Role Based Access Control for the interaction with Search Engines ?? Alessandro Bozzon \ , Tereza Iofciu ƒ , Wolfgang Nejdl ƒ , Antonio Vincenzo Taddeo / , and Sascha T¨onnies ƒ {bozzon}@elet.polimi.it, {iofciu,nejdl,toennies}@l3s.de, {taddeo}@alari.ch \ Politecnico di Milano , P.zza L. da Vinci 32, I-20133 Milano, Italy ƒ Forschungszentrum L3S, Appelstr. 9a, 30167 Hannover, Germany / ALaRI, Faculty of Informatics, University of Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland Abstract. Search engine-based features are a basic interaction mean for users to find information inside a Web-based Learning Management Systems (LMS); nonetheless, traditional solutions lack in mechanisms for access rights management for data contained in search engines’ in- dexes. This paper explores the integration of a Role Based Access Control (RBAC) mechanism for the interaction with a search engine in a Web- based LMS. We first outline a reference conceptual model for the design of Web-based LMSs exploiting RBAC by means of WebML, a visual modeling language for the high-level specification of data-intensive Web applications. Then, we propose a model-driven approach for the defi- nition of a RBAC-driven interaction between users and search engines, extending WebML with new modeling primitives and outlining significa- tive modeling patterns for the specification of the visibility and action access control levels. Key words: Web Engineering, Search Engine Design, Index Modeling, Access Control Modeling 1 Introduction and Motivation Web-based Learning Management Systems (LMS) are gaining large consensus in several organizations. They are especially developed in the world of e-learning, as well in as general-purpose Web authoring tools and video-conferencing products. Being large-scale and multi-user applications, Web-based LMS are developed to manage a huge volume of data; their advantages can be recognized in their easy to use user-interface and in the common and customizable technological back- ground provided by a Web application. Such extended collection of information is basically composed of documents, constituting the know-how on which the learning experience relies. These considerations suggest a clear need for an ef- ficient knowledge sharing and knowledge management system. Therefore, a key point for an e-learning system is to implement a Knowledge Repository (KR) with access rights mechanism for the management of its resources: the simplest way to do this is by assuming the presence of a centralized repository, containing information entities for documents. This structure can be enhanced, for instance, ?? In alphabetical order Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Collaborative Open Environments for Project-Centered Learning 24