Web 2.0 applications in the workplace: How to ensure their proper use?

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate about the role of Web 2.0 applications (e.g., Facebook™ and Instagram™) in the workplace. Indeed, misuse cases of these applications are on the rise and many enterprises still have concerns with their real benefits and values and thus, have been reluctant to adopting them. This paper addresses these concerns by developing restrictions over the social actions that Web 2.0 applications allow users to perform. These restrictions permit to limit for instance, the number of times a social action is performed, the content of a social action, and the recipient of a social action. The restrictions are specified in UML Object Constraint Language and enforced through a run-time monitoring that permits to detect violations. This paper, also, presents an implementation of restrictions over Hangouts™ as an illustrative Web 2.0 application.