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

Enterprise Social Network: Capabilities, Key Enablers and Obstacles - Call for changes within the digital age.

Today’s work environment is currently undergoing radical changes and although the aware-ness of social collaboration is growing within organizations, they still struggle with the digital transformation and thereby with the integration of Enterprise Social Network (ESN). Our study aims to investigate the role of ESN within the todays’ organizations. Specifically, it intends to build on previous research about social network technologies in a business’ context, and to provide an understanding about the required capabilities in terms of organizational, cultural and structural readiness as well as the key enablers and possible challenges faced dur-ing the adoption of ESN and hindering a more efficient use. Our study shows, that ESN could foster information and knowledge sharing, organizational learning and social capital. It reveals, that implementing an ESN offers great advantages, reaching from transparent infor-mation and knowledge exchange, over a faster join generation of new ideas to the possible containment of an ever-increasing e-mail flood. However, our study also outlines, that organi-zations still have to overcome barriers such as management and leadership support, cultural barriers, driving individuals engagement or integrating the ESN within existing business pro-cesses and infrastructure in order to reach the full potential and succeed with the adoption of the ESN. Nevertheless, we emphasise when an organization has recognised the significant benefits to be gained by incorporating an ESN within the business’ context, the value and improvements in activities induced by the ESN will become visible and then, one would rec-ognise that it has been worth the investment

Semantic technologies: from niche to the mainstream of Web 3? A comprehensive framework for web Information modelling and semantic annotation

Context: Web information technologies developed and applied in the last decade have considerably changed the way web applications operate and have revolutionised information management and knowledge discovery. Social technologies, user-generated classification schemes and formal semantics have a far-reaching sphere of influence. They promote collective intelligence, support interoperability, enhance sustainability and instigate innovation. Contribution: The research carried out and consequent publications follow the various paradigms of semantic technologies, assess each approach, evaluate its efficiency, identify the challenges involved and propose a comprehensive framework for web information modelling and semantic annotation, which is the thesis’ original contribution to knowledge. The proposed framework assists web information modelling, facilitates semantic annotation and information retrieval, enables system interoperability and enhances information quality. Implications: Semantic technologies coupled with social media and end-user involvement can instigate innovative influence with wide organisational implications that can benefit a considerable range of industries. The scalable and sustainable business models of social computing and the collective intelligence of organisational social media can be resourcefully paired with internal research and knowledge from interoperable information repositories, back-end databases and legacy systems. Semantified information assets can free human resources so that they can be used to better serve business development, support innovation and increase productivity

Supporting document management in complex multitask environments

In this thesis, the challenges for the support of information workers in the domain of personal information management are addressed. In Chapter 1 three major challenges are identified: 1) information overload and fragmentation, 2) multitasking within an unstructured, frequently interrupted workflow, and 3) increasing mobility demand. It has been argued that dedicated support of current needs in personal information management will help to overcome the challenges, reduce information and cognitive overload, and facilitate performance of information workers. Investigating the current needs of information workers, one has to focus on those that are currently supported by paper document management and transfer the mechanisms of this support to the digital domain. Our studies have addressed the role of paper documents in dealing with each of the three identified challenges. In the first study, presented in Chapter 2, paper document management has been discussed in relation with information overload and fragmentation. The study used contextual interviewing technique, with participants interviewed at their workplace. The results showed that information workers keep actively using task-related collections of paper documents. By grouping task-related documents from different origins together, information workers create a representation of a "stable state" within a task, which helps to resume the task after an interruption that is almost inevitable in a multitasking environment. To investigate task-switching patterns, related to document manipulation, and factors influencing the occurrence of the patterns, an observational study was performed, described in Chapter 3. This study identified eight task switching patterns, which varied in the explicitness of an indication of a task state in the environment and in the level of subject’s activity directed to indicate the task state at the moments of switching. Among the identified influencing factors, the reason for the switch (self-switching or external interruption) had an effect on the occurrence of subjectactive patterns. Self-switching usually resulted in user-active document manipulation in the environment which could not be observed during external interruptions. The domain where the last action was performed also had an influence on the switching pattern, with active manipulation of documents occurring more often in the physical than in the digital domain. It has been concluded that, while switching tasks in an unstructured multitasking workflow, manipulation of paper documents plays an important role in creating a stable state at the moments of switching between tasks. We hypothesized that paper documents possess visually distinctive attributes that are associated with the semantics of the related tasks. By manipulating task-related documents at the moments of task switching, these visually distinctive attributes change, reflecting the changes in the task state. This hypothesis has been tested in a study using triad elicitation interview technique in combination with laddering, presented in Chapter 4. As a result, we developed a clustered model of relationships among identified visual cues of paper documents and semantic judgments of the tasks. The relationships among clusters have been analyzed based on three criteria: content-dependency, flexibility, and effort, which together define ease of manipulation for each cluster of visual cues. It has been concluded that physical environment, in particular, task-relevant paper documents, allow flexible encoding of task-related semantic cues into available environmental visual cues. This mechanism needs to be transferred to the digital domain, especially to support mobility of information workers. This research suggested that the extensive use of paper documents in the digital era can be largely explained by the embodiment of paper as a part of physical environment in which a human acts. Chapter 5 summarized the results of all studies into a set of requirements for the design of a personal information management system. We proposed a layered framework for presenting the requirements from the point of view of task decomposition and discussed the needs of the information workers related to each layer. For each of the aforementioned layers within the framework, requirements for the design of a digital system were presented and discussed in detail. Chapter 6 revised the challenges discussed in Chapter 1 from the point of view of the findings, summarized methodology and contribution of the research and reflected on the most prominent results

An Investigation Into Grassroots Initiated Networked Communities As A Means Of Addressing The Digital Divide

Despite two decades of government and commercial intervention, a digital divide persists in the UK. Access to internet connectivity and the associated tools and services that permit full participation in the information society greatly varies. Researchers argue that a more complex set of insufficiencies must be overcome and continually re-addressed to enable individuals and communities to make meaningful usage of the internet to enhance their activities. This thesis examines the discourse surrounding the digital divide and investigates one response: the establishment of grassroots initiated networked communities. These initiatives represent local neighbourhoods attempting self-provisioning solutions; appropriating technology within their own communities to connect residents to each other, and the wider world through the internet, often building on an existing set of social relationships and ongoing interaction. The research consists of a literature review, a survey of grassroots initiated networked communities in the UK, and the collaborative development of software tools to enhance community interaction working alongside two communities. An analysis of the motivations and goals of these initiatives is presented based on the survey and interviews with ten groups, providing evidence of a range of activities and a simple typology of initiatives, which I define as Pioneers, Subcultures and Cooperatives. The thesis provides recommendations to practitioners and policy makers on how best to support such initiatives, and indicates useful areas of further research. The collaborative development of software tools alongside two initiatives reveals the challenges of undertaking a participatory research approach and identifies barriers to social software adoption. I identify that grassroots community responses to the digital divide face challenges, including achieving critical mass, sponsorship, and sustainability. The research concludes by establishing that grassroots initiated networked communities are a valid response to overcoming the digital divide, and that a community approach offers shared motivation, social support, and knowledge sharing

Semantic Social Network Analysis: A Concrete Case

In this chapter we present our approach to analyzing such semantic social networks and capturing collective intelligence from collaborative interactions to challenge requirements of Enterprise 2.0. Our tools and models have been tested on an anonymized dataset from Ipernity.com, one of the biggest French social web sites centered on multimedia sharing. This dataset contains over 60,000 users, around half a million declared relationships of three types, and millions of interactions (messages, comments on resources, etc.). We show that the enriched semantic web framework is particularly well-suited for representing online social networks, for identifying their key features and for predicting their evolution. Organizing huge quantity of socially produced information is necessary for a future acceptance of social applications in corporate contexts

EMERGENCY CARE: EMOTIONAL CONTROL An exploration of what constitutes emotional labour for a UK paramedic

This thesis draws on a small-scale, mixed-methods study of paramedics working for the North East Ambulance Service NHS Trust in order to extricate whether the performance of emotional labour is significant for the paramedic role. A depth in meaning is created through the development of a generic quadripartite integrated framework of the process of emotional labour contextualised for use by this inquiry through exposure to the prehospital emergency care discourse. This framework explains how performances triggered by antecedents carry consequences that can be mediated through interventions whose significance has previously been overlooked. It transposes into a deductive ‘a priori’ codebook / template within which data stemming from both qualitative and quantitative data streams is both organised and explained. As the voices of the paramedics, released from interview transcripts, mingle with observed scenarios they create a richly layered account highlighted by the judicious use of descriptive statistics offered by two self-reports. In addition to addressing the principal research question that inquires ‘what constitutes emotional labour for the UK paramedic’ this thesis also enlarges the sociological imagination on organisational emotionality by exposing how the framework fuses the interactional demand on a role with the individual process of emotional labour previously theorised separately

Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio