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The purpose of this paper is to highlight the potential of web components for libraries.

The paper introduces a working example web component that reimplements an OCLC WorldCat search widget.

By exploring the case study, the paper explains the functioning of web components and the potential advantages of web components for library web development.

Increasingly, web components are being used within library web development, but there is scope for much greater use of this technology to the advantage of those libraries involved.

This paper introduces web components, one of the most exciting and potentially transformative of the technologies that comprise HTML5. Web components provide a standardised method of creating and sharing custom HTML elements.

This paper is a viewpoint.

The paper proposes that the web development curriculum in library and information science (LIS) graduate programs needs to expand to cover this important topic.

Despite the potentially seismic impact of web components on Web development, up until this point, there has not been a discussion of this technology within the LIS literature.

Modern information systems are increasingly built on Web‐based and component‐based platforms. This raises the need for a service‐oriented infrastructure to simplify the management and procurement of corresponding components. Special focus lies on the deployment and distribution of such software artifacts within the context of the World Wide Web to promote their reuse and there‐fore to save development costs. At the same time, the integrity of the overall system must not be neglected. The use of components from third‐party vendors poses a potential security threat requiring additional care. Furthermore remains the issue of usage rights for the components and the data they provide. Flexible mechanisms can offer a huge range of different licensing models to be enforced on the runtime process. This paper presents an approach to deal with these challenges together with an implementation of a software system supporting component‐based Web portals.

The purposes of this study were to investigate components of apparel Web sites and to examine whether differences existed among the types of Web retailers in their components. Thirty‐six apparel Web sites were classified into four categories: virtual e‐retailer, catalog company, bricks‐and‐mortar retailer, and multi‐channel retailer. The Web sites were content analyzed according to the components of the apparel Web including merchandise, promotion, and customer service. Significant differences were found among the four types of Web retailers as to the components (product description, product price information, advertising, catalog service promotion, placing order, and returns policy) included on the Web sites. Currently, competition among Web sites is not based on what information is available, but how information is provided. Therefore, to differentiate themselves from competitors, each type of Web retailer should take advantage of their unique Web strategy within their own retail channel.

The objectives of this study are to: evaluate the task relevance of information components of apparel retail web sites from consumer perspectives; assess the performance of extant apparel retail web sites in providing both high and low task‐relevant information components; and explore whether differences in performance exist across different types of internet retailers.

Survey methodology was used to assess the task relevance of apparel web site information components from the consumers' perspective and a content analysis of apparel retail web sites was conducted to assess the availability of information components from apparel retail web sites.

The study finds that availability of high and low task‐relevant information varied regardless of task‐relevance. For both high and low task‐relevant information components, catalog e‐tailers provided the most information, followed in order by multi‐channel retailers, store e‐tailers, and pure e‐tailers.

This study can assist web site designers in meeting the needs of consumers by providing comprehensive understanding of the role of task‐relevant information in relation to internet shoppers' perceptions of the web site. In addition, the coding guide developed in this study provides an easy and practical tool that can be used by internet retailers for the self‐assessment of web site service performance.

To measure, classify and compare web site functions' development.

The objectives were achieved by developing a methodology to measure, classify and compare web site functions development. The measurement was based on the presence (or absence) of 91 web site components. The classification was achieved using an applied correspondence analysis. The comparison was performed with respect to 4,485 company web sites from two provinces in Canada. A formal procedure involving 50 assistants was developed to collect data over 5,000 sites within a month period and a conceptual model was developed to interpret results.

Findings show that web site functions development could be described on a three dimensional space, the three axes corresponding to directions of development. The development status of the whole sample appeared as a cone in which five classes (or categories) of web sites could be identified and described with respect to their development profile. The development of 18 web site functions was also benchmarked with respect to observations within a class and with respect to some other characteristics like the industrial sector and the province where the company was located.

Web site functions development was evaluated only with respect to components accessible to the general public. Development of intranet and extranet were not evaluated and hence taken into account for overall web sites development.

This research project of web site functions development was part of a more comprehensive project aimed at evaluating and documenting the impact of using a web site on business processes. So, combining the results of the two projects, allowed the authors to advance suggestions of how web sites should be developed to generate value for companies.

The approach to web site functions development evaluation is original. The methodology could be replicated anytime. The typology that emerged from the analysis is unique. Moreover, given the large sample of 4,485 web sites, results are statistically valid.

Web services are going mobile. A mobile enterprise can be established in a cellular network by participating mobile hosts, which act as web service providers, and their clients. Mobile hosts enable seamless integration of user‐specific services to the enterprise, by following web service standards, also on the radio link and via resource constrained smart phones. However, establishing such a mobile enterprise poses several technical challenges, such as the quality of service (QoS), discovery aspects and proper integration solutions, for the network as well as for the mobile phone users. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the challenges and research associated with this domain and with establishing the mobile enterprise.

The paper summarizes the challenges and research in the mobile web services domain, along with a detailed discussion of the developed mobile web service mediation framework (MWSMF). MWSMF is realized based on the enterprise service bus (ESB) technology, as an intermediary between mobile hosts and web service clients. Moreover, to scale the mobile enterprise to the loads possible in cellular networks, some of the components of MWSMF are shifted to the new utility computing paradigm, cloud computing.

From the study it was found that ESB provides a good integration solution for the mobile enterprise research challenges. The detailed analysis of the MWSMF concludes that the mediation framework and its components are horizontally scalable, thus allowing to utilize elasticity of cloud platform to meet load requirements of mobile enterprise in an easy and quick manner.

The study addresses the research with providing services from smart phones and establishing mobile enterprise. The QoS challenges are addressed and the study introduces an integration framework using ESB technology. The porting of MWSMF onto the cloud is also addressed. As an added value, the research serves as a case study for porting enterprise applications to the cloud.

In any critical system, high‐availability of software components like web services has so far been achieved through replication. Three replication strategies known as active, passive, and hybrid, describe for example how many replicas are needed, where to locate replicas, and how replicas interact with the original web service and among themselves if needed. The purpose of this paper is to show how replicates could be substituted with components that are similarly functional to the component that needs back‐up in case of failure.

After examination of the different existing replication strategies, it was decided to test the suitability of the proposed web services high‐availability approach based on communities for each strategy. To this end, the specification of web services using two behaviors, namely control and operational, was deemed appropriate.

The active replication strategy is the only strategy that could support the development of a web services high‐availability approach based on communities of web services.

The proposed approach has been validated in practice by deploying a JXTA‐based testbed. The experimental work has implemented the active replication strategy.

Software component high‐availability could be achieved by components that are similarly functional to this component, which permits the common limitations of existing replication strategies to be addressed.

The objective of this study is to develop and test a specific conceptualization and modeling specification of web site service quality and the influence web site service quality has on e‐service provider loyalty and word‐of‐mouth.

Data from an online survey of consumers across two studies were obtained.

The results support the conceptualization and operationalization of web site service quality and its effects on word of mouth and loyalty.

Implications for the measurement of consumer perceptions of web site service quality are highlighted for researchers, and directions for future research are discussed.

E‐service providers should carefully consider customer experiences on their web sites, and their management efforts to ensure they design and deliver the appropriate levels of service quality derived through the specific components of web site service quality.

The findings are of value to e‐service practitioners managing web site service quality and offer empirical support to its formative conceptualization. The focus here on formative modeling will stimulate discussion among e‐service researchers and practitioners, which could result in richer e‐service quality measures leading to improved marketing decision making and web site quality management.

The success of e-commerce websites depends on their effective communication and influence on their users. At first glance, the users are impressed by the website design and, if inspired, they would continue their operations on the website. This paper aims to evaluate the effects of visual aesthetic of the Web pages on users’ behavior in online shopping environment. In particular, the paper aims to evaluate the elements of visual aesthetic on the organism variables (i.e. “satisfaction,” “arousal,” “perceived on-line service quality” and “trust”) and measure them on the users’ response (i.e. purchase, comparison and re-visit).

Using the stimulus–organism–response (S-O-R) framework, the authors first assessed direct and indirect effects of visual aesthetics of e-commerce websites on customer responses. Then, the Visual Aesthetics of Websites Inventory (VisAWI) method was used to examine the effects of four dimensions (i.e. craftsmanship, simplicity, diversity and colorfulness) on users’ perceived website aesthetics. To do so, DigiKala.com, a famous Iranian e-commerce website was selected and the questionnaires were distributed among its users.

The study results revealed that the website aesthetics in the S-O-R evaluation had the greatest direct impact on “perceived quality of online services,” “trust,” “satisfaction” and “arousal,” respectively. These variables also indirectly affected “shopping,” “revisit” and “comparison to similar products on other websites.” Regarding the evaluations based on the VisAWI, the component “craftsmanship” played the most central role in expressing the website aesthetics, followed by the variables “simplicity,” “diversity” and “colorfulness,” respectively.

Although the considerable effect of Web aesthetics on customers’ purchase behavior has been identified in previous research, it has not been accurately measured. Furthermore, studies on Web aesthetics are mostly limited to information systems’ users and do not concern consumers. Therefore, considering the increasing growth in online shopping and the significance of Web aesthetics to online consumers, investigating how consumers respond to Web aesthetics is of vital importance.