Modeling functional requirements using tacit knowledge: a design science research methodology informed approach

The research in this paper adds to the discussion linked to the challenge of capturing and modeling tacit knowledge throughout software development projects. The issue emerged when modeling functional requirements during a project for a client. However, using the design science research methodology at a particular point in the project helped to create an artifact, a functional requirements modeling technique, that resolved the issue with tacit knowledge. Accordingly, this paper includes research based upon the stages of the design science research methodology to design and test the artifact in an observable situation, empirically grounding the research undertaken. An integral component of the design science research methodology, the knowledge base, assimilated structuration and semiotic theories so that other researchers can test the validity of the artifact created. First, structuration theory helped to identify how tacit knowledge is communicated and can be understood when modeling functional requirements for new software. Second, structuration theory prescribed the application of semiotics which facilitated the development of the artifact. Additionally, following the stages of the design science research methodology and associated tasks allows the research to be reproduced in other software development contexts. As a positive outcome, using the functional requirements modeling technique created, specifically for obtaining tacit knowledge on the software development project, indicates that using such knowledge increases the likelihood of deploying software successfully

The visual dimension in organizing, organization, and organization research: Core ideas, current developments, and promising avenues

With the unprecedented rise in the use of visuals, and its undeniable omnipresence in organizational contexts, as well as in the individual's everyday life, organization and management science has recently started to pay closer attention to the to date under-theorized "visual mode" of discourse and meaning construction. Building primarily on insights from the phenomenological tradition in organization theory and from social semiotics, this article sets out to consolidate previous scholarly efforts and to sketch a fertile future research agenda. After briefly exploring the workings of visuals, we introduce the methodological and theoretical "roots" of visual studies in a number of disciplines that have a long-standing tradition of incorporating the visual. We then continue by extensively reviewing work in the field of organization and management studies: More specifically, we present five distinct approaches to feature visuals in research designs and to include the visual dimension in scholarly inquiry. Subsequently, we outline, in some detail, promising avenues for future research, and close with a reflection on the impact of visualization on scientific practice itself. (authors' abstract

Evolving SPIDe Towards the Integration of Requirements Elicitation in Interaction Design

Among the various interaction (re)design processes and approaches, SPIDe is a semio-participatory methodological process inspired by communication-centered design. However, the development of computational solutions is not limited to interaction design. Requirements elicitation is also an integral part of this process. Some SPIDe studies indicated that it is also possible to raise requirements through its application due to its participatory characteristics. This article presents an investigation on the feasibility of SPIDe when applied to requirements elic itation integrated with interaction design, presenting an exploratory case study. From the perspective of different experts, we explain the strengths and needs of SPIDe in supporting requirements elicitation integrated into inter action design. Data were collected through logbooks, semi-structured interviews, and the TAM questionnaire and then analyzed through thematic analysis. The results show that the SPIDe use for requirements elicitation integrated into the interaction design is feasible. Furthermore, they indicated that possible improvements in SPIDe could ben efit the development of the computational solutions considering a single application of SPIDe to obtain data for interaction design and requirements elicitation integrated.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

HOW ADOLESCENT SECOND LANGUAGE WRITERS DEVELOP WRITING COMPETENCE THROUGH MULTIMODAL ACTIVITIES

The purpose of the study was to examine how the processes and different activities that adolescent English L2 writers engage in producing multimodal texts influence the development of their multimodal and writing competence. This dissertation fills existing gaps regarding how multimodal pedagogies are implemented in L2 contexts to facilitate adolescent L2 writers' development of writing and multimodal competence. The research was conducted in an English classroom within a junior high school (JHS) located in a small village in southern Ghana. Forty-eight second year JHS students (the equivalent of 8th grade) participated in the study; three of these were selected as focal students. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected concurrently through an embedded, developmental case study design, with the quantitative data playing a supportive role. Data collected through this design included surveys, multiple drafts of students' expository texts, posters, poster presentations, guided reflections and text-based interviews. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data showed that the adolescent L2 writers' mediated, distributed and complex multimodal activities created opportunities for developing new intellectual tools, strategic competence, and technical knowledge about multimodal composing as well as an in-depth understanding of, and interest in, social and cultural issues that affected the writers and their communities. The qualitative and quantitative analyses of the multiple drafts of the writers' expository texts also suggested that the multimodal activities helped the writers to improve the development and organization of their ideas and the overall quality of their paper. These findings offer new insight and ways to think about how L2 teachers can develop students' academic language by helping students draw on ideas from their multimodal texts to revise their word-based expository texts and other genres of writing. Next, not only does this research help to expand the definition of adolescent English L2 writing competence beyond word-based composing, but it also provides an empirical evidence of how this reconceptualization can play out in concrete adolescent English L2 writing contexts. Finally, by bringing together multiple theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives, this study offers a new framework for examining transformations in students' understanding of multimodal meaning making

A transaction-oriented architecture for structuring unstructured information in enterprise applications

As 80-85% of all corporate information remains unstructured, outside of the processing scope of enterprise systems, many enterprises rely on Information Systems that cause them to risk transactions that are based on lack of information (errors of omission) or misleading information (errors of commission). To address this concern, the fundamental business concept of monetary transactions is extended to include qualitative business concepts. A Transaction Concept (TC) is accordingly identified that provides a structure for these unstructured but vital aspects of business transactions. Based on REA (Resources, Events, Agents) and modelled using Conceptual Graphs (CGs) and Formal Concept Analysis (FCA), the TC provides businesses with a more balanced view of the transactions they engage in and a means of discovering new transactions that they might have otherwise missed. A simple example is provided that illustrates this integration and reveals a key missing element. This example is supported by reference to a wide range of case studies and application areas that demonstrate the added value of the TC. The TC is then advanced into a Transaction-Oriented Architecture (TOA). The TOA provides the framework by which an enterprise’s business processes are orchestrated according to the TC. TOA thus brings Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and the productivity of enterprise applications to the height of the real, transactional world that enterprises actually operate in.</jats:p

Image analysis for translating English multimodal texts into Greek : a multimodal semiotics approach to translation training in a Greek higher education context

This study explores the image analysis practices of undergraduate translation trainees in a Greek. university. The key research questions focused on the trainees' perception of the role of visual literacy in translation, the nature of their verbal and visual associations and activities effective for developing this role. Visual literacy, semiotics, and translation theories provided the conceptual framework for this multimodal semiotics approach to translation training, which guided my examination of the way the trainees described semiotic resources, how they used verbal and visual elements of Cl. translation task, and the extent to which they focused on the visual. Expanding on the concept of mediation, I developed a 'verbo-visual' mediation model that included visual semiotic elements to provide a detailed description of the ways in which the trainees intervened in the translation process. Through an action research study I gauged the extent to which the trainees had developed visual literacy skills. I planned a series of tasks centred on the translation of a multimodal text from English into Greek. I used direct and video observation of the students as they performed the tasks and afterwards evaluated their translations. The main findings of my research reveal that the trainees found it difficult initially to consider all the semiotic elements of the data-text whilst simultaneously translating its verbal elements. However. by providing examples of potential verbal-visual interactions and reflecting on and modifying the tasks, I found that the trainees began to appreciate non-verbal elements as potential translational factors. I was thus able to demonstrate a raised level of awareness of the visual elements of multimodal texts to some extent for all trainees in this study. The research suggests that customized image analysis, photo-elicitation and visualization techniques may play a part in the improvement of translation training in a multimodal semiotics translation environment

Improving the Communication Skills of IS Developers during Requirements Elicitation using Experiential Learning

The improvement of communication skills among Information Systems (IS) developers can be considered as a strategy to mitigate the risk of project failure during IS design. This paper addresses issues on various communication barriers normally encountered during its requirements elicitation (RE) stage. This study aims to adopt experiential learning as a method to improve the communication skills of IS developers during RE techniques such as prototype presentations. As such, an educational multimedia, which teaches communication skill enhancement among professionals during presentations, served as an interventional tool for experiential learning. Using a longitudinal quasi-experiment, the developers’ self-assessments of their communication skills during prototype presentations at pre- and post-intervention were compared and analyzed using the WordStat® software. Responses showed significant improvements on the presentation skills especially on keywords-in-context related to the audience, information, interest, prototype, room, summary, and talk. This signifies the influence of such learning method to the developers at post-intervention. Further, the study implies that experiential learning can be empirically supported to effectively motivate IS developers in improving their presentation skills after receiving a learning intervention. Thus, experiential learning can be used by project managers as an effective training strategy to improve the communication skills of their IS developers in preparation to current and future projects on IS design especially during prototype presentations of the RE stage

Image-Enabled Discourse: Investigating the Creation of Visual Information as Communicative Practice

Anyone who has clarified a thought or prompted a response during a conversation by drawing a picture has exploited the potential of image making as an interactive tool for conveying information. Images are increasingly ubiquitous in daily communication, in large part due to advances in visually enabled information and communication technologies (ICT), such as information visualization applications, image retrieval systems and visually enabled collaborative work tools. Human abilities to use images to communicate are however far more sophisticated and nuanced than these technologies currently support. In order to learn more about the practice of image making as a specialized form of information and communication behavior, this study examined face-to-face conversations involving the creation of ad hoc visualizations (i.e., napkin drawings ). A model of image-enabled discourse is introduced, which positions image making as a specialized form of communicative practice. Multimodal analysis of video-recorded conversations focused on identifying image-enabled communicative activities in terms of interactional sociolinguistic concepts of conversational involvement and coordination, specifically framing, footing and stance. The study shows that when drawing occurs in the context of an ongoing dialogue, the activity of visual representation performs key communicative tasks. Visualization is a form of social interaction that contributes to the maintenance of conversational involvement in ways that are not often evident in the image artifact. For example, drawing enables us to coordinate with each other, to introduce alternative perspectives into a conversation and even to temporarily suspend the primary thread of a discussion in order to explore a tangential thought. The study compares attributes of the image artifact with those of the activity of image making, described as a series of contrasting affordances. Visual information in complex systems is generally represented and managed based on the affordances of the artifact, neglecting to account for all that is communicated through the situated action of creating. These finding have heuristic and best-practice implications for a range of areas related to the design and evaluation of virtual collaboration environments, visual information extraction and retrieval systems, and data visualization tools