Web 2.0 Interactive Web Pages

AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) is an overall name for techniques to create highly interactive web pages. Ajax techniques for creation of highly interactive web pages may assist computer literate end-users in programming tasks on the web (Cagle, 2006), with the use of web development environments such as (Ruby on rails, 2007) , and Writely (now part of Google) (2007) and similar web based office technology such as the Google Spreadsheet. This type of Rich Internet Application technology research is very useful for providing an environment for end-user programming.

XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a programming language, not just a language for representing information as illustrated by its use in Ajax and rich internet applications, and many products including Adobe Flex2 (1997), OpenLaszlo (2007) Open Source environment, and Tersus Open Source Visual Programming Platform (2007). This technology is generally called Web 2.0 because of the intention to provide much greater interactivity than previously found in web pages.

These AJAX and web 2.0 techniques can be used for visual programming of internet applications. Recent, present and future research can enable the use of Semantic Web technologies, (developed from HTML by Tim Berners-Lee and others - 'Weaving the Web' (Berners-Lee and Fischetti, 1997), to enable End User Programming. This fusion of research and technologies is illustrated by Henry Liebermans' book (2000), which has explanations of both areas of research. Examples of this fusion include Protégé (Stanford University, 2007), (Jena, 2007), (TopBraid Composer, 2007), and (OpenCyc, 2007) and (Masters and Güngördü, 2003).

(Isenhour et al, 2001) undertook a project to enable user interaction over the web. A related development is that of Web 2.0, explained in (JISC, 2007), this report explains how the technologies used are enabling user-centred web applications, and the use of the web as a development platform. It continues "As a Web 2.0 concept, this idea of opening up goes beyond the open source software idea of opening up code to developers, to opening up content production to all users and exposing data for re-use and combination".

Visual development environments based on AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML), (Bruchez, 2006) and (Cagle, 2006) aim to reproduce on the web, the functionality provided by office tools such as Excel (which is often used as an End User Programming Environment more information on this is available on my Visualization and Interaction page. This technology that Ajax is part of is generally called Web 2.0 because of the intention to provide much greater interactivity than previously found in web pages. The implications of Web 2.0 technologies for education are outlined in (JISC, 2007).

The Semantic Web and Web 2.0 techniques can be combined with programming by example research, and visual programming developed from the research of Sutherland (1963), Papert (1999), Kay (2003), and many others. This should enable users to experience a much more meaningful interaction with computers.

A Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) report (JISC, 2007) explains how Semantic Web and Web 2.0 are related as Tim Berners-Lee's intention in the early development of Semantic Web technologies was for pages to be interactive. The JISC report talks of Web 2.0 trends towards the 'End of the software release cycle, Lightweight programming models, Software above the level of a single device, and Rich user experiences.'

In the University of the West of England UWE Online project Information is defined using XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and searched using XQuery (World Wide Web Consortium, 2006i). XForms (Bruchez, 2006) is an important enabling technology for creation of interactive web pages to allow users to populate the ontology. Related technologies that are important in enabling user driven content provision are Semantic Web technologies, AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) (Bruchez, 2006) and (Cagle, 2006), and Web 2.0 (JISC, 2007).

The JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) report makes the point that tagging by web users can generate some understanding and agreement about terms and an improved search facility even without a formal ontology, or as a way to assist in the development an improvement of an ontology (Al-Khalifa and Davis, 2006). Cayzer (2004) also discusses the role of relating ontologies, and that of tagging.

XML for Visualization and Interaction AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) is an overall name for techniques to create highly interactive web pages. Ajax techniques for creation of interactive web pages may assist computer literate end-users in programming tasks on the web, with the use of web development environments and web based office technology such as the Google Spreadsheet (Google, 2007), Ruby on Rails (2007) and Writely (now part of Google). Ajax is explained in Whats Ajax? (2007) and by Cagle (2006).

This type of Rich Internet Application technology research is very useful for providing an environment for end-user programming. This can make office applications available over the web using just a web browser. This technology is generally called Web 2.0 because of the intention to provide much greater interactivity than previously found in web pages.

XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a programming language, not just a language for representing information as illustrated by its use in Ajax and rich internet applications, and many products including Adobe Flex2 (2006). Quint and Vatton (2004) and (2005) describe tools available for creating and editing XML documents including Amaya (2007). XML as a programming language is covered in chapter 7, and AspectXML research into use of XML as a programming language is explained (Peterson, 2005).