Several EUN portals now use a state of the art web application called AJAX. It is a JavaScript-based application which has taken the web by storm since its invention a year ago. For European Schoolnet’s development team, AJAX means more flexibility as it allows, among other things, the display of dynamic content on static HTML pages.
Among the latest application using the technology is Insight’s Library which displays, according to keywords relevant to the articles, entries from a server-based library of resources.
Static HTML pages are very convenient as they are quick to load and pages do not require time-consuming requests to a database server. The downside is that a static HTML page cannot display the latest news or the latest document added to a repository on-the-fly. AJAX, which stands for “Asynchronous JavaScript and XML”, can do just that. A tiny JavaScript application nested into the static HTML page fetches outputs from a server.
Currently, among the sites using AJAX is FIRE (fire.eun.org), EUN Federation of Internet Resources for Education. It is used to access and search learning resources in the repository. “Ajax allows us to display incoming results without reloading the page. Thus making the application more user friendly,” said Sylvia Hartinger, a developer in the EUN office. “Instead of recalculating and resending the whole dynamic page, the refreshed part can be added on the fly using AJAX. ”
Other sites using the tool include the Quality Foundation portal (www.qualityfoundation.org) and the project section of the Calibrate portal (calibrate.eun.org) for which Ajax increases user friendliness upon registration and editing of user profile
Sites:
http://insight.eun.org
http://www.qualityfoundation.org
http://calibrate.eun.org