley, General Chair of WSE 2003. (245KB)
	A view of the participants on the right side of the same hall. In the back is Cornelia Boldyreff, a member of the Program Committee member and Program Co-Chair of WSE 2002. (189KB)
	A view of Amsterdam, above the “NEMO” (National Center for Science and Technology), a building with a ship shape designed by Renzo Piano, the famous Italian architect. Shown in the view is a well-known Chinese restaurant. (237KB)
	Another view of Amsterdam, with its hundreds of canals.(231KB)
	One of the canals of Amsterdam. (291KB)
	A canal and two of the several hundred thousand (!) bikes in Amsterdam. (356KB)
	A view of the plaza near the center of Amsterdam. The place where WSE 2003 was held is not too far from here. (296KB)
	The entrance of the flower quarter. You can find seeds of almost any kind of flower (of course tulips) and of many color variations. (275KB)
	Yours truly, on the road to attend WSE 2003. (268KB)

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Acknowledgements

WSE 2003 was sponsored by IEEE Computer Society's Technical Council on Software Engineering (TCSE), with the support of the Department of Computer Sciences of the Florida Institute of Technology and the Department of Computing Science of the University of Alberta.

		The IEEE Computer Society www.computer.org Technical Council on Software Engineering (TCSE) www.tcse.org
		Department of Computer Sciences Florida Institute of Technology www.cs.fit.edu
		Department of Computing Science University of Alberta www.cs.ualberta.ca

The success of WSE 2003 was mostly due to the efforts and the high level experience of the General Chair, Scott Tilley, the Program Chair, Kenny Wong, and the whole Program Committee. Thanks also have to be given to the organizers of ICSM 2003 for allowing WSE 2003 to co-locate with them in Amsterdam.