A Framework for Authoring databases based on the WebDAV protocol - WebDAD

The ability of the Web to share data regardless of geographical location raises a new issue called remote authoring. This provides the distributed interactivity of clients with servers. This dissertation especially focuses on database remote authoring. With the Internet and Web browsers being independent of hardware, it becomes possible to build Web-enabled database applications. Once a database is linked to the Web, it is accessible from any computer linked to the Internet. Many approaches are provided to integrate databases into the Web environment, which use the Web's protocol i.e. HTTP to transfer the data between clients and servers. However, those methods are affected by the HTTP shortfalls with regard to remote authoring. The WebDAV protocol as an extension to HTTP provides the authoring aspects of remote collaboration. This dissertation for the first time applies the WebDAV protocol to provide a consistent framework for remote authoring of database, called WebDAD. WebDAD is a seamless and effective methodology for accessing and authoring databases in particularly that it naturally benefits the WebDAV advantages such as metadata and access control. These features establish a standard way of accessing database metadata, and increase the database security, while speeds up the database connection. Using the Jakarta Slide, which is an open source project of Apache for WebDAV server, we have implemented a prototype of WebDAD.