Component-based Architecture for e-Gov Web Systems Development Camilo Carromeu, Débora Maria Barroso Paiva, Maria Istela Cagnin, Hana Karina Salles Rubinsztejn, Marcelo Augusto Santos Turine Faculdade de Computação Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul Campo Grande, Brazil {camilo, debora, istela, hana, turine}@facom.ufms.br Karin Breitman Departamento de Informática PUC-RIO Rio de Janeiro, Brazil karin@inf.puc-rio.br Abstract—In spite of the wide coverage of Internet and the need for Web systems to support various governmental tasks, the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul (Central West region) did not have a technological infrastructure which was sufficient to meet these needs in 2001. This led to setting up the Laboratory of Software Engineering (LEDES) at the Department of Computing and Statistics (DCT), the current Computing Faculty (FACOM), at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS), which is now collaborating effectively with the state government providing technological solutions, especially in Web sites and Web applications (WebApps). Developing these solutions has made it possible to capture patterns, define flexible architecture and subsequently set up a process of a Software Product Line (SPL) to develop WebApps in e-gov domain, as well as create computational support tools which automatize this process. This paper presents such computational support tools, lessons learnt during the most relevant projects which have been developed since the creation of LEDES, and the architecture for e-gov web systems development, resultant from early experience. Keywords-e-gov; software architecture; software product line I. INTRODUCTION The emergence and growth of Internet from the 1990s caused significant impact on the way that tasks are carried out in various fields (business, industry, government and education, among others). However, in 2001, there was still a need both in Web systems [1] to support activities from the Brazilian state government of Mato Grosso do Sul, as well as Web sites to publicize governmental content whose access is an interest and right of any citizen. It should be mentioned that this reality was not very different in relation to the other states of Brazil. The same problem arose in various departments at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS) because employees were doing tasks manually and, therefore, adding to the number of errors and inconsistent information due to the fact that the same information could be registered in more than one department. This led to the setting up of the Laboratory of Software Engineering (LEDES) at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS), which has started to develop software solutions for the state government, the university, and subsequently the federal government. The various solutions which have been developed made it possible to train qualified staff in the Brazilian Central West region, improving the skills of the Software Engineering group to develop Web solutions, mainly e-gov, and forming a technological infrastructure to enable the transference of knowledge from universities to the government. Drawing from the various experiences of the team, a flexible architecture to develop WebApps by reusing components [2,3] could be defined, which made up the basic core of any WebApp. To facilitate the efficient use of this architecture, support tools were developed such as the Titan Framework [6]. The aim of this paper is to present an architecture to support the development of WebApps, obtained from various projects developed by LEDES regarding the development of WebApps, especially in e-gov domain. The paper is organized in five sections: related work is presented in Section 2; the main projects which were developed in LEDES, as well as lessons learnt are reported in Section 3; the component-oriented architecture to develop WebApps and the support tools are presented in Section 4; and finally in Section 5, conclusions and suggestions for future work are discussed. II. RELATED WORK Many works related to e-gov domain may be discussed. For example, the SIGAP (Integrated System of Managing Groups and Research for the state of Pará) is a software solution developed for e-gov domain. The aim is to collect and manage information concerning researchers, laboratories, and current research groups in the Brazilian state of Pará. Moreover, the system makes it possible to produce reports and useful indicators for the governmental research agencies of the state [2]. Fig. 1 shows the flow of information from SIGAP presenting the integration of information sources related to scientific research (Academic Curriculum Vitaes and the CNPq (The National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) Research Group Directory). Additionally, Fig. 1 indicates the supply of data from the researcher concerning more specific information within his/her research context.