THE ROLE OF CONTEXT IN MANAGING INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICES

Contemporary organizations are increasingly dependent on information infrastructures to deliver their services. However, information infrastructures are highly complex and dynamic, which lead to considerable management challenges. This research aims to contribute to our understanding of these challenges through an in-depth investigation of a team responsible for information infrastructure services at a large business and technology service company. The complexity and dynamics faced by the team emphasizes the important role of context in managing its information infrastructure services and underlying technology platform. To investigate the team’s practice we therefore adopt contextualist inquiry in combination with a pluralist approach based on four complementary theoretical lenses; technological frames of references, risk management, control versus drift, and dynamic capabilities. As contributions, this research has the dual goal to improve the teams’ practices while at the same time providing new theoretical insights about the role of context in management of information infrastructure services

Information management in libraries and its impact on sustainable library and information services with special reference to university libraries of Sri Lanka

Technological, Economical and Social changes have transformed the roles of libraries and information management in the recent past. These changes have a great impact on the existence and sustainability of the libraries. At the same time it provides many opportunities and venues to manage the library and information services sustainably. The library professionals have to consider seriously these changing context and the new roles of the library and update and improve the information management and data computing skills. Hence, library professionals will improve the capabilities in order to lead the libraries towards the changing strategies to face the challenges brought by the digital age. Libraries face enormous challenges in managing information and have to tackles the challenges by managing the libraries effectively for tomorrow and transformation of the libraries to a sustainable future. Information Management skills play an important role in managing libraries and information services effectively and ensuring that the services continues to, the present and anticipated needs of patrons sustainably. The paper outlines how the university libraries of Sri Lanka take this challenges strategically by developing information management skills and sustainable library programmes and activities such as resource sharing/ collaboration, create flexibility, reduce costs, social networking, distribution and marketing, strengthen ICT infrastructure to address the broader issues of a sustainable future for library resources and service provision to their patrons

A self-managing infrastructure for ad-hoc situation determination

Automatically determining the situation of an ad-hoc group of people and devices within a smart environment is a significant challenge in pervasive computing systems. Current approaches often rely on an environment expert to correlate the situations that occur with the available sensor data, while other machine learning based approaches require long training periods before the system can be used. This paper presents a novel approach to situation determination that attempts to overcome these issues by providing a reusable library of general situation specifications that can be easily extended to create new specific situations, and immediately deployed without the need of an environment expert. The architecture of an accompanying situation determination infrastructure is provided, which autonomously optimises and repairs itself in reaction to changes or failures in the environment

Managing ubiquitous eco cities: the role of urban telecommunication infrastructure networks and convergence technologies

A successful urban management system for a Ubiquitous Eco City requires an integrated approach. This integration includes bringing together economic, socio-cultural and urban development with a well orchestrated, transparent and open decision making mechanism and necessary infrastructure and technologies. Rapidly developing information and telecommunication technologies and their platforms in the late 20th Century improves urban management and enhances the quality of life and place. Telecommunication technologies provide an important base for monitoring and managing activities over wired, wireless or fibre-optic networks. Particularly technology convergence creates new ways in which the information and telecommunication technologies are used. The 21st Century is an era where information has converged, in which people are able to access a variety of services, including internet and location based services, through multi-functional devices such as mobile phones and provides opportunities in the management of Ubiquitous Eco Cities. This paper discusses the recent developments in telecommunication networks and trends in convergence technologies and their implications on the management of Ubiquitous Eco Cities and how this technological shift is likely to be beneficial in improving the quality of life and place. The paper also introduces recent approaches on urban management systems, such as intelligent urban management systems, that are suitable for Ubiquitous Eco Cities

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF SMART CITIES BASED ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION

Cities have become much more complex, and public agencies are facing increasing challenges to provide efficient and inclusive services to the community. Cities are highly dependent on civil infrastructure and the technologies adopted for the management of public services including transportation, energy, security, water resources, first aid, and supply chain systems. The Smart City concept is interdisciplinary in nature and represents a new way of managing civil infrastructure by identifying problems with the support of advanced technologies. Within this concept, it is necessary to model various scenarios and analyze potential outcomes to seek the best solution for the situations raised. However, the technological components are insufficient by themselves if they do not allow interaction among the parties involved in the management process. In this context, Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a tool that can improve collaboration and communication among the parties involved in the management of civil infrastructure in a city. This article describes a humanistic concept of a Smart City with emphasis on the quality of life and the role of education in its development and sustainability, integrating modern technology for an efficient interaction of health, transportation, public safety, energy, building management subsystems, among others. These interconnected subsystems must provide the services to sustain the quality of life of citizens. In this humanistic approach, practice of civic values has a fundamental role in the responsible use of resources and technological tools to transform a city into a smart one.&nbsp

Enhancing Ontario’s Rural Infrastructure Preparedness: Inter-Community Service Sharing in a Changing Climate — Environmental Scan

Given the research that has been done in this environmental scan and the gaps found in this research, it is our aim to find out: What types of service sharing are going on in Ontario municipalities, particularly in rural/remote areas? How can inter-community service sharing (ICSS) benefit the asset management planning process in these rural/remote areas to enhance capacities for climate change resilience? Climate change (CC) will exacerbate deterioration to existing infrastructure and increase replacement costs. Improved preparedness reduces risks and increases efficiency, readiness and coping capacity. To increase the preparedness of Ontario rural communities, this project develops CC-Prepared Inter-Community Service Sharing (ICSS) as an innovative strategy that expands cost-effective solutions within Ontario’s standardized Asset Management Planning (AMP) process. Overseen by a Project Advisory Board (PAB), it identifies a suite of best practice ICSS processes and principles and a range of factors and indicators that influence the uptake of ICSS as a viable and practical opportunity targeted to enhance rural infrastructure preparedness for CC. It utilizes a multimethod, interdisciplinary approach involving an environmental scan, interviews, a survey and case studies and develops an ICSS Toolkit consisting of reports, workbook, policy brief and media kit. Knowledge translation and transfer (KTT) includes blogs, teleconferences, articles, presentations and a workshop. For small rural Ontario communities, this study enhances management of CC impacts on infrastructure through the development of a CC-Prepared ICSS strategy, increasing anticipatory, collective actions that reduce dam age and increase efficiencies. It informs sound municipal/provincial level programs and policies about innovative ICSS that benefit rural communities through the identification of Ontario-wide trends, case study best practises and action-oriented recommendations

Information systems and healthcare XXIV: Factors affecting the EAI adoption in the healthcare sector

Recent developments in the field of integration technologies like Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) have emerged to support organizations towards improving the quality of services and reducing integration costs. Despite the importance of EAI, there is limited empirical research reported on its adoption in the healthcare sector. Khoumbati et al. [2006] developed a model for the evaluation of EAI in healthcare organizations. In doing so, the causal interrelationship of EAI adoption factors was identified by using fuzzy cognitive mapping. This paper is a progression of previous work in the area and seeks to contribute by validating the model through a different case environment. Thus, this paper contributes by deriving and proposing the MAESTRO model for EAI adoption. MAESTRO identifies a set of factors that influence EAI adoption and it is evaluated through a real-life case study. It provides an understanding of the EAI adoption process through its grounding on empirical data. In doing so, the MAESTRO model supports the management of healthcare organizations during the decision-making process for EAI adoption

Owner challenges on major projects: The case of UK government

Many studies agree that owner organisations are important for successful project organising, but they tend to focus on particular aspects of project organising rather than providing a holistic analysis of owners as organisations. Our objective is to collect evidence of the full range of challenges public sector owners face in managing their major projects. After reviewing the literature on owner organisations, we carry out a case survey of 26 major projects to identify the principal challenges using a content analysis of UK National Audit Office Value for Money reports. Our original contribution is that the findings provide the first comprehensive picture of the full range of challenges of project organising faced by owner organisations. These findings push us theoretically to extend the scope of research in project organising to identify an extended core set of dynamic capabilities for project owner organisations to address these challenges

The 2007-13 operational programmes: a preliminary assessment: Spring – Autumn 2005

A preliminary assessment of the 2007-13 operational programmes on EU cohesion policy