Describing capabilities of internet data sources for information discovery and sharing

The Internet now makes it possible for people building complex applications by combining data and processes offered by different information systems available across the network. These data sources are normally with very diverse data structure and processing capabilities. In order for these systems to share information and collaborate with each other, they must be able to present their information and capabilities in such a way that they can be understood by other sources. In this paper, we investigate the issues in data sources description in terms of their contents and processing capabilities. We argue that the current research results in advertising data sources have limitations and propose a frame-work to overcome these limitations. We demonstrate that our approach will allow data sources to advertise their capabilities in both general and a specific way.