An XML-based active document for intelligent web applications

The Web is an important source of information. Most Web applications are based on form documents in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). These HTML-based form documents provide user interfaces only, but do not include business procedures or logics that document form designers assume. However, form documents imply the procedures for processing them, and the implicit procedural knowledge can be positively utilized in automating business processes. In this respect, this paper proposes a new approach to active documents as a method for automating business processes based on form documents. This active document includes declarative knowledge and business rules implied in documents to support the automation of document processing. To realize the active documents, we devised an Executable Rule Markup Language (EFML), an executable meta-language in XML. ERML documents are executable in an inference engine, can be geared with a workflow management system (WfMS), and can be adopted in heterogeneous rule-based applications. Also, this paper suggests a processing framework for the proposed active documents. To demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed framework, we implemented a prototype system called ActiveForm, where active documents are applied to the processing of purchase orders in an Internet procurement system. As a result, our approach is considered to enhance the intelligence of Web applications by active documents. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.