From a semantic point of view, the term "Web
Services" is often defined as simply a helpful
function or information inside a website.
However, within information technology and
computer science circles, the term Web Services
is an entirely different animal. Unfortunately,
this gap between the semantic and the scientific
definition of Web Services makes it a somewhat
misunderstood animal among the public, in
general. But all that is changing now.
I recently had the pleasure of researching
and writing a feature article about this topic
for a relatively new non-profit organization
called the Higher Education Knowledge and
Technology Exchange (HEKATE). The article,
titled "Web Services Enabling Technology for
Application Integration and Assembly." Based on
numerous interviews and research, the following
definition came out in the article: "Web
Services is an enabling technology that
facilitates the consumption and/or sharing of
applications in order to create new, more
meaningful and/or more user-specific
applications, all at the speed of the Internet.
The creation of Web Services occurs within the
computing back-end, unbeknownst to the human who
happens to be looking at a Web Services-enabled
application on any number of electronic
devices/clients."
What does this have to do with higher
education? The answer to this question is being
discussed by HEKATE, which has a ten-point
manifesto concerning Web Services (also listed
inside the aforementioned article). HEKATE is
helping to put this technology on the radar
screens of a broader higher education audience
beyond information technologists and computer
scientists to include students, faculty and
campus administrators.
Recently I attended a day-long meeting at
Case Western Reserve University, where HEKATE
President Lev Gonick managed to bring together a
group of about 30 computing visionaries from
Microsoft, eCollege, Blackboard, IBM,
PeopleSoft, SCT, Oracle, InfiniNET Solutions,
University of British Columbia, Michigan State
University and other companies and higher
education institutions to discuss next steps for
accelerating the delivery of a new generation of
Web Services.
Although some technologists and educators see
Web Services as being mostly theoretical to
date, those at the HEKATE meeting see this
technology as being well in place to be further
developed and implemented. "The question is
really when is higher education going to get on
board, because in business, Web Services are
already happening," said Gonick.
There are numerous applications that Web Services
will provide.
Inside the world of online learning and
teaching, for instance, Web Services portends to
do great things, such as enable interoperability
of currently disparate online learning modules,
which means more and better options for teachers
and learners on a much broader scale than ever
before. On the campus computing side, the
development of Web Services promises to lower
the cost of information processing, as well as
speed up the processing of data inside
admissions, registration, financial aid, and
enrollment management departments, said SCT’s
General Manager, Exeter Solutions, Rob Curtin.
The end result will be more accurate and
efficient levels of data exchange between higher
education information trading partners, which
will in turn mean ultimately faster services
provided to students.
