Software evolution in an interdisciplinary environment

At Durham, an interdisciplinary team has implemented the UK's first Web-centred database of adult mental health service provision (we regard interdisciplinary research to be taking place when two or more groups from different disciplines work together to solve a common problem). Like most applications, this is subject to evolution: the health service structure is changing rapidly, while feedback from domain users provides a constant source of improvements. One potential advantage of the database is that it offers potential to track and report on changes in service provision, although this must be implemented in the face of the substantial evolution. The main contribution of this paper is to reflect on the combination of domain drivers and evolution in software; we propose that a Web services solution will meet the needs of the former while minimizing the effort to implement the latter.