Rámec pro posouzení kvalitativních hledisek informačních systémů

Záměrem předložené disertační práce je porozumět tomu, jak investoři v konkrétním společenském kontextu vnímají význam kvality informačních systémů. Ze studia literatury zabývající se přístupy a rámci hodnocení kvality informačních systémů vyplývá, že tato kvalita je obecně hodnocena z hlediska striktního přístupu. V této práci je ukázáno, že kvalitu informačního systému lze smysluplně pochopit použitím interpretačního paradigmatu a že kvalita informačního systému je definována společensky a ovlivňována kontextem tohoto systému. Studie byla zahájena průzkumem dvaceti libyjských organizací. Podrobnější data byla získána z případové studie dvou vybraných libyjských organizací působících ve veřejném sektoru. Při empirické analýze nashromážděných dat bylo využito rámce mnohočetné perspektivy, který zahrnuje hlediska teorie strukturalizace, pojem mnohočetných perspektiv a metodologii měkkých systémů. V práci se dospělo ke zjištění, že: a) kvalita informačních systémů je pojata šíře, než je tomu u tradiční definice kvality, b) mnohočetné perspektivy kvality informačních systémů jsou ovlivněny opakovanou interakcí mezi investorem a institucionálními vlastnostmi kontextu informačního systému a že c) rozdílné hodnoty v kulturním prostředí a vnějším kontextu ovlivňují rozsah působnosti investora a interakce v kontextu informačního systému. Ze závěru práce vyplývá, že společenská skladba mnohočetných perspektiv kvality informačního systému je ovlivněna strukturalizačními procesy mezi investory a vlastnostmi v kontextu informačního systému.This thesis is concerned with understanding how stakeholders in a particular cultural context construct the multiple meanings of ‘Information Systems Quality’ (IS Quality). A review of literature on approaches and frameworks for IS quality shows that the IS quality is generally examined through a ‘hard approach’. This study demonstrates that IS quality can be meaningfully understood through an interpretive paradigm, and that IS quality is socially constructed and influenced by the IS context. The study began with an exploratory survey of twenty Libyan organizations. Data were gathered through a case study of two public sector organizations in Libya. A Multiple Perspective Framework (MPF) that incorporates ideas from structuration theory, multiple perspectives concept, and soft systems methodology (SSM) was used to analyze the empirical work. The findings revealed that: (a) IS quality is a broader conception than the traditional quality definition, (b) the multiple perspectives of IS quality are influenced by repeated interaction between the stakeholder and institutional properties in the IS context, and (c) mediation of different values in the culture system and in the external context influence the extent of stakeholder agency and interaction in the IS context. The study concluded that the social construction of multiple perspectives of IS quality is influenced by the structuration processes between stakeholders and properties in the IS context.

Design: One, but in different forms

This overview paper defends an augmented cognitively oriented generic-design hypothesis: there are both significant similarities between the design activities implemented in different situations and crucial differences between these and other cognitive activities; yet, characteristics of a design situation (related to the design process, the designers, and the artefact) introduce specificities in the corresponding cognitive activities and structures that are used, and in the resulting designs. We thus augment the classical generic-design hypothesis with that of different forms of designing. We review the data available in the cognitive design research literature and propose a series of candidates underlying such forms of design, outlining a number of directions requiring further elaboration

Multi-scale reliability analysis of composite structures – Application to the Laroin footbridge

This work aims at developing a new methodology for the reliability assessment of composite structures and their design optimization. It relies on the coupling of well established methods: homogenization scheme for the mechanical modelling of composite materials and reliability methods to account for their inherent variability. Moreover, such approach is based on an accurate treatment of inherent uncertainties of these mechanical systems at various scales, including microscopic and macroscopic levels, that provides newperspectives for structural design. As an illustration, we propose to apply the multi-scale reliability analysis on the case of the Laroin footbridge (France) with carbon–epoxy stay cables. Since the reliability assessment of such structure is evaluated through the fibre failure, numerical simulations require the coupling of reliability methods, finite element modelling to derive macroscopic loading within cables and micromechanics to estimate the effective elastic properties of composite and local responses within constituents. Results demonstrate the feasibility of the coupled approach at a structure scale and its main interests for the optimization phase of materials and engineering structures

The Collective Consciousness of Information Technology Research: Ways of seeing Information Technology Research: Its Objects and Territories

The collective consciousness of effective groups of researchers is characterised by shared understandings of their research object or territory. In the relatively new field of information technology research, rapid expansion and fragmentation of the territory has led to different perceptions about what constitutes information technology research. This project explores a facet of the collective consciousness of disparate groups of researchers and lays a foundation for constructing shared research objects. Making IT researchers’ ways of seeing explicit may help us understand some of the complexities associated with inter and intra disciplinary collaboration amongst research groups, and the complexities associated with technology transfer to industry. This report analyses IT research, its objects and territories, as they are constituted by IT researchers associated with the sub-disciplines of information systems, computer science and information security. A phenomenographic approach is used to elicit data from a diverse range of IT researchers in semistructured interviews. This data is analysed to show (1) the variation in meaning associated with the idea of IT research and (2) the awareness structures through which participants experience variation in ways of seeing the object and territories of IT research. An Outcome Space represents the interrelation between different ways of seeing the territory. Eight ways of seeing IT research, its objects and territories, were found: The Technology Conception, The Information Conception, The Information and Technology Conception, The Communication Conception, The Ubiquitous Conception, The Sanctioned Conception, The Dialectic Conception and The Constructed Conception. These are described in detail and illustrated with participants’ quotes. Finally, some recommendations for further research are made

Aeronautical Engineering: A special bibliography with indexes, supplement 74

This special bibliography lists 295 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in August 1976

Innovative learning in action (ILIA) issue four: New academics engaging with action research

This edition of ILIA showcases four papers which were originally submitted as action research projects on the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Practice and Research programme. Within the programme we offer an environment where participants can explore their unique teaching situations – not to produce all-encompassing approaches to Higher Education (HE) practice but to develop an ongoing dialogue about the act of teaching. In effect, there are no generalisable ‘best’ methods of teaching because they never work as well as ‘locally produced practice in action’ (Kincheloe, 2003:15). Thus rather than providing short term ‘survival kits’ the programme offers new HE teachers a ‘frame’ for examining their own and their colleagues’ teaching alongside questioning educational purpose and values in the pursuit of pedagogical improvement. This ‘frame’ is action research which Ebbutt (1985:156) describes as: …The systematic study of attempts to change and improve educational practice by groups of participants by means of their own practical actions and by means of their own reflections upon the effects of their actions… We promote ‘practitioner-research’ or ‘teacher-research’ as a way of facilitating professional development for new HE teachers, promoting change and giving a voice to their developing personal and professional knowledge. Teachers as researchers embark upon an action orientated, iterative and collaborative process to interrogate their own practices, question their own assumptions, attitudes, values and beliefs in order to better understand, influence and enrich the context of their own situations. The action researcher assumes that practitioners are knowledgeable about their own teaching situations and the fact that they are ‘in-situ’ and not at ‘arms length’ as the value-neutral, ‘scientific’ researcher is often claimed to be, does not invalidate their knowledge. Thus, practitioners are capable of analysing their own actions within a ‘reflective practitioner’ modus operandi. Action research is on-going in conception and well suited to examining the ever-changing and increasingly complex HE practice environment. Findings from action research are always subject to revision since it intrinsically acknowledges the need to constantly revisit widely diverse teaching situations and scenarios across everyday HE practice. Teaching is not predictable and constant, it always occurs in a contemporary microcosm of uncertainty. Action research provides an analytical framework for new HE teachers to begin to engage with this unpredictability on a continuing basis, that is its purpose and also its perennial challenge. The papers presented here describe how four relatively new HE teachers have begun to address the challenge of improving their practice within their locally based settings utilising the action research ‘paradigm’

A phenomenographic study of English faculty's conceptions of information literacy

The purpose of this research is to identify UK English academics' conceptions of information literacy and compare those conceptions with current information literacy standards and frameworks