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

Information Outlook, August 2007

Volume 11, Issue 8https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2007/1007/thumbnail.jp

Information Outlook, September 2008

Volume 12, Issue 9https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2008/1008/thumbnail.jp

Untangling the Web: A Guide To Internet Research

[Excerpt] Untangling the Web for 2007 is the twelfth edition of a book that started as a small handout. After more than a decade of researching, reading about, using, and trying to understand the Internet, I have come to accept that it is indeed a Sisyphean task. Sometimes I feel that all I can do is to push the rock up to the top of that virtual hill, then stand back and watch as it rolls down again. The Internet—in all its glory of information and misinformation—is for all practical purposes limitless, which of course means we can never know it all, see it all, understand it all, or even imagine all it is and will be. The more we know about the Internet, the more acute is our awareness of what we do not know. The Internet emphasizes the depth of our ignorance because our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite. My hope is that Untangling the Web will add to our knowledge of the Internet and the world while recognizing that the rock will always roll back down the hill at the end of the day

Proceedings of the Fifth Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems: Professional Development Consortium

Collection of position statements of doctoral students and junior faculty in the Professional Development Consortium at the the Fifth Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems, Tel Aviv - Yafo

Teaching with style: computer aided instruction, personality and design education

The investigation reported in this thesis concerns the possibility of automatically matching the learning styles of design students with appropriate styles of computer aided instruction (CAl). Individual adult learners exhibit preferences for the way information is presented and for the ways in which they are taught. These preferences arise from characteristics known as cognitive styles which are associated with personality. Cognitive dissonance occurs when there is a mismatch between styles of teaching and styles of learning. Under these conditions some students will be discouraged. A survey of students on typical design courses showed them to have particular learning preferences. In this respect they are differentiated from tutors who may prefer to teach in a different style. CAl systems also exhibit styles. These are manifest in features such as the computer's control of learning interactions and the form of information which the system delivers. Computer-based training has often been of a sequential, drill-andpractice kind which encourages rote learning. This style has met with limited success, and it is shown to be unsuitable for most design students. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is used to classify the psychological types of design students. Evidence of learning preferences from the MBTI and from related sources is given. From a theoretical description of learning episodes, a computer-based model is developed that provides CAl treatments matched to sixteen learning styles. It is concluded that CAl-based teaching of technological information to design students can be more optimally matched. The principles established have wider implications for communications between designers and others

Influence of incentive policy in the alignment of business and information technology

Tese de Doutoramento (Tecnologias e Sistemas de Informação)Os executivos de topo de muitas das maiores empresas mundiais estão hoje conscientes de que as novas tecnologias estão a redefinir as cadeias de valor e que as suas empresas precisam de permanecer atentas para continuarem relevantes no mercado. Os negócios modernos precisam de articular as necessidades do negócio com tecnologias de informação (TI) inovadoras. De facto, a necessidade de um melhor alinhamento entre o negócio e as TI tem sido continuamente considerado como uma das maiores preocupações que executivos de topo de TI enfrentam. Esta preocupação é talvez apoiada na convicção, suportada em um número significativo de estudos, de que um melhor alinhamento pode influenciar positivamente o desempenho do negócio. Na verdade, este alinhamento é considerado uma das áreas mais importantes da governação das TI e a sua importância é reconhecida e abordada por alguns dos mais importantes normativos das TI, como o COBIT, o ITIL ou o TOGAF. Embora o alinhamento tenha sido abordado por muitos estudos no passado, a preocupação constante com ele na última década sugere que não tem havido progresso suficiente sobre esta questão. Por outro lado, o alinhamento é feito por pessoas. E, quanto mais as pessoas estiverem motivadas nas organizações, mais e melhor elas trabalham. A influência que os incentivos de alguns gestores têm no seu comportamento e, assim, na sua atividade e produtividade profissional tem sido bastante abordada na literatura. Na verdade, é habitual as empresas darem pacotes de incentivos aos seus gestores, desejavelmente concebidos para serem alinhados com os objetivos organizacionais. Este trabalho investigou a influência de políticas de incentivo na promoção de um melhor alinhamento. Além da revisão da literatura mais importante sobre estas duas áreas, foi proposto um novo modelo que relaciona o incentivo com o alinhamento do negócio e das TI. É proposto e aplicado um novo instrumento para medir o nível de incentivo de uma organização e também adaptado e aplicado um instrumento existente para medir o nível de alinhamento. Após algumas fases prévias, como pré-teste e teste piloto, os instrumentos foram aplicados na amostra completa, através duma plataforma de inquéritos online. A amostra, provida pela Informa Dun & Bradstreet, foi expandida com base na rede social LinkedIn, suportada no método "bola de neve”, que ajuda o estudo de populações difíceis de alcançar. Foram recolhidas respostas de mais de quatro centenas de gestores de negócio e TI, de mais de duas centenas de médias e grandes empresas portuguesas, representando, ao que se sabe, o inquérito mais vasto já feito em Portugal sobre alinhamento. O modelo, de componentes hierárquicas, foi estimado usando um modelo de equações estruturais (SEM) com a técnica dos mínimos quadrados parciais (PLS). A confiabilidade e validade do modelo de medida (reflexivo) foram garantidas depois de descartados alguns indicadores. A avaliação dos componentes de ordem superior do modelo (formativo) foi assegurada por uma sólida validação de conteúdo dos constructos “incentivo” e “alinhamento”. Os resultados principais são apresentados, discutidos e interpretados através de vários ângulos, respetivamente, a área funcional dos respondentes, o seu género, a sua geração, a atividade económica das empresas, por cada variável manifesta do incentivo e alinhamento e dimensão das empresas. Por fim, os resultados do modelo proposto são discutidos e interpretados. Ao propor uma explicação do alinhamento com uma única variável, o incentivo, este é talvez um dos modelos mais parcimoniosos do alinhamento apresentados até agora. Este estudo também permite suportar aquele que é, talvez, o seu maior contributo, que é facto do incentivo explicar a maior parte do alinhamento. Algumas recomendações para a prática e para investigação futura são ainda propostas.The chief executive officers from many of world’s largest companies are aware that new technologies are redefining value chains and that companies need to remain aware to remain relevant in the market. The modern businesses need to articulate business needs with innovative information technologies. In fact, business and IT alignment (BIA) has been continually considered as one of most important concerns that top IT executives face. This concern is probably supported on the conviction, sustained on a significant number of studies, that achieving a better alignment can positively influence business performance. Actually, this alignment is considered one of most important areas of IT governance and its importance is recognized and addressed by some of most important IT frameworks, as COBIT, ITIL or TOGAF. Although alignment has been focused by numerous researches in the past, the ongoing concern with it in the last decade suggests that there was not been sufficient progress in addressing this issue. Still, the allignment is made by people. And, the more people are motivated in organizations, the more and better they work. The influence that incentives have on managers behaviour and, thus, on their professional activity and productivity has been widely addressed in the literature. Indeed, it is a common practice among companies giving packages of incentives to their executives, desirably designed in order to be aligned with organization objectives. This work investigated the influence of incentive policies to promote a better alignment. Besides reviewing most important literature about these two areas, this study proposes a new model that relates the incentive with the alignment of business and IT. It proposed and applied a new instrument to measure the incentive maturity of an organization and it also adapted and applied an existing instrument to measure the alignment maturity. After some preceding phases, as pretesting and pilot testing, the instruments were administered on a full scale sample, through an online survey platform. The sample, provided by Informa Dun & Bradstreet, was expanded with the help of the social network LinkedIn, supported in the snowball method, which helps on the study of hard-to-reach populations. Responses were collected from more than four hundred business and IT managers, from more than two hundred medium-size and large Portuguese companies, representing, as far as is known, the wider survey ever done in Portugal about the alignment between business and IT. The model, a hierarchical component model, was estimated using a structural equation model (SEM) with partial least squares technique (PLS). The reliability and validity of the measurement model (reflective) were guaranteed, after some indicators have been discarded. The model assessment concerning the higher-order components (formative) was assured through robust content validity procedures of incentive and alignment constructs. The major findings are presented, discussed and interpreted by different angles, respectively, by the functional area of respondents, by respondents' gender, by respondents’ generation, by companies’ economic activity, by each one of the manifest variables of incentive and alignment and by companies’ size. Finally, the results of the proposed model are discussed and interpreted. By proposing an explanation of alignment with just one latent variable, the incentive, this is probably one of the most parsimonious models of alignment presented until now. The study also allows supporting the one that is perhaps its greatest contribution, which is the fact that the majority of the explanation of alignment is made by incentive. Some recommendations for practice and future research are also proposed

East Lancashire Research 2008

East Lancashire Research 200