Advanced eGovernment Information Service Bus (eGov-Bus)

The eGov-Bus project provides citizens and businesses with improved access to virtual public services, which are based on existing national eGovernment Web services and which support cross-border life events. Requirements and specific rules of these life events are considered, and personalization of user preferences is supported. eGov-Bus is based on adaptable process management technologies, allowing for virtual services which are dynamically combined from existing national eGovernment services. In this way, a comprehensive workflow process is set up, allowing for service-level agreements, an audit trail and explanation of the process to the end user. The eGov-Bus process engine operates on top of a virtual repository, providing a high-level semantic view of information retrieved from heterogeneous information sources, such as eGovernment Web services. Further, eGov-Bus relies on a security framework to ensure all high-level security requirements are met. The eGov-Bus architecture is business oriented, it focuses on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) concepts, asynchronously combining Web services and providing a Service Bus.Frameworks and Guidelines, eGovernment Ontologies, Admininistrative Process Design, Life Events, Web Services, Service Bus Integration

Medical Virtual Public Services

The healthcare enterprises are very disconnected. This paper intends to propose a solution that will provide citizens, businesses and medical enterprises with improved access to medical virtual public services. Referred medical services are based on existing national medical Web services and which support medically required services provided by physicians and supplementary health care practitioners, laboratory services and diagnostic procedures, clinics and hospitals’ services. Requirements and specific rules of these medical services are considered, and personalization of user preferences will to be supported. The architecture is based on adaptable process management technologies, allowing for virtual services which are dynamically combined from existing national medical services. In this way, a comprehensive workflow process is set up, allowing for service-level agreements, an audit trail and explanation of the process to the end user. The process engine operates on top of a virtual repository, providing a high-level semantic view of information retrieved from heterogeneous information sources, such as national sources of medical services. The system relies on a security framework to ensure all high-level security requirements are met. System’s architecture is business oriented: it focuses on Service Oriented Architecture - SOA concepts, asynchronously combining Web services, Business Process Management – BPM rules and BPEL standards.Business Process Management, Service Oriented Architecture, Application Integration, Web services, information technologies, virtual repository, database.

Developing an Instrument for Measuring Electronic Shopping Service Quality: E-SQUAL

In contrast to service quality in traditional facilities (e.g., stores, restaurants, clinics) that enjoyed an extensive research during the last 20 years and resulted in a solid base for service quality measurement and management, service quality that is delivered via the web, termed here electronic service quality, lacks maturity. The present study develops and validates an instrument for measuring electronic service quality of online shopping sites. Using two independent datasets, a conceptual framework of e-service quality is proposed and empirically tested. This research develops an E-SQUAL scale consisting of six dimensions: information quality, web usability, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and personalization. The developed scale demonstrates strong psychometric properties in terms of reliability and validity. Conclusion, implications and limitations of the study are presented

Customer Relationship Management and Service Quality: a qualitative study

This study examined customer relationship management effectiveness and Service quality on international customers in a single University in the UK higher education sector. We adopted the qualitative research design with focus group interview approach. Focus group discussions were carried out with twelve purposively sample units of analysis from the case University. The study primary data was analysed using thematic template technique with Nvivo 10. The study found that the CRM programme of the case University is effective following the various students‟ oriented social and academic programs. Findings also showed that its CRM program influenced international students‟ satisfaction and positive advocacy behaviour. The study found six emerging themes for evaluating customer relationship management effectiveness in the higher education sector. Thus, recommended the need for strategic policy makers in the higher education sector to enhance investments on building stronger customer relationship management infrastructure.KEYWORDS: Customer Relationship Management, Service Quality, Qualitative Stud

Personalizable Service Discovery in Pervasive Systems

Today, telecom providers are facing changing challenges. To stay ahead in the competition and provide market leading offerings, carriers need to enable a global ecosystem of third party independent application developers to deliver converged services. This is the aim of leveraging a open standardsbased service delivery platform. To identify and to cope with those challenges is the main target of the EU funded project IST DAIDALOS II. And a central point to satisfy the changing user needs is the provision of a well working, user friendly and personalized service discovery. This paper describes our work in the project on a middleware in a framework for pervasive service usage. We have designed an architecture for it, that enables full transparency to the user, grants high compatibility and extendability by a modular and pluggable conception and allows for interoperability with most known service discovery protocols. Our Multi-Protocol Service Discovery and the Four Phases Service Filtering concept enabling personalization should allow for the best possible results in service discovery

Adapting e-learning and learning services for people with disabilities

Providing learning materials and support services that are adapted to the needs of individuals has the potential to enable learners to obtain maximal benefit from university level studies. This paper describes EU4ALL project which has been exploring how to present customized learning materials and services for people with disabilities. A number of the technical components of the EU4ALL framework are described. This is followed with a brief description of prototype implementations. This is then followed by a discussion of a number of research directions that may enhance the adaptability, usability and accessibility of information and support systems can be used and consumed by a diverse user population

Business Modeling Framework For Personalization In Mobile Business Services

Is presented the structure of a formal framework for personalizationfeatures for mobile business services, which can be used to drive thebusiness modeling of M-business services from a service provider pointof view. It also allows to compute the revenue as linked topersonalization levels and features. A case study has been performedin the area of personalized location based mobile servicespersonalization;individual profiles;location based services;mobile business;mobile services

The simplicity project: easing the burden of using complex and heterogeneous ICT devices and services

As of today, to exploit the variety of different "services", users need to configure each of their devices by using different procedures and need to explicitly select among heterogeneous access technologies and protocols. In addition to that, users are authenticated and charged by different means. The lack of implicit human computer interaction, context-awareness and standardisation places an enormous burden of complexity on the shoulders of the final users. The IST-Simplicity project aims at leveraging such problems by: i) automatically creating and customizing a user communication space; ii) adapting services to user terminal characteristics and to users preferences; iii) orchestrating network capabilities. The aim of this paper is to present the technical framework of the IST-Simplicity project. This paper is a thorough analysis and qualitative evaluation of the different technologies, standards and works presented in the literature related to the Simplicity system to be developed

On the Personalization of Personal Networks - Service Provision Based on User Profiles

In this paper, we present a user profile definition scheme featuring context awareness. Though the scheme has been designed to meet the needs of web applications deployed over heterogeneous devices, emphasis is given in the deployment of the profile scheme over Personal Networks (PNs), as the personalization of the deployed applications and services in PN environments is of great importance. The proposed scheme is presented as part of an integrated framework for user profile management that takes into account (and is therefore compliant to) the existing standardization attempts. The overall architecture and description of the profile management framework, taking into account security issues inside Personal Networks, is presented. The paper concludes by showcasing how user profiles have been incorporated in a selected pilot service of the EU IST research project MAGNET Beyond