Groupware and the simulation consultant

The paper recognises that good communication and interaction are key factors to the success of a simulation project and suggests that groupware technology can increase the chances of success. To underline this, the paper reviews the process of simulation to illustrate the amount of communication and interaction that must take place during a simulation project. The paper then discusses computer supported cooperative work and groupware, a research field and information technology that has successfully supported communication and interaction in other industries. To illustrate how groupware may by used by the simulation consultant, net-conferencing, exemplified by Microsoft's NetMeeting, is presented. The paper ends with some observations on the future of these applications in simulation modelling

Harnessing Intellectual Resources in a Collaborative Context to Create Value

The value of electronic collaboration has arisen as successful organisations recognize that they need to convert their intellectual resources into customized services. The shift from personal computing to interpersonal or collaborative computing has given rise to ways of working that may bring about better and more effective use of intellectual resources. Current efforts in managing knowledge have concentrated on producing; sharing and storing knowledge while business problems require the combined use of these intellectual resources to enable organisations to provide innovative and customized services. In this chapter the collaborative context is developed using a model for electronic collaboration through the use of which organisations may mobilse collaborative technologies and intellectual resources towards achieving joint effect.electronic collaboration;value creation;collaborative computing;knowledge management and intellectual resources

Harnessing Intellectual Resources in a Collaborative Context to Create Value

The value of electronic collaboration has arisen as successful organisations recognize that they need to convert their intellectual resources into customized services. The shift from personal computing to interpersonal or collaborative computing has given rise to ways of working that may bring about better and more effective use of intellectual resources. Current efforts in managing knowledge have concentrated on producing; sharing and storing knowledge while business problems require the combined use of these intellectual resources to enable organisations to provide innovative and customized services. In this chapter the collaborative context is developed using a model for electronic collaboration through the use of which organisations may mobilse collaborative technologies and intellectual resources towards achieving joint effect

Construction informatics in Turkey: strategic role of ICT and future research directions

Construction Informatics deals with subjects ranging from strategic management of ICTs to interoperability and information integration in the construction industry. Studies on defining research directions for Construction Informatics have a history over 20 years. The recent studies in the area highlight the priority themes for Construction Informatics research as interoperability, collaboration support, intelligent sites and knowledge sharing. In parallel, today it is widely accepted in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry that ICT is becoming a strategic asset for any organisation to deliver business improvement and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. However, traditionally the AEC industry has approached investing in ICT with a lack of strategic focus and low level of priority to the business. This paper presents a recent study from Turkey that is focused on two themes. The first theme investigates the strategic role of ICT implementations from an industrial perspective, and explores if organisations within the AEC industry view ICT as a strategic resource for their business practice. The second theme investigates the ‘perspective of academia’ in terms of future research directions of Construction Informatics. The results of the industrial study indicates that ICT is seen as a value-adding resource, but a shift towards the recognition of the importance of ICT in terms of value adding in winning work and achieving strategic competitive advantage is observed. On the other hand, ICT Training is found to be the theme of highest priority from the academia point of view

Construction informatics in Turkey: strategic role of ICT and future research directions

Construction Informatics deals with subjects ranging from strategic management of ICTs to interoperability and information integration in the construction industry. Studies on defining research directions for Construction Informatics have a history over 20 years. The recent studies in the area highlight the priority themes for Construction Informatics research as interoperability, collaboration support, intelligent sites and knowledge sharing. In parallel, today it is widely accepted in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry that ICT is becoming a strategic asset for any organisation to deliver business improvement and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. However, traditionally the AEC industry has approached investing in ICT with a lack of strategic focus and low level of priority to the business. This paper presents a recent study from Turkey that is focused on two themes. The first theme investigates the strategic role of ICT implementations from an industrial perspective, and explores if organisations within the AEC industry view ICT as a strategic resource for their business practice. The second theme investigates the ‘perspective of academia’ in terms of future research directions of Construction Informatics. The results of the industrial study indicates that ICT is seen as a value-adding resource, but a shift towards the recognition of the importance of ICT in terms of value adding in winning work and achieving strategic competitive advantage is observed. On the other hand, ICT Training is found to be the theme of highest priority from the academia point of view

Managing Knowledge in a Distributed Decision Making Context

This paper considers the role of electronic communication in the creation and distribution of knowledge, and in particular, the creation and sharing of personalised knowledge. Personalised knowledge or "intellectual capital" is perhaps a least understood but most important asset of modern organisations. This paper reveals the creation and sharing of personalised knowledge in a network organisation. The network organisation investigated in this paper relies on electronic communication in a distributed decision making context to leverage the skills and intellect of its key professionals. This paper investigates electronic group meetings that take place on this electronic social space to analyse key processes of knowledge creation. Implications for managing distributed personalised knowledge are discussed and conclusions drawn with respect to the key decision support systems functionalities required for managing knowledge in situations where decision making is distributed and takes place on an electronic social space.Personalised Knowledge;c entrality;communication infrastructure;distributed decision support;electronic social space;prestige

CEPE: a cooperative editor for processes elicitation

Companies nonnally hire extemal consultants to carry out their Business Process Re-engineering. While this can be straightforward in the short tenn, it does not produce the desired result on the mid and long tenns. A low leveI of workers' involvement with a consequent resistance to changes, and a continuous dependency on extemal consultancy are the main drawbacks. We propose an altemative approach to BPR, specifically to Workflow Design, where company workers play an active and important role in re-designing the organization's processes in a cooperative style. The paper describes the essence of a BPR method based on participatory design and stepwise refinement, which we believe, will generate better results than the traditional approach. We also present CEPE -Cooperative Editor for Processes Elicitation -, which is a cooperative graphic editor that supports the processes knowledge building. That is the second phase of the proposed method

Research Questions Guiding Selection of an Appropriate Research Method

Research objects and research outcomes are proposed to act as a guide to select a proper research method. We, however, recommend that the research question as the essential factor of the research process should guide selection. Based on this idea we here develop taxonomy of research approaches with six categories. Taxonomy is then compared with three other classifications of research methods by using the comprehensiveness, parsimony and usefulness criteria