REUSES: Questionnaire-driven design for the automatic generation of web-based collaborative applications

In this paper, we present a questionnaire-driven collaborative design methodology for the automatic generation of collaborative applications. The methodology is based on a repository of collaborative components and a knowledge base of its application and use modes. The repository includes components built by our team, as well as third-party components that use heterogeneous technologies like JavaScript, Java, Flash, and services and components provided by companies like Google and Facebook. Based on this methodology, we have built a Web 2.0 tool called REUSES (Rapid End-User Synthesis of Collaborative Applications), which provides facilities for the automatic generation of Web-based collaborative applications tailored to any particular community of end users. Finally, we also report on some experimental work to test REUSES in the context of academic courses at our University.