Web services

Web services are software services that are offered via the Internet. One of their main advantages is the fact that since they are based on open communication standards they are independedent of any specific computing architecture.

The Det application is a standalone Java application designed with offline functionality in mind. Entering observations in a survey can happen on any workstation regardless of Internet availability.

To promote usability the DET is Internet enabled which means that it can use Web services for the following functions:

  1. Retrieving a new survey
  2. Sending the observations back for a finished survey

Both of these functions are available via the application menus. While they both require internet access, the data transfer is completely transparent to the user.

See also:

Starting a survey
Sending the finished dataset