Information systems models in higher education

This paper intends to contribute to a better understanding of the process through which information resource, information technology, and organisation actors can contribute to the performance and quality of higher education institutions. Conceptual models will be presented and discussed

TechNews digests: Jan - Nov 2009

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A Web Services Component Discovery and Deployment Architecture for Simulation Model Reuse

CSPs are widely used in industry, although have yet to operate across organizational boundaries. Reuse across organizations is restricted by the same semantic issues that restrict the inter-organization use of web services. The current representations of web components are predominantly syntactic in nature lacking the fundamental semantic underpinning required to support discovery on the emerging semantic web. Semantic models, in the form of ontology, utilized by web service discovery and deployment architecture provide one approach to support simulation model reuse. Semantic interoperation is achieved through the use of simulation component ontology to identify required components at varying levels of granularity (including both abstract and specialized components). Selected simulation components are loaded into a CSP, modified according to the requirements of the new model and executed. The paper presents the development carried out within CSPI-PDG and Fluidity Group at Brunel University, of an ontology, connector software and web service discovery architecture. The ontology is extracted from simulation scenarios involving airport, restaurant and kitchen service suppliers. The ontology engineering framework and discovery architecture provide a novel approach to inter-organization simulation, adopting a less intrusive interface between participants. Although specific to CSPs the work has wider implications for the simulation community

Move to Component Based Architectures: Introducing Microsoft\u27s .NET Platform into the College Classroom

A transformation has been occurring in the architectural model for computer-based application intense software systems. This new model, software-as-a-service, will have a profound impact on the design and development of software for many years to come and as such college level computing curriculums will need to incorporate the concepts and methodologies associated with this new architecture. The platform is built upon a view of interrelated, distributed peer-level software modules and components that work in tandem to achieve specified functional goals. From Microsoft\u27s viewpoint, migration to the new platform requires a radical shift in the software development lifecycle. It is becoming imperative that higher education computing programs take a proactive stance in reviewing their curriculums and making plans to align them with this new paradigm. This paper explores Microsoft\u27s .NET strategy and provides a synopsis of the efforts taken by one Computer Science and Information Systems Department to incorporate .NET into the curriculum and the classroom

The Evolution of the Text Encoding Initiative: From Research Project to Research Infrastructure

It is twenty-five years since the Text Encoding Initiative was first launched as a research project following an international conference funded by the US National Endowment for the Humanities. This article describes some key stages in its subsequent evolution from research project into research infrastructure. The TEI's changing nature, we suggest, is partly a consequence of its close and highly responsive relation with an active user community, which may also explain both its longevity and its effectiveness as a part of the digital humanities research infrastructure

Copyright Misuse and Modified Copyleft: New Solutions to the Challenges of Internet Standardization

The Internet is a truly global community within which myriad economic, social and technological forces interplay to cause its standardization. Much of the competition in the industry has revolved around which product will become the standard for a given market sector. Some markets have seen victors; for example, TCP/IP is the Internet communication protocol, MP3 appears to be dominating music compression, and Microsoft Corporation\u27s Windows ( Windows ) is clearly the standard operating system. Similarly, the Internet must adopt a standard for web browsing and searching, for email, and for web programming. In many cases, the competition for this standard will be fierce, because the winner likely will have intellectual property rights in the technology and hence reap a significant reward. Such incentives often are needed for the development of objectively good standards. Yet, as a consequence of granting intellectual property rights, a monopoly is created in a product that Internet users need. Once an Internet technology becomes a standard, how can the owner of the corresponding copyright be prevented from extracting monopoly rents and thereby negating the increase in consumer welfare that the standard created