Information Outlook, April 2007

Volume 11, Issue 4https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2007/1003/thumbnail.jp

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Value Creation in a QoE Environment

User behavior of multimedia services currently undergoes strong changes. This is reflected in several recent trends, e.g. the increase of rich media content consumption, preferences for more individual and personalized services and the higher sensitivity of end users for quality issues. These changes will eventually lead to strong changes in network traffic characteristics: rising congestion in peak times and less availability of bandwidth for the individual user. As a result, the quality as perceived by the end-user will decrease if network operators and service providers do not anticipate the required changes for the network. Measurable network requirements such as available video and speech quality, security and reliability are addressed by technologies that are commonly summed up in the Quality of Service (QoS) concept. However, the end-users' perception of quality is only reflected in the wider concept of Quality of Experience (QoE). This takes the measurable network requirements into account as well as customer needs, wants and preferences. For the implementation of QoE technologies several network components need to be added or changed resulting in high capital expenditures. Yet, it is not clear if these costs can be compensated with efficiency increases. Thus, new revenue streams for the network operator are necessary to incentivize investments in QoE technologies. In this paper we address four new value creation models that can serve as basis for more elaborated business models for network operators and other actors. We show how interest in QoE of the user, the content provider, the service provider and the advertiser induces new revenue streams. These models are embedded in five possible future QoE scenarios that reveal regulation, end user quality sensibility and end-to-end support as major issues for the future. --Business Models,Quality of Experience (QoE),Quality of Service (QoS),Value Creation

Revealing the Vicious Circle of Disengaged User Acceptance: A SaaS Provider's Perspective

User acceptance tests (UAT) are an integral part of many different software engineering methodologies. In this paper, we examine the influence of UATs on the relationship between users and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications, which are continuously delivered rather than rolled out during a one-off signoff process. Based on an exploratory qualitative field study at a multinational SaaS provider in Denmark, we show that UATs often address the wrong problem in that positive user acceptance may actually indicate a negative user experience. Hence, SaaS providers should be careful not to rest on what we term disengaged user acceptance. Instead, we outline an approach that purposefully queries users for ambivalent emotions that evoke constructive criticism, in order to facilitate a discourse that favors the continuous innovation of a SaaS system. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our approach for the study of user engagement in testing SaaS applications

Diverse virtual social networks: Implications for remote software testing teams

This paper evaluates offshore outsourcing in the IT testing industry and determines what conditions determine its success. There is particular focus on the influence of diversity in teams on group relationships. Two studies are described: the first, investigated the perceptions of professional software testers on the critical factors of offshore outsourcing; and the second study looked at the ability for diverse teams to form close working relationships through virtual networks. We find that overt diversity factors inhibit interaction across nationality boundaries. The limitations of virtual networks for fostering personal communications is apparent in preventing group members from overcoming the initial aversion to mix with out-group members, which could be achieved with closer and more personal communications between members with different diversity factors in normal face to face communications. Where software testing teams are outsourced globaly, and must rely on virtual communications, there seems potential for significant difficulties in developing close working relationships, which on the one hand, can be negative for group cohesion, but one the other hand, can be positive for encouraging imparitality

Current trends in product lifecycle management

Efficient and effective Product Lifecycle Management, as an evolution and enhancement of Product Data Management, is of strategic importance for virtually any company. Hence, it is crucial for companies to analyze and evaluate recent trends in information technology (IT) and their implications on Product Lifecycle Management. In this paper, the results of an interdisciplinary study conducted by Siemens AG, a major international technologies firm, and two universities are presented. The study identifies four current trends in IT and then evaluates their potential implications on Product Lifecycle Management. Finally, the IT trends are ranked according to their short and medium term effects on Product Lifecycle Management.<br /

A social network approach in semantic web services selection using follow the leader behavior

Automatic discovery of web services is a crucial task for e-Business communities. Locating and selecting "the best" web service from a vast number of similar services that matches the user's requirements and preferences is a cognitive challenge and requires the use of an intelligent decision making framework. This paper develops a flexible ontological architecture and framework for Semantic Web Service Selection that exploits Goldbaum's innovative "Follow the Leader" model originally designed as an analytic tool for studying social network behavior and evolution. The framework proposes two new ontologies integrated in a recommender system, which guides a user to select the best service that matches their requirements and preferences. We test and evaluate several behaviors of market leader scenarios using a simulation agent. ©2009 IEEE

Analytical Social CRM: Concept and Tool Support

The Social Web offers new opportunities, such as direct market access, interactive customer contact or a better understanding of market demands, in the field of customer relationship management (CRM). Consequently, firms develop new strategies, processes and technologies to utilise the Social Web for their needs. From the perspective of CRM, the Social Web creates an opportunity to directly include customer knowledge and shape a field called Social CRM (SCRM). Even though methods and tools for data extraction and media monitoring are already available, the analytical requirements of SCRM and necessary functionalities are open for research. This research explores the role of analytical SCRM and examines available tools with the required functional and technological components. The findings show that existing tools still have a limited functional scope which makes a ‘best-of-breed’ approach necessary. Finally, a concept for an integrated analytical SCRM system is proposed that comprises necessary SCRM components