George Mason University Receives Funding to Create an E-Center for E-Business

FAIRFAX, VA---To improve the way business is conducted over the web, George Mason University will soon establish an E-Center for E-Business. The proposed center will investigate, describe, and develop ways to analyze, design, and implement e-commerce processes. Specifically, it will

• assess how e-commerce sites carry their workload,
• measure the performance of software in e-business sites,
• determine how resources might be better allocated and how e-commerce sites can be built to grow with demand,
• and explore security and privacy in e-business in order to secure objects and transactions. 

The proposed center is made possible primarily through the support of the Virginia Center for Innovative Technology, and through generous gifts from Computer Sciences Corporation, Global Infotek, iSharp, Lockheed Martin, the National Reconnaissance Office, NobleStar, Omni Systems, Oracle, Vistronix, and webMethods.

“Success in today’s highly competitive e-commerce and e-business environments,” says Lloyd Griffiths, Dean of Mason's School of Information Technology and Engineering (IT&E), where the E-Center will be located, “is based on the creation of imaginative new software systems. Our E-Center will provide the tools and systems for Internet success, not just once, but again and again.”

IT&E professors Larry Kerschberg and Daniel Menascé will co-direct the proposed center. Larry Kerschberg teaches information systems engineering and knowledge management and specializes in intelligent search and agent-based systems. Most recently, he has been working on an intelligent search agent called WebSifter that helps users formulate queries and sift through results to find pages most closely associated with their interests. Menascé teaches computer science and specializes in scalability,
e-commerce technologies, and web-based learning. He just had a book, Scaling for E-Business, published by Prentice Hall this summer. “We decided to create the E-Center because most companies do not have the time and human resources to embark on research that would help them remain competitive,” explains Menascé. “The E-Center will provide research results, access to highly qualified graduates, and cooperation on common problems.”

Initially, the E-Center will establish an e-business test-bed at George Mason University that mimics the multi-layer architecture of complex e-business sites. Then the researchers will develop methodologies to map e-business requirements and reusable architectural templates. Projects on the characterization of e-commerce workloads; performance measurement of e-business sites; and agent-based B2B resource searches, allocation, and integration are already well underway, even while the center is in the approval process. Once it is officially established, the E-Center will organize annual research workshops and publish a series of technical reports for its sponsors. It will use curricula, courses,
certificate programs, and eventually student internships with companies to further its goal of revolutionizing e-business. According to Kerschberg, “The E-Center will help Northern Virginia, the veritable capital of B2B, and Internet users around the world harness the power of the Internet.”

For more information, contact Gabrielle DeFord (gdeford@gmu.edu) at 703-993-1520.