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Design of an Object-Oriented Workflow Management System with Reusable and Fine-Grained Components

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Book cover Groupware: Design, Implementation, and Use (CRIWG 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 3706))

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Abstract

Languages that support object-oriented programming are now mainstream, and can support software reuse. This study focused on the reusability of components for workflow management systems (WfMSs). Implementing a WfMS in object-oriented programming languages without considering the characteristics of the WfMS does not ensure that all the components will be reusable. We first clarify the reusability of WfMSs and point out the difficulties in constructing reusable components for WfMSs. We then propose an object-oriented model for WfMSs named the “Java-based object-oriented WfMS” (JOO-WfMS), whose components are fine-grained and are classified into a functional stack with three layers. This extends the reusability of objects in developing workflow applications. The resulting architecture can support real-time flow control as well as the dynamic instantiation of objects. Two mechanisms are embedded into the JOO-WfMS to increase the reusability of its components: (1) a workflow failure-handling language, which can increase the reusability of activities when flexible failure recovery is necessary; and (2) the user communication components and their corresponding architecture. The goal of the architecture is to increase the reusability of codes used for communication between the user and the activities in WfMSs.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information and Computer Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Gwan-Hwan Hwang & Sheng-Ho Chang

  2. System Development and Technical Support Department, Trade-Van Information Service Company, Taipei, Taiwan

    Yung-Chuan Lee

Authors
  1. Gwan-Hwan Hwang
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  2. Yung-Chuan Lee
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  3. Sheng-Ho Chang
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Mathematics, Brock University St. Catharines, L2S 3A1, ON, Canada

    Hugo Fukś

  2. Department for Mathematics and Computer Science, FernUniversität in Hagen, 58084, Hagen, Germany

    Stephan Lukosch

  3. Center of Informatics, Federal University of Pernambuco, PO Box 7851, Recife, PE, Brasil

    Ana Carolina Salgado

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Hwang, GH., Lee, YC., Chang, SH. (2005). Design of an Object-Oriented Workflow Management System with Reusable and Fine-Grained Components. In: Fukś, H., Lukosch, S., Salgado, A.C. (eds) Groupware: Design, Implementation, and Use. CRIWG 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3706. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11560296_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11560296_15

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-29110-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-32002-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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