Metamodeling to Control and Audit E-Commerce Web Applications

  • Authors:

  • Shi-Ming Huang;Jing-Shiuan Hua;Hartmut Will;Jhen-Wei Wu

  • Affiliations:

  • Research Center of E-Manufacturing and E-Commerce, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan;National Chung Cheng University;University of Victoria in Canada;Deloitte & Touche Enterprise Risk Services

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Electronic Commerce
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

With the increasing popularity of e-commerce, the growth potential of business is extraordinary; however, the path toward success can also be dangerous because of problems of quality control, security breaches, and e-service failures. One of the problems is that business managers generally lack sufficient assurance that the controls over e-processes are effective and efficient and that information announced to customers is correct and reliable. Powerful metamodeling is therefore required. The objective of this research is to develop an e-process audit mechanism by applying automatic model checking to check consistency between e-process flows implemented and those originally designed; to detect errors in the structure and contents of Web applications; and to assist the internal control and assurance managers with their frequent monitoring of the internal controls of Web applications. A prototype has been developed to evaluate the feasibility of the mechanism and has been applied in a real e-commerce case. The results show that it proved useful for the internal control and assurance purposes in the case company.