Role-Based Access Control for Model-Driven Web Applications

The Role-based Access Control (RBAC) model provides a safe and efficient way to manage access to information of an organization, while reducing the complexity and cost of security administration in large networked applications. However, Web Engineering frameworks that treat access control models as first-class citizens are still lacking so far. In this paper, we integrate the RBAC model in the design method of Semantic Web applications. More specifically, this work presents an extension of the SHDM method (Semantic Hypermedia Design Method), where these access control models were included and seamlessly integrated with the other models of this method. The proposed model allows the specification of semantic access control policies. SHDM is a model-driven approach to design Web applications for the Semantic Web. This extension was implemented in the Synth environment, which is an application development environment that supports designs using SHDM