Community
One of the benefits of YAWL being an open source initiative is that it is open to anyone interested in contributing to furthering YAWL and its support environment. On this page we discuss some ways of becoming involved in the YAWL initiative.
The YAWL environment is a complex piece of software. The engine supports parallel and distributed work processes and allows users to recover from crashes. The editor supports graphical specifcation of complex processes and incorporates XML technologies such as XPath, XQuery and XML Schema. These XML technologies are also exploited by the automated form generation component. All in all there is a lot of scope for unexpected behaviour and we always appreciate receiving feedback from users experiencing problems with the YAWL environment. As other users may experience similar problems, we encourage the use of our mailing lists for reporting purposes. Everyone can then benefit from discussions around these problems (and other users may be able to help you as well!).
Though we have made a concerted effort to provide documentation for the YAWL environment, e.g. user and installation manuals, there always is scope for improvement. In particular, we are interested in documentation of real case studies developed with the YAWL system, detailed descriptions of the various interfaces, detailed explanations of the YAWL environment and language for novel users (particularly wrt modelling) etc
Even more ambitious could be the development of course material for YAWL. An option specifically for programmers is to help javadoc the source code.
We welcome anyone who is willing to spread the word about YAWL. Note that we are not seeking evangelists. Instead we are interested in people that have a real understanding and appreciation of the YAWL environment and its language.
Publicity could take the form of dedicated web pages, online discussions, entries in blogs, courses, workshops etc. Let us know if you have any ideas.
Bug fixes could potentially save us quite a bit of time and we appreciate it very much when they are made available to us. Also, the YAWL environment has a service-oriented architecture which we claim should make it quite flexible in terms of the addition of new functionality. In particular through the concept of custom YAWL services. As there is quite a bit of ongoing development it may be wise to contact us if you wish to contribute any new functionality to the environment. Perhaps we could set up a joint subproject or provide feedback where required. There are also a growing number of simple items that are not core functionality that developers could tackle as they become more familiar with the environment. A list of such items can be made available on request.
Naturally, we are also quite interested in making YAWL available in different settings. Any development to extend the potential application of the environment using other technologies/paradigms than currently in use is encouraged by us.
We would like to make a real impact with YAWL, not only in industry but also in academia. To this end, it would be great if YAWL is deemed to be a good language for illustrating essential workflow/BPM concepts to students. YAWL could be used in "normal" lectures, but also in a seminar/workshop setting. We appreciate learning about any use of YAWL in teaching and experiences gained along the way.
The above list is probably not exhaustive. Contact us if you have any ideas about contributing to the YAWL initiative. |
