ABSTRACT

THE PURPOSE OF THIS CHAPTER is TO ASSIST MANAGERS OF INFORMATION systems programs who are interested in successful implementations of World Wide Web technology to access information bases, including databases and knowledge bases. This chapter also describes research efforts to extend the present capabilities in Web-based access. The Web has emerged as a form of data access middleware in some applications because of its efficiency and generality, owing to a common data transfer protocol.3 (See, for example, References 2, 7, 8.) It is a key component in meeting data and knowledge access requirements. It also has become a tool for software reuse.8 For example, databases, knowledge-base development tools, data mining tools, images, textual documents, standards, and a variety of software tools are accessible on the Web3 to any user with a Web browser, which is defined as a client software that accesses and displays Web pages, such as Netscape Communications Corp.’s Navigator.5