New research aims at improving the selection of Internet services for service consumers
A framework utilizing consumer experiences for helping other consumers to select Internet services that perform best towards their optimization preferences. That is the result of Jens Kirchner’s doctoral studies at Linnaeus University.
Have you ever tried to find a flight, booked a hotel or used cloud services on the Internet? Then you know that there is a wealth of services available on the net, which makes it hard to choose. And it’s not just about functionality, i.e. WHAT a service provides. The non-functional properties, HOW the service is provided, might be just as or even more important. This, coupled with the perpetual changes and complex collaborations beyond the interface of the services, makes it hard for us consumers to find the best-fit service.
– Non-functional properties, NFPs, are characteristics every service has. They are mostly related to performance and quality of service, such as response time, availability, monetary costs and time. Such properties are experienced and valued differently among service consumers, depending on their call context, explains Jens Kirchner, who recently defended his doctoral thesis in Computer Science within this field at Linnaeus University.
Unlike other works covering service selection, Jens has focused on an individually optimized service selection in his thesis. His approach centres on an optimization based on a collaborative knowledge base of previous experiences of other consumers with similar call contexts. It does not require the contribution of service providers or other non-consuming entities. In other words, the contributors benefit from their own contributions. For the preparation of the recommendation knowledge, Jens has analysed how machine learning methods can be employed in the optimization.
– Also, all other approaches consider only a single-tier optimization while we also provide a multi-tier optimization approach. This is more complex, but provides the flexible adaptation of what we call information supply chains. Our approach and so the developed, yet prototypical, framework does not require any changes of service implementations, says Jens.
More about the thesis and the researcher
Jens Kirchner’s thesis is entitled “Context-Aware Optimized Service Selection with Focus on Consumer Preferences” and can be read in the DiVA publication database.
Jens went to university in order to study Business Information Systems and Computer Science. After finishing his diploma degree (equivalent to a Master's degree), he was offered to work in the new collaborative research project between Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences in Germany and Linnaeus University in Sweden. Jens finds it tempting to scientifically look on a topic or research problem from different sides and likes to try new and unknown things, which may lead to highly innovative and interesting experiences.
Contact
Jens Kirchner, jens.kirchner@lnu.se