Laying the foundation for Web services over legacy systems

As the use of the World Wide Web becomes more pervasive within our society, businesses and institutions are required to migrate a wide range of services to the web. Difficulties arise where there are requirements to integrate existing systems within the migrated and often-extended web based services. The Institutionally Secure Integrated Data Environment (INSIDE) project is addressing the problems and issues surrounding the development and delivery of Web based services for "joined up systems" for institutions within higher education (HE). The project is working with a variety of existing information systems, e.g. student record systems and managed learning environments, at two universities. To better understand the requirements for an integrated Web based service, a common business process, the registration of new undergraduate students, has been analysed and modelled at both sites. Progressing from initial informal models to more formal models in a systematic way, following a meta-process incorporating good practice from domain analysis and requirements engineering has allowed the project to lay the foundation for its development of Web-based services.