Trustworthy Web Services: An Experience-Based Model for Trustworthiness Evaluation

Web service technology enables seamless integration of different software to fulfill dynamic business demands in a platform-neutral fashion. However, the adoption of loosely-coupled and distributed services will cause trustworthiness problems. In this article, we present an experience-based evaluation of service's trustworthiness based on trust experience (understanding) and trust requirements (policy). We utilize ontology to specify past experiences of services and trustworthy requirements of the requester. Before invoking found services, the addressed method can help the requester evaluate the trustworthiness of the services based on his or her trustworthy requirements and past experiences of the services. Furthermore, we also present an evaluation method for composite services by taking the structure of the composite services into account. The main contribution of the paper is providing evaluation methods for Web services such that the service requester can make better decisions in selecting found services in terms of service's trustworthiness. © 2007, IGI Global. All rights reserved.