Development and performance evaluation of a new RSS tool for a Web-based system: RSS_PROYECT

Abstract

The aim of this paper is the development, implementation and subsequent performance evaluation of an innovative tool called RSS_PROYECT, based on the RSS technology for content syndication. At the present, there are several Web content syndicators; although there is no one so far specifically designed for the search of news related to women in risk of social exclusion. They do not even have the characteristics and configuration level of the program syndicator RSS_PROYECT, presented in this paper.To obtain these contents, we used 2 filters (generic and selective), set up by the administrator from the module RSS_PROYECT installed in Joomla!. The generic filter allowed us to do a search of the words included in a series of sources indexed by the user. This filter showed all the sources that contained this word, without exception. In the selective filter, the condition on which the sources would appear would be that all the words of the selective filter were contained in the source.We used different languages such as PHP, MySQL, HTML, XML and Joomla's! Application Program Interface (API). Furthermore, we used the program, Firebug to measure the response speed of the module, both with the selective and generic filters. The results were favorable for the selective filter, and very favorable for the generic filter, concluding that the processing time was short and executed efficiently. Better average times were obtained for RSS_PROYECT with respect to other modules analysed in Joomla!. Nowadays, this tool is used by the Comprehensive Center for Women’s Help (Centro Integral de Ayuda a la Mujer, CIAM) of Valladolid, Spain.