Early Requirements and Business-IT Alignment with SEAM for Business

The early requirements of an IT system should be aligned with the organization’s business imperatives. To understand these imperatives it is necessary to understand the organization’s position within its environment. SEAM for Business is a method designed for analyzing the competitive environment of an organization, including its relationships with its customers, partners, and market regulators. From this analysis, the main requirements of the IT systems can be inferred. We illustrate the use of SEAM for Business with a real project aimed at redesigning the website of a consulting company

Systemic classification of concern-based design methods in the context of enterprise architecture

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a relatively new domain that is rapidly developing. "The primary reason for developing EA is to support business by providing the fundamental technology and process structure for an IT strategy” [TOGAF]. EA models have to model enterprises facets that span from marketing to IT. As a result, EA models tend to become large. Large EA models create a problem for model management. Concern-based design methods (CBDMs) aim to solve this problem by considering EA models as a composition of smaller, manageable parts—concerns. There are dozens of different CBDMs that can be used in the context of EA: from very generic methods to specific methods for business modeling or IT implementations. This variety of methods can cause two problems for those who develop and use innovative CBDMs in the field of Enterprise Architecture (EA). The first problem is to choose specific CBDMs that can be used in a given EA methodology: this is a problem for researchers who develop their own EA methodology. The second problem is to find similar methods (with the same problem domain or with similar frameworks) in order to make a comparative analysis with these methods: this is a problem of researchers who develop their own CBDMs related to a specific problem domain in EA (such as business process modeling or aspect oriented programming). We aim to address both of these problems by means of a definition of generic Requirements for CBDMs based on the system inquiry. We use these requirements to classify twenty CBDMs in the context of EA. We conclude with a short discussion about trends that we have observed in the field of concern-based design and modelin

Learning Outcomes at the Open University

This report describes the background, role, use of and support for learning outcomes at The Open University, UK (OU), which defines them as: A learning outcome is a statement of what a student is expected to know, understand and be able to do at the end of a module or qualification. All modules and qualifications have learning outcomes which explicitly describe the learning central to that study and to which the award of credit and qualifications is linked. Learning outcomes are intended to empower students by clearly setting out the expected achievements of study. Central to this definition is the need to offer opportunities for students to develop and demonstrate the knowledge, skills and other cognitive achievements they describe

Англійська мова для навчання і работи. Навчальний посібник з англійської мови за професійним спрямуванням для студентів і фахівців галузі знань 0503 Розробка корисних копалин Т 1

A coursebook includes all the activities of students’ work at ESP course aimed at development of language behaviour necessary for effective communication of students in their study and specialism areas. The tasks and activities given in the coursebook are typicalfor students’ academic and professional domains and situations. The content is organized in modules that covers generic job-related language skills of engineers. The authentic texts taken from real life contain interesting up-to-date information about mining, peculiarities of study abroad, customs and traditions of English-speaking countries. Pack of self-study resources given in Part II contains Glossary of mining terms, tasks and activities aimed at developing a range of vocabulary necessary for mining, different functions and functional exponents to be used in academic and professional environment as well as tasks developing self-awareness, self-assessment and self-organisation skills. Testing points for different grammar structuresare given in Part III. Indices at the end of each part easify the use of the coursebook. The coursebook contains illustrations, various samples of visualizing technical information. The coursebook is designed for ESP students of non-linguistic universities. It can be used as teaching/learning materials for ESP Courses for Mining Engineers as well as for self-study of subject and specialist teachers, practicing mining engineers and researchers in Engineering.У посібнику представлені всі види діяльності студентів з вивчення англійської мови, спрямовані на розвиток мовної поведінки, необхідної для ефективного спілкування в академічному та професійному середовищах. Навчальний посібник містить завдання і вправи, типові для різноманітних академічних та професійних сфер і ситуацій. Структура організації змісту– модульна і охоплює загальні мовленнєві вміння інженерів. Зразки текстів– автентичні, взяті з реального життя, містять цікаву та актуальну інформацію про видобувничу промисловість, особливості навчання за кордоном, традиції та звичаї країн, мова яких вивчається. Ресурси для самостійної роботи(Том ІІ) містять глосарій термінів, завдання та вправи для розвитку словарного запасу та розширення діапазону функціональних зразків, необхідних для виконання певних функцій, та завдання, які спрямовані на розвиток навичок самооцінювання і організації свого навчання. Граматичні явища і вправи для їх засвоєння наводяться в томі ІІІ. Наприкінці кожної частини наведено алфавітно-предметні покажчики. Багато ілюстрацій та різних візуальних засобів подання інформації. Навчальний посібник призначений для студентів технічних університетів гірничого профілю. Може використовуватися для самостійного вивчення англійської мови викладачами, фахівцями і науковцями різних інженерних галузей

Implementing the Affordable Care Act: Key Design Decisions for State-Based Exchanges

The Affordable Care Act requires the establishment of new health insurance marketplaces -- known as exchanges -- in every state by October 1, 2013. This report examines key design decisions made by the 17 states and the District of Columbia that chose to establish a state-based exchange. The analysis finds that states made significant progress in structuring their exchanges, with states varying in their design decisions. Many states expect to exceed some federal requirements -- to collect and display quality data, for instance -- for 2014. These findings suggest that states capitalized on the flexibility provided by the Affordable Care Act to tailor their exchanges to their unique needs and made decisions with an eye towards outcomes, such as enrollment, consumer experience, and sustainability. These findings also suggest that states' initial decisions will inform future exchange implementation and that states will adjust their decisions while continuing to adopt innovative approaches to accomplish policy goals

Experimenting a Modeling Approach for Designing Organization's Strategies in the Context of Strategic Alignment

National audienceAligning information systems (IS) to businesses hasrecently become a top-level concern in organizations.Several activities can be undertaken to deal withstrategic alignment: elaboration of key indicators,target definition, monitoring, analysis, impactpropagation etc. Working on strategic alignment, orcorrespondence between business and IS, requires torepresent and document these two elements. Indeed,documenting strategy is necessary to evaluate the ISability to satisfy the fundamental requirements oforganizations. Different works have demonstrated thatevaluating, documenting and analyzing IS alignmentcalls for modeling the elements to align. In the contextof strategic alignment, the problem is that there arevery few modeling techniques available to documentorganizations' strategic objectives with the level offormality needed to achieve this task. Within these few,even fewer are compatible with the ones used to defineIS functionalities. This paper explores the usability ofa goal modeling technique, already used in ISengineering, to model organization's strategy and tofacilitate strategic alignment analysis. An applicationexample is given, based on the well-known SevenEleven Japan case study

E-COMMERCE IN AGRICULTURE: DEVELOPMENT, STRATEGY, AND MARKET IMPLICATIONS

Marketing,

Blurring Boundaries: Transforming Place, Policies, and Partnerships for Postsecondary Education Attainment in Metropolitan Areas

By 2020, more than six out of 10 U.S. jobs will require postsecondary training. Despite a slight increase in college attainment nationally in recent years, the fastest-growing minority groups are being left behind. Only 25 and 18 percent of Blacks and Hispanics, respectively, hold at least an associate's degree, compared with 39 percent of Whites. Without substantial increases in educational attainment, particularly for our nation's already underserved groups, the United States will have a difficult time developing a robust economy.Home to 65 percent of Americans, and a majority of all African Americans and Hispanics (74 and 79 percent, respectively), the 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) can play a strong role in developing this nation's workforce. In fact, to reach a national attainment target that meets our workforce needs, more than half of college degrees could be generated from the these cities. The majority of degrees needed among African-American and Hispanic adults could also be produced in MSAs.Clearly, investing in and organizing around the potential of metropolitan areas is critical, and the stakes have never been higher. Yet the current funding climate requires strategic public and private partnerships to invest in education innovation and human capital development in order to have the most robust impact on sustainable national growth. For this study, the Institute for Higher Education (IHEP) sought to follow up on its previous work examining MSA educational attainment rates by further exploring policies that either inhibit or facilitate degree production, and identifying metropolitan-level, cross-section collaborations that help local leaders contribute to national completion goals