A Hybrid Continual Machine Learning Model for Efficient Hierarchical Classification of Domain-Specific Text in The Presence of Class Overlap (Case Study: IT Support Tickets)

In today’s world, support ticketing systems are employed by a wide range of businesses. The ticketing system facilitates the interaction between customers and the support teams when the customer faces an issue with a product or a service. For large-scale IT companies with a large number of clients and a great volume of communications, the task of automating the classification of incoming tickets is key to guaranteeing long-term clients and ensuring business growth. Although the problem of text classification has been widely studied in the literature, the majority of the proposed approaches revolve around state-of-the-art deep learning models. This thesis addresses the following research questions: What are the reasons behind employing black box models (i.e., deep learning models) for text classification tasks? What is the level of polysemy (i.e., the coexistence of many possible meanings for a word or phrase) in a technical (i.e., specialized) text? How do static word embeddings like Word2vec fare against traditional TFIDF vectorization? How do dynamic word embeddings (e.g., PLMs) compare against a linear classifier such as Support Vector Machine (SVM) for classifying a domain-specific text? This integrated article thesis aims to investigate the aforementioned issues through five empirical studies that were conducted over the past four years. The observation of our studies is an emerging theory that demonstrates why traditional ML models offer a more efficient solution to domain-specific text classification compared to state-of-the-art DL language models (i.e., PLMs). Based on extensive experiments on a real-world dataset, we propose a novel Hybrid Online Offline Model (HOOM) that can efficiently classify IT Support Tickets in a real-time (i.e., dynamic) environment. Our classification model is anticipated to build trust and confidence when deployed into production as the model is interpretable, efficient, and can detect concept drifts in the data

Auditoría y Propuesta para la Mejora del proceso de Gestión de Cambios de una Organización Financiera Costarricense

Informe del Trabajo Final de Graduación (Licenciatura de Administración de Tecnología de Información) Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica, Área Académica de Administración de Tecnologías de Información, 2019.Los procesos implicados en el presente proyecto son aquellos que son nombrados en el marco ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) como Gestión de Cambios de Tecnología de Información y Gestión de Liberación y Despliegue. El primero, se encarga de coordinar las agregaciones, modificaciones y eliminaciones en arquitecturas, procesos, herramientas, métricas, documentación, en servicios de tecnología de información y en elementos de configuración. Por otro lado, el proceso de Liberación y Despliegue se enfoca en ejecutar los cambios que fueron aprobados por las autoridades definidas dentro de la organización. El proyecto consistió en realizar una auditoría de los procesos de Gestión de Cambios y de Liberación y Despliegue en una organización financiera costarricense. Para la examinación de la gestión de estos, se utilizó como referencia el marco COBIT 4.0 y 5.0. Asimismo, se utilizaron los lineamientos formales tanto internos como externos. Los internos son definidos directamente por la organización. Por otro lado, se presentan los lineamientos externos, los cuales son establecidos por la Superintendencia General de Entidades Financieras (SUGEF). Esta organización es la encargada de supervisar las entidades financieras en Costa Rica. Por lo tanto, para la auditoría de estos procesos, se utilizó el reglamento sobre la Gestión de la Tecnología de Información (SUGEF 14-09). Con base a las inconsistencias que se identificaron en la auditoría, se diseñó una mejora para el proceso de Gestión de Cambios de la organización. Para efectuar esta actividad, se diagramó un modelo ideal donde se utilizó notación BPMN 2.0. Con la conclusión del proyecto, se espera que se implementen las recomendaciones que fueron detectadas durante la auditoría de ambos procesos. Asimismo, que se efectúe la propuesta de mejora. Por último, esto ayudará a tener un proceso alineado con COBIT como es solicitado por SUGEF.The processes involved in this project are the ones named on the framework ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) such as Information Technology Change Management and Release and Deployment Management. The first one is responsible of coordinating the aggregations, modifications and eliminations on architectures, processes, tools, metrics, documentation, information technology services and configuration elements. However, the second one focuses on executing the changes that were approved by the authorities defined within the organization. The project consisted on an audit of the processes of Change Management and Release and Deployment Management in a Costa Rican financial organization. For the examination of this processes, COBIT 4.0 and 5.0 were used as reference. Internal and external formal guidelines were used as well. The internal ones are defined directly by the organization. On the other hand, the external guidelines are presented, which are stablished by the Superintendencia General de Entidades Financieras (SUGEF). This organization supervises the financial entities in Costa Rica. Therefore, for the audit of this processes, the regulation Information Technology Management (SUGEF 14-09) was used. Based on the inconsistencies that were identified on the audit, an improvement was designed for the organization’s Change Management. To perform this activity, an ideal model was diagrammed with the used of the annotation BPMN 2.0. This diagram shows the improvement of this process. With the conclusion of the project, it is expected that the recommendations that were detected during the audit of both processes will be implemented. Additionally, that the proposal for improvement will be performed. Finally, this will help to have a process aligned with COBIT as it is required by SUGEF