OntoEng: A design method for ontology engineering in information systems

This paper addresses the design problem relating to ontology engineering in the discipline of information systems. Ontology engineering is a realm that covers issues related to ontology development and use throughout its life span. Nowadays, ontology as a new innovation promises to improve the design, semantic integration, and utilization of information systems. Ontologies are the backbone of knowledge-based systems. In addition, they establish sharable and reusable common understanding of specific domains amongst people, information systems, and software agents. Notwithstanding, the ontology engineering literature does not provide adequate guidance on how to build, evaluate, and maintain ontologies. On the basis of the gathered experience during the development of V4 Telecoms Business Model Ontology as well as the conducted integration of the related literature from the design science paradigm, this paper introduces OntoEng and its application as a novel systematic design method for ontology engineering

Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering vol. 365

This book includes the original, peer-reviewed research papers from the 2nd International Conference on Electrical Systems, Technology and Information (ICESTI 2015), held during 9–12 September 2015, at Patra Jasa Resort & Villas Bali, Indonesia. The primary objective of this book is to provide references for dissemination and discussion of the topics that have been presented in the conference. This volume is unique in that it includes work related to Electrical Engineering, Technology and Information towards their sustainable development. Engineers, researchers as well as lecturers from universities and professionals in industry and government will gain valuable insights into interdisciplinary solutions in the field of Electrical Systems, Technology and Information, and its applications. The topics of ICESTI 2015 provide a forum for accessing the most up-to-date and authoritative knowledge and the best practices in the field of Electrical Engineering, Technology and Information towards their sustainable development. The editors selected high quality papers from the conference that passed through a minimum of three reviewers, with an acceptance rate of 50.6 %. In the conference there were three invited papers from keynote speakers, whose papers are also included in this book, entitled: “Computational Intelligence based Regulation of the DC bus in the On-Grid Photovoltaic System”, “Virtual Prototyping of a Compliant Spindle for Robotic Deburring” and “A Concept of Multi Rough Sets Defined on Multi-Contextual Information Systems”. The conference also classified the technology innovation topics into five parts: “Technology Innovation in Robotics, Image Recognition and Computational Intelligence Applications”, “Technology Innovation in Electrical Engineering, Electric Vehicle and Energy Management”, “Technology Innovation in Electronic, Manufacturing, Instrumentation and Material Engineering”, “Technology Innovation in Internet of Things and Its Applications” and “Technology Innovation in Information, Modeling and Mobile Applications”

Teaching entrepreneurship students to become knowledge-agents for innovation

Drucker (1985) has postulated that entrepreneurship is the ?practice of innovation?. As such, he has outlined that it is knowledge-based, and that like any other practice (such as medicine or engineering) it can be learned. He wrote that we cannot develop a theory of innovation. But and that it is sufficient to say when, where, and how to look for innovation opportunities. As a consequence of the lack of a theoretical base for innovation, Drucker (and most other authors) simply ignore how entrepreneurs ?practice innovation? and how this practice can be learned; and have concentrated instead on how to systematically look for innovation opportunities. The constant demand by entrepreneurship students for information about how to learn the ?practice of innovation? forced me (Degen 1989, 2009) to develop some rudimentary approaches to learning the practice. This paper builds on these approaches, and tries to shed some additional light on the way entrepreneurs learn the ?practice of innovation? in such a way that they become ?knowledge agents for innovation?. This paper also explores how this practice can be taught to entrepreneurship students.entrepreneurs as innovators, practice of innovation, knowledge-agents for innovation, creative process, teaching entrepreneurship

Safe environments for innovation: developing a new multidisciplinary masters programme

This paper outlines the research and resulting curriculum design activities conducted as a collaborative venture between Northumbria University’s School of Design, School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences and Newcastle Business School undertaken in the creation of a new postgraduate programme in Multidisciplinary Design Innovation. With the area of multidisciplinary innovation education practice being comparatively new, the research conducted in support of the programme development was undertaken through a series of industry-linked pilot-study projects conducted with Philips, Hasbro, Lego and Unilever. The key finding from this research was an understanding of the importance of freeing students from different disciplines of the inhibitions that limit creativity in collaborative settings. This paper gives an account of the pilot studies and the associated learning derived from them, the collaborative development of the programme and approaches in curriculum and assessment design adopted in order to create what we call ‘safe environments for innovation’; environments designed to free students of these evident inhibitions

Knowledge management, innovation and big data: Implications for sustainability, policy making and competitiveness

This Special Issue of Sustainability devoted to the topic of “Knowledge Management, Innovation and Big Data: Implications for Sustainability, Policy Making and Competitiveness” attracted exponential attention of scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers from all over the world. Locating themselves at the expanding cross-section of the uses of sophisticated information and communication technology (ICT) and insights from social science and engineering, all papers included in this Special Issue contribute to the opening of new avenues of research in the field of innovation, knowledge management, and big data. By triggering a lively debate on diverse challenges that companies are exposed to today, this Special Issue offers an in-depth, informative, well-structured, comparative insight into the most salient developments shaping the corresponding fields of research and policymaking

Does Qualification Drive Innovation? A Microeconometric Analysis Using Linked-employer-employee Data

Degree-level science and engineering skills as well as management and leadership skills are often referred to as a source of innovative activities within companies. Broken down by sectoral innovation patterns, this article examines the role of formal education and actual occupation for product innovation performance in manufacturing firms within a probit model. It uses unique micro data for Germany (LIAB) that contain detailed information about innovative activities and the qualification of employees. We find significant differences of the human capital endowment between sectors differentiated according to the Pavitt classification. Sectors with a high share of highly skilled employees engage in product innovation above average (specialized suppliers and science based industries). According to our hitherto estimation results, within these sectors the share of highly skilled employees does not, however, substantially increase the probability to be an innovative firm.innovation, human capital, qualification, sectoral innovation system

Development and implantation of a Thesaurus of Manufacturing Engineering terms

Present work shows the teaching-learning experience developed in the Department of Manufacturing Engineering of the University of Malaga. This experience is based on the need to generate a specific glossary of manufacturing engineering terms to be used as a study guide by the students. Eventually, it was decided to make a Thesaurus that would be aimed at a teaching activity. Also, it would take part in the educational innovation project PIE 13-025 of the University of Malaga, within the biennium 2013/2015. The first step consisted of the design of Thesaurus pattern, taking into account the kind of information that it was necessary include in it. Afterward, this pattern would be place on the Virtual Campus and the student would have to complete the information required. Finally, the results obtained in the different applications of this activity would be analyzed and evaluated.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

A New Course on Creativity in an Engineering Program: Foundations and Issues

The importance of innovation in the world's economy, now undeniable, draws great attention to the need to improve organizations' creative potential. In the last 60 years, hundreds of books have been written on the subject and hundreds of webpages display information on how to be more creative and achieve innovation. Several North American and European universities offer graduated programs in creativity. However, building an effective and validated creativity training program is not without challenges. Because of the nature of their work, engineers are often asked to be innovative. Without aiming for a degree in creativity, could future engineers benefit from training programs in creativity? This article presents the conceptual framework and pedagogical elements of a new course in creativity for engineering students.Comment: 10 pages, Intl Conf on Innovative Design and Manufacturing (pp. 270-275). Aug 13-15, Montreal. IEEE Conference Proceeding

Education for Innovation: Entrepreneurial Breakthroughs vs. Corporate Incremental Improvements

This paper explores the following hypotheses on the appropriate education for innovating entrepreneurship: a) breakthrough inventions are contributed disproportionately by independent inventors and entrepreneurs, while large firms focus on cumulative, incremental (and often invaluable) improvements; b) education for mastery of scientific knowledge and methods is enormously valuable for innovation and growth, but can impede heterodox thinking and imagination; c) large-firm R&D requires personnel who are highly educated in extant information and analytic methods, while successful independent entrepreneurs and inventors often lack such preparation; d) while procedures for teaching current knowledge and methods in science and engineering are effective, we know little about training for the critical task of breakthrough innovation.

Integrating information and knowledge for enterprise innovation

It has widely been accepted that enterprise integration, can be a source of socio-technical and cultural problems within organisations wishing to provide a focussed end-to-end business service. This can cause possible “straitjacketing” of business process architectures, thus suppressing responsive business re-engineering and competitive advantage for some companies. Accordingly, the current typology and emergent forms of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) technologies are set in the context of understanding information and knowledge integration philosophies. As such, key influences and trends in emerging IS integration choices, for end-to-end, cost-effective and flexible knowledge integration, are examined. As touch points across and outside organisations proliferate, via work-flow and relationship management-driven value innovation, aspects of knowledge refinement and knowledge integration pose challenges to maximising the potential of innovation and sustainable success, within enterprises. This is in terms of the increasing propensity for data fragmentation and the lack of effective information management, in the light of information overload. Furthermore, the nature of IS mediation which is inherent within decision making and workflow-based business processes, provides the basis for evaluation of the effects of information and knowledge integration. Hence, the authors propose a conceptual, holistic evaluation framework which encompasses these ideas. It is thus argued that such trends, and their implications regarding enterprise IS integration to engender sustainable competitive advantage, require fundamental re-thinking