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

Integrated Talent Management System for Customer Service Workforce

Call center agents performance nowadays becomes one of the key success factors that determine the call center business goals. Not all call centers aware those agents' personal attributes also contribute to the organization image and performances. As a result, organizations often miss an opportunity to gain competitive advantage in their business process. Thus, the objective of this project is to model, design and develop an integrated web based application that can assess and record agents' personal development and work attributes while at the same time allowing supervisors to communicate about work performances. Each organization has its own business objectives that need to be met where can only be met through a comprehensive ways that effectively manages an organization's talent. This concern should be focus more on customer service industry because they consist of agents that deliver service to customer along the time. This project discussed on human resource management constraints which in terms of call center agents' personal development attributes and performances in call center. Therefore, this project had proposed one solution by providing an integrated web based application to assess agents' personal development and at the same time enhance internal communication levels called Integrated Talent Management System. Not only that, this report also discussed benefits on Talent Management System to customer service organization and existing criteria on current Talent Management System. Some characteristics and function have been identified to build and enhance the problem. There is also a section that talks on current customer service industry environment. There are two types of methodology for this project which are system methodology and research methodology. Incremental model is the most appropriate methodology approach for this project. Observation, informal interview and document reviews method are the key activities have been used to implement User Needs Assessment as well as to gather information. Gantt chart has been created whereby to assist and monitor the project timeline and key milestone. There is also a section that describe on the tools that will be used in order to develop this project. There is a discussion that discussed on the current practice of performance appraisal assessment and inbound reporting structure environment for this project Industry Partner. Functional modeling Diagrams had been developed to make the requirements looks clearer. Testing analysis has been conducted to get feedback from the user. Several recommendations and future works plans had been discussed too. Therefore, by having an integrated talent management system, the author hope project objective can be achieved where it can assess and record agents' personal development and work attributes while at the same time allowing supervisors to communicate about work performance. Thus, an organization can have proper human resource management that will result in ease for the organization to achieve its business goals

Dropout causes of students funded by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme in South African universities

The dropout of students funded by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is a perennial problem in many higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa. Despite this, little research has been conducted to investigate this phenomenon, and this study sought to address this gap by investigating the dropout of NSFAS-funded students from HEIs in Northern Gauteng. The study adopted a qualitative methodology and a phenomenological design to explore the lived experiences of students who dropped out of HEIs. Thirty-one NSFAS-funded students, three senior management officials from three HEIs and one NSFAS senior official were purposively selected to form part of the study. Semi-structured interviews, document analysis and observations were utilised as reseach instruments and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was employed to analyse data. The findings of the study established that a lack of support for students, and personal, socioeconomic, institutional and health factors contributed to the dropout of students from HEIs. It was further established that the majority of students who dropped out did so because of the inefficient operations of NSFAS and the new student-centred model. The study also found that insufficient funding, late allocation of funds, stringent NSFAS requirements, lack of communication, late payment or nonpayment of allowances contributed to students’ dropout. To address these shortfalls, the study recommends that the student-centred model should be overhauled and replaced with an integrated system including departments such as DOH, SARS, DSD and DOL to identify students who are eligible for funding and assist in the efficient administration of NSFAS. It is further recommended that funding administered by both the national and provincial government departments be centralized and administred by the NSFAS to circumvent double dipping. Finally, it is recommended that students who fall within the R0 – R350,000 per annum household income category including SASSA beneficiaries be flagged by the system to automatically qualify for funding.Educational Management and LeadershipD. Ed. (Education Management

Generating collaborative systems for digital libraries: A model-driven approach

This is an open access article shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Copyright @ 2010 The Authors.The design and development of a digital library involves different stakeholders, such as: information architects, librarians, and domain experts, who need to agree on a common language to describe, discuss, and negotiate the services the library has to offer. To this end, high-level, language-neutral models have to be devised. Metamodeling techniques favor the definition of domainspecific visual languages through which stakeholders can share their views and directly manipulate representations of the domain entities. This paper describes CRADLE (Cooperative-Relational Approach to Digital Library Environments), a metamodel-based framework and visual language for the definition of notions and services related to the development of digital libraries. A collection of tools allows the automatic generation of several services, defined with the CRADLE visual language, and of the graphical user interfaces providing access to them for the final user. The effectiveness of the approach is illustrated by presenting digital libraries generated with CRADLE, while the CRADLE environment has been evaluated by using the cognitive dimensions framework

The Real World Software Process

The industry-wide demand for rapid development in concert with greater process maturity has seen many software development firms adopt tightly structured iterative processes. While a number of commercial vendors offer suitable process infrastructure and tool support, the cost of licensing, configuration and staff training may be prohibitive for the small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) which dominate the Asia-Pacific software industry. This work addresses these problems through the introduction of the Real World Software Process (RWSP), a freely available, Web-based iterative scheme designed specifically for small teams and organisations. RWSP provides a detailed process description, high quality document templates - including code review and inspection guidelines - and the integrated tutorial support necessary for successful usage by inexperienced developers and teams. In particular it is intended that the process be readily usable by software houses which at present do not follow a formal process, and that the free RWSP process infrastructure should be a vehicle for improving industry standards

Email record keeping in the government sector: a case study of Malaysia

Email has become the main means of correspondence, displacing the letter with its conventions and procedures developed over centuries. Every organisation needs to develop and implement policies to manage email as records of evidence of transactions and as a source of information. This study aimed to critically explore the management of email in the context of the management of information and record keeping in the transition to the digital. The objectives of the study were: To explore the legal and regulatory environment in relation to the Malaysian Government and the information it creates and holds; to explore the evolution of email recordkeeping by the Malaysian Government; to critically review existing policies, guidelines and systems for capturing and managing email by the Malaysian Government from a record keeping perspective; and to investigate the current practices in managing email in a selected part of the Malaysian Government against existing policies and guidelines, in part to determine if the latter were clear and unambiguous. It highlights the fact that no in-depth case study of email management has been published previously. In the public sector there are many examples of poor email management. For instance, Michael Gove, when UK Secretary of State for Education, conducted government business using his wife’s personal email account; and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a personal email account and server for both government and personal business. The context of this thesis is the introduction by the Malaysian government of a project that will provide a free email account for every citizen over eighteen to allow them to access e-Government services through a single sign-on user ID, as part of the move to e-government in Malaysia to deliver its Vision 2020. The research is based on a case study of the implementation of this initiative and the accompanying system for managing email at a selected government ministry in Malaysia; it is based on interviews with twelve participants with different roles across three departments and the two providers of policies and guidelines. The design of interview questions was based around the records continuum model and is four elements, the creation, capture, organisation and pluralisation of information. The findings suggest that email has been accepted by the government as records and evidence mandated by Malaysia’s National Archives Act 2003. Yet not all government servants accept emails as records, largely as a consequence of poor project planning and faulty design of the Digital Document Management System (DDMS) for email management. The DDMS has been developed to ensure that the government manages its email, and other electronic records, according to international standards embodied in ISO 16175:2 (2011), which has been adopted nationally as MS ISO 16175:2 (2012). The main factors influencing the implementation of the DDMS in the government sector are people, processes and technology. The DDMS project has been seen as an IT project, and not a records management project, and consequently has failed to meet the requirements for a digital records management system. This explains why some government servants are reluctant to accept email as a record. Project management, change management and quality management should have been central during the system implementation process, but were found to be either inadequately addressed or completely overlooked. The findings conclude that email management can be markedly improved by promoting information culture and awareness of the importance of managing email records. This case study contributes to the evolution of record keeping policy and practice in a former UK dependency during the transition to the digital environment and in the identification of good practice that could be applicable in other similar national government contexts

A novel approach to collaborative product development in the medical-equipment industry

In this study, we summarise the requirements for collaborative product development based on our investigation of the differences in the resources and tools that are needed for the various stages of collaborative product development and the needs of system users during these various stages. We proposed a user-oriented approach of collaborative product development for medical equipment and designed a collaborative product development system with the required functionalities to satisfy different areas according to their roles and workflow. The system we developed can drastically simplify the original complex and dispersed process of product development for intelligent medical equipment, thereby allowing the project team to develop new medical-equipment products and promote interactions among the research and development staff, clinical specialists, and the test participants successfully, thereby resulting in a user-oriented collaborative product development process