The Anatomy of a Design Theory

Design work and design knowledge in Information Systems (IS) is important for both research and practice. Yet there has been comparatively little critical attention paid to the problem of specifying design theory so that it can be communicated, justified, and developed cumulatively. In this essay we focus on the structural components or anatomy of design theories in IS as a special class of theory. In doing so, we aim to extend the work of Walls, Widemeyer and El Sawy (1992) on the specification of information systems design theories (ISDT), drawing on other streams of thought on design research and theory to provide a basis for a more systematic and useable formulation of these theories. We identify eight separate components of design theories: (1) purpose and scope, (2) constructs, (3) principles of form and function, (4) artifact mutability, (5) testable propositions, (6) justificatory knowledge (kernel theories), (7) principles of implementation, and (8) an expository instantiation. This specification includes components missing in the Walls et al. adaptation of Dubin (1978) and Simon (1969) and also addresses explicitly problems associated with the role of instantiations and the specification of design theories for methodologies and interventions as well as for products and applications. The essay is significant as the unambiguous establishment of design knowledge as theory gives a sounder base for arguments for the rigor and legitimacy of IS as an applied discipline and for its continuing progress. A craft can proceed with the copying of one example of a design artifact by one artisan after another. A discipline cannot

Interface de visualisation innovante du Linked Data

Deux applications résultent de ce travail de Bachelor. La première est un outil utilisé pour extraire des données provenant du web sémantique. La deuxième application est capable de créer des visualisations en se basant sur des données au format JSON. L’outil d’administration est capable de récupérer des données issues de plusieurs points à la fois. Il permet à l’utilisateur de naviguer à l’intérieur de ces données et d’extraire les informations qu’il juge pertinentes. L’application de développement de visualisations importe des données avec lesquelles elle crée différentes visualisations. Par la suite, ces visualisations peuvent être déployées sur des sites internet et être consultées par les visiteurs. L’objectif principal de ces deux outils est de permettre d’utiliser les données appartenant au web sémantique d’une façon simple. Sans grande connaissance dans le domaine, l’utilisateur doit être en mesure de parcourir chacune des étapes jusqu’à la publication de visualisations

A method for creating digital signature policies.

Increased political pressures towards a more efficient public sector have resulted in the increased proliferation of electronic documents and associated technologies such as Digital Signatures. Whilst Digital Signatures provide electronic document security functions, they do not confer legal meaning of a signature which captures the conditions under which a signature can be deemed to be legally valid. Whilst in the paper-world this information is often communicated implicitly, verbally or through notes within the document itself, in the electronic world a technological tool is required to communicate this meaning; one such technological aid is the Digital Signature Policy. In a transaction where the legality of a signature must be established, a Digital Signature Policy can confer the necessary contextual information that is required to make such a judgment. The Digital Signature Policy captures information such as the terms to which a signatory wishes to bind himself, the actual legal clauses and acts being invoked by the process of signing, the conditions under which a signatory's signature is deemed legally valid and other such information. As this is a relatively new technology, little literature exists on this topic. This research was conducted in an Action Research collaboration with a Spanish Public Sector organisation that sought to introduce Digital Signature Policy technology; their specific research problem was that the production of Digital Signature Policies was time consuming, resource intensive, arduous and suffered from lack of quality. The research therefore sought to develop a new and improved method for creating Digital Signature Policies. The researcher collaborated with the problem owner, as is typical of Participative Action Research. The research resulted in the development of a number of Information Systems artefacts, the development of a method for creating Digital Signature Policies and finally led to a stage where the problem owner could successfully develop the research further without the researcher's further input

Fractal-based re-design

Engineering conceptual design is a knowledge-intensive process that generates solutions to a product specification. It is a process that can benefit from past experience of similar designs. In reality however, designers often have limited time to build up the necessary experience and are, in any event, unlikely to become experts in all relevant fields. Hence there is a need to capture, store and reuse valuable knowledge. Currently available conventional CAD systems offer limited possibilities for the re-use of existing designs. Techniques from the field of Artificial Intelligence (Al) may be applied to aid the conceptual design phase, which is known as the area of intelligent computer-aided design. The aim of this work is to identify and externalise design knowledge using a fractal-like model, to understand the role of design knowledge in conceptual design and to use design knowledge as a guide for every stage of concept development. This research provides a framework for supporting conceptual design, which uses the techniques of Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) and fractal theory, for reasoning about the design and development of computer-based design aids. The framework is comprised of three parts. The first is case representation. This research proposes a new representation technique, Fractal-like Design Modelling (FDM), which integrates design knowledge in a graph-based form and has fractal-specific characteristics. The second is case retrieval. Based on FDM, the similarity between a new design and the existing designs is assessed by concurrently applying a feature-based similarity measure and a structure-based similarity measure. The third is case adaptation. With the help of fractal characteristics, an approach of adaptive design is developed by performance revision and by goal-oriented substitution. These three parts work together to achieve an automated, case-based, conceptual design method: Fractal-Based Re-design.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Fractal-based re-design.

Engineering conceptual design is a knowledge-intensive process that generates solutions to a product specification. It is a process that can benefit from past experience of similar designs. In reality however, designers often have limited time to build up the necessary experience and are, in any event, unlikely to become experts in all relevant fields. Hence there is a need to capture, store and reuse valuable knowledge. Currently available conventional CAD systems offer limited possibilities for the re-use of existing designs. Techniques from the field of Artificial Intelligence (Al) may be applied to aid the conceptual design phase, which is known as the area of intelligent computer-aided design. The aim of this work is to identify and externalise design knowledge using a fractal-like model, to understand the role of design knowledge in conceptual design and to use design knowledge as a guide for every stage of concept development. This research provides a framework for supporting conceptual design, which uses the techniques of Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) and fractal theory, for reasoning about the design and development of computer-based design aids. The framework is comprised of three parts. The first is case representation. This research proposes a new representation technique, Fractal-like Design Modelling (FDM), which integrates design knowledge in a graph-based form and has fractal-specific characteristics. The second is case retrieval. Based on FDM, the similarity between a new design and the existing designs is assessed by concurrently applying a feature-based similarity measure and a structure-based similarity measure. The third is case adaptation. With the help of fractal characteristics, an approach of adaptive design is developed by performance revision and by goal-oriented substitution. These three parts work together to achieve an automated, case-based, conceptual design method: Fractal-Based Re-design