International Scientific Conference Computer Science’2008

Adaptive Web-Based Systems: Current Trends and Open

Issues

Bujar Raufi, Juliana Georgieva

Faculty of Communication Sciences and Technologies, South East European University,
Tetovo, F.Y.R. Macedonia
Faculty of Computers and Control Systems, Department of Programming and Computer
Technologies, Technical University of Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria

Abstract: Adaptive web based systems tend to arrange its content and internal structure
based on user access patterns. A myriad of approaches and frameworks have been presented
recent years, however many of them bypass an important component of such systems which is
the data itself. In this paper we propose a new, top-down five layer framework for adaptive web
based system considering the data as an important, inseparable part of such systems.
Keywords: User-Adaptive Software Systems, Adaptive Web Sites, Adaptive Hypermedia

1.INTRODUCTION
More than two decades ago, from its very beginning, the web has been a place
where a content can be presented and accessed from billions of users all over the
world. Its gradual evolution has made itself accessible not only to different users and
businesses, but also to different services and applications. This progressive develop-
ment crafted the web not only as an environment where a content can be only pre-
sented, but also an environment where the content can be searched, found as well as
customized to users needs. Traditional general purpose web pages of today usually suf-
fer from a “one-size-fits-all” [1] problem. This means that when a patient accesses
medical web page of a hospital, it will be presented with the same set of information
every time it accesses it. A tourist that tries to find information about travel and hotel ar-
rangements will be presented with the same order of information regardless of its desti-
nation preferences [1]. The same issue can be generalized for many, but not all, web
applications in various domains like: e-commerce, corporate web sites or education.
The solution to this situation is the development of user-adaptive software systems[1]
that arrange their content, structure or both based on user access preferences. Starting
as a pioneering work of a few research communities in the middle of the 90's (See Per-
kowitz and Eztioni [2]), today it represents a research milestone for many communities
involving diverse research disciplines like: user modeling, information retrieval, recom-
mender systems, machine learning, data mining, Web Usage Mining, natural language
processing, intelligent tutoring systems, cognitive sciences and web based education.
There are several approaches in implementing user-adaptive software systems de-
pending in what degree the user access or data criteria is involved in this implementa-
tion. If we use the first criteria, then the adaptive web based systems can be catego-
rized as:
•Adaptable [3]: where a preliminary user information is needed in order to perform
adaptation. This is usually done by asking from the user to fill a preliminary survey
or login form.

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•Adaptive [3]: where no preliminary user information is at hand, but the system
rather tries to learn from monitoring user activities and then attempts to adapt its
presentation content or link structure to users browsing preference.
If we take into account the second data-centric criteria the adaptive web systems
can be also:
•Dynamic [3]: where there are no predefined data presentations. So, based on user
behavior, the system generates the pages dynamically based on atomic pieces of
information. These atomic pieces can be text, image or media (audio or video). This
type of adaptive web based systems is of particular research interest to us as we
are going to speak about open issues and some possible solutions by presenting a
top-down framework for dynamic adaptive web based system.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: In section 2 we give an introduction to
recent research work done in the field of adaptive web based systems. In section 3 we
present a new research direction by emphasizing an important issue which has been
omitted in many research articles. In section 4 we present a top-down framework for
Dynamic Adaptive Web Based Systems and section 5 concludes this paper.

2.RELATED WORK
Many attempts in creating an Adaptive Web Based System started with initial design
of a framework followed by a real life implementations (like Interbook[4], AHA![5], TAN-
GOW[6] or WHURLE[7]). But, all these frameworks and implementations have open is-
sues that limits their applicability in one specific domain (mostly education). In order to
find these open issues, some recent paper in this research area have been compared.
Ceri, Daniel, Matera and Facca [8] seek the possibility of developing context aware
web applications by using a specific UML based markup language called WebML which
is based on object oriented relationship model. They envision the site consisted of
structure, composition, navigation and presentation. However this approach does not
indicate a clear hierarchical relationship between above mentioned elements. The ap-
proach is mainly data-centric where semantic aspects (knowledge centric approach) are
relatively unexplored. The whole WebML created site is consisted of two types of
pages: the so called C-Pages which are context aware and regular pages which are
not. Therefore we have a kind of semi-adaptive web application.
Chibing and Nordahl [9] approach the problem of adaptive web sites by using a
specific optimization method. This data mining approach tries to reorganize the web
sites structure as a whole by using a simulated annealing optimization algorithm. How-
ever, this approach does allow only predefined data do be considered for adaptation
and the adaptation is done only on pages, not on atomic units of data, which on the
other hand dismiss the possibility of extending the approach for creating dynamic adap-
tive web based systems mentioned in section 1.
Xing and Ghorbani [10] focuses on information domain modeling for Adaptive Web
Based Systems. Their Domain Modeling System (DMS) is consisted of a data model
they call Domain Model and four auxiliary processors named: author tool, pattern miner,
graph generator and recommendation provider. The domain model consists of concepts
and relationships. The main concern of this semantic web approach is that it considers
only the upper layers of the semantic web stack while completely omits the lower data
layer. The other problem in this approach is that the hierarchical relationship between
elements is not indicated similarly like in [8], which in adaptive web based systems en-
sures flexibility, modularity and interoperability.

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In Carmagnola, Cena, Gena and Torre [11] a specific semantic web framework for
adaptive web based systems is proposed. This framework is consisted of three matrices
whose planes represent different ontological representation of knowledge. The ap-
proach tries to extend the adaptation of only known documents in web site structure
(closed corpus adaptation) to external resources that are semantically annotated (open
corpus adaptation). However the relationship between data and knowledge is not indi-
cated.
Cristea [12] extends its framework (LAOS) for authoring adaptive hypermedia sys-
tem for educational purposes to meet the semantic web requirements. This five layer
hierarchical framework (Domain Model, Goal and Constraint Model, User Model, Adap-
tation Model and Presentation Model) ensures flexibility, expressivity and reusability
which are some of the fundamental semantic web requirements. But, this approach
lacks a well established ontological reasoning and clear content-concept relationship or
at least this is done through keywords.
De Bra [13] proposes a concept oriented tool based on AHAM, a Dexter-Based ref-
erence model for adaptive hypermedia[14]. This concept based approach allows rela-
tively fine grained adaptation. However this systems does not clearly separate the do-
main model from adaptation model in the adaptation engine in one hand and it does not
generate a whole page from atomic units of information. Instead it uses only a partial
inclusion of atomic data which the author calls conditional inclusion of object data.
Other related work include Bailey, Hall, Millard and Weal [15] with their adaptation
approach separating link structure from content, which they call Open Hypermedia
Structure. Kravčik and Gaševič [16] propose a complete framework for adaptive hyper-
media based on semantic web by structuring the knowledge, the hyperspace (data) and
the connection between these two. They implement this approach in the WINDS project
(Kravčik and Specht [17]). But, it is not clearly indicated how the relationship between
knowledge and hyperspace is done. Maneewatthana, Wills and Hall [18] propose an
Adaptive Personal Information Environment called a-Pie which is based on Open Hy-
permedia model called FOHM[18] (Fundamental Open Hypermedia Model). Adaptation
is done through software agents made available through web services.
All these above mentioned approaches suffer from open issues, some of them we
have mentioned. The questions risen and possible solutions are going to be treated in
the next section.

3.RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
Based on the some of the open issues mentioned above it can be easily seen that
every approach disregard one important fact when designing an adaptive web based
system. This very important fact is the importance of data and its role in the overall
functioning of the system as a whole. Most of the todays adaptive hypermedia systems,
seen in hierarchy of the semantic web stack, do not even descent to the second level,
where the data resides[12]. However, many of them use the upper levels where the
rules and logic frameworks are located.
Another important issue, depicted in figure 1, is the linking between content and
concept. This is important when want to design a loosely coupled and fine grained
adaptive web based system consisted of atomic units of information. This content-
concept relationship or knowledge-hyperspace linking as mentioned in [16], may not al-
ways be one -to-one relationship. There might be situations where one atomic unit may
correspond to several concepts.

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Concerning the method in what way the content-concept relationship is going to be

done belong the the issue of authoring an adaptive web based systems. Today we have
many adaptive hypermedia systems that links concept and content manually or in

Fig. 1: The Content-Concept relationship in an atomic piece of information.

a semi-automated way. This usually involves describing the whole resource with RDF or
describing a piece of it with XML literals in RDF [19]. However a feasibility of these ap-
proaches are yet to be proven.
Instead we propose two methods for creating a content-concepts relationship. The
first one is well known discipline in artificial intelligence called natural language process-
ing, which has been used extensively in many areas but moderately used and explored
in web systems. This method can be extended to create a fully automated authoring for
adaptive web systems. The second approach is strong content-concept annotation by
using XML data markup.
Another aspect that should be considered seriously is the issue of link and weight
storage. Considering that we are dealing mainly with loosely coupled atomic values, an
information about previous and next link as well as information weight of that atomic
value in higher semantic levels is of particular importance. All these aspect we are
summarizing in a top-down five layer framework we propose in next section.

4.A TOP-DOWN FRAMEWORK FOR ADAPTIVE WEB BASED SYSTEMS

In order to have good and consistent framework that will address the above men-
tioned open issues, several criterias were needed to be taken into consideration. Some
of these criterias are as below:
•Flexibility: The content-concept linking that we propose should offer quicker
discovery of new knowledge and the reuse of the same.
•Expressivity: Should allow extensive usage of semantic web in the sense of good
manipulation and reasoning with the knowledge at hand.
•Interoperability: Should offer us sharing and accessing data from other resources
as well for performing adaptation (In case of open corpus adaptation [18]).
•Modularity: that should allow a certain degree of independence between layers.
This means that there should be no particular problem if an eventual upgrade in
certain layer occurs. Thus, such upgrades should not obstruct the other layers.
Having all these criterias in mind our framework looks like in figure 2. It is com-
posed of five layers namely:

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Data Layer where all the data and the site link structure resides. Also this is the
layer where the atomic information is located with the precedence and next links as well
as information weight.

Fig. 2: A Top-Down Framework for Adaptive Web Based System

Concept Layer represents the semantic layer of the system. Consisted of concepts
and concept relationship. Its is strongly related to data layer via content-concept rela-
tionship as depicted in figure 1.
User Layer represents a layer where user preferences like access patterns and
user behaviour are collected and used to perform adaptation.
Adaptation Layer performs adaptation based on knowledge gained from concept
layer and user layer.
Finally the Presentation Layer is what the user sees at the end as a final product of
adaptation. In this stage, a rearrangement of atomic pieces of information is done in or-
der to meet the adaptation goal posed in adaptation layer.

5.CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

In this paper we proposed a framework that will give solution to some open issues
that still tackle the adaptive web based systems in general. The main goals of the
framework is to provide flexibility, expressivity, interoperability and interoperability.
Some questions that still lurk over the framework include whether all the page elements
should be adaptive, time constraints and performance of the system and authoring fea-
sibility. The future work would include answering these questions as well as implement-
ing methods that will meet the conditions posed in each of the layers presented above.

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