Toward an Information Service View of an Enterprise

An information service view engenders a conceptual shift from the provision of defined and preset services or applications, to an environment that enables users to select and integrate pre-built technology services in the ongoing creation and re-creation of unique information systems. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study into one organization’s experience in implementing information services. Using grounded theory research, the study characterizes information services not as information technology artifacts, but as relationships between heterogeneous actors interacting with technology services for business purposes. The findings are used to propose an information services view of an enterprise. The view presents three clusters of concepts that are distinct yet interdependent: enabled (choreographed) by enterprise-wide directives and structures, driven (orchestrated) by information services management, and founded (instrumentalized) on information service IT architecture. The paper ends identifying implications not only for the completion of this study but also for research and practice

A Coevolutionary View of Information Services Development: Lessons from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

This study investigates the process of information services development based on a case study of the experience of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In this study, we develop theoretical constructs that can inform researchers and practitioners on (1) what the critical domains and interactions associated with the emerging process of information service development at these organizations were, and (2) how information services at NOAA evolved over time? Adopting a coevolutionary view, we identified distinct yet interdependent domains that affected, and were affected by, the information services development process; these were: (1) services choreography, through which service interactions and collaborations are managed; (2) services orchestration, through which service processes are selected and interact; and (3) services instrumentation, by which services are developed and architected. Using the coevolutionary view, we uncovered three adaptive principles that explain the interplay among domains and interactions over time: adaptive tensions, requisite variety, and modular design. We discuss our findings’ implications for research and practice and offer propositions for future research

Towards Agent-oriented Model-Driven Architecture

Model Driven Architecture supports the transformation from reusable models to executable software. Business representations, however, cannot be fully and explicitly represented in such models for direct transformation into running systems. Thus, once business needs change, the language abstractions used by MDA (e.g. Object Constraint Language / Action Semantics), being low level, have to be edited directly. We therefore describe an Agent-oriented Model Driven Architecture (AMDA) that uses a set of business models under continuous maintenance by business people, reflecting the current business needs and being associated with adaptive agents that interpret the captured knowledge to behave dynamically. Three contributions of the AMDA approach are identified: 1) to Agent-oriented Software Engineering, a method of building adaptive Multi-Agent Systems; 2) to MDA, a means of abstracting high level business-oriented models to align executable systems with their requirements at runtime; 3) to distributed systems, the interoperability of disparate components and services via the agent abstraction

Market and price decision enhancement services for farmers in Uganda

Door kleinere winstmarges en steeds grotere beperkingen op markten en productprijzen is besluitvorming in de agrarische sector in ontwikkelingslanden niet alleen belangrijker maar ook uitdagender geworden. Het doel van dit onderzoek is “het ontwikkelen, implementeren en evalueren van een decision enhancement studio op het gebied van markten en prijzen voor boeren in Oeganda”. De belangrijkste onderzoeksvraag luidt: “hoe kunnen Oegandese boeren hun besluitvorming aangaande markten en prijzen verbeteren?” Op basis van verkennend veldonderzoek en literatuurstudies is een artefact ontwikkeld in de vorm van een Farmers’ Decision Enhancement Studio (FDES), die bestaat uit een Market Identification Suite, a Price Determination Suite en een Communication Suite. De studio met bijbehorende services is geprototyped en geïmplementeerd in de Oegandese districten Gulu en Soroti. De implementatie vond voornamelijk plaats aan de hand van open source tools en van de beschikbare middelen en capaciteiten van de boeren. Er werd een open source sms gateway gebruikt om de studioprestaties te verifiëren en te testen. De resultaten laten zien dat de boeren die voor uitdagingen op het gebied van markt- en prijsbesluiten staan, baat hebben bij de studio

A platform-independent domain-specific modeling language for multiagent systems

Associated with the increasing acceptance of agent-based computing as a novel software engineering paradigm, recently a lot of research addresses the development of suitable techniques to support the agent-oriented software development. The state-of-the-art in agent-based software development is to (i) design the agent systems basing on an agent-based methodology and (ii) take the resulting design artifact as a base to manually implement the agent system using existing agent-oriented programming languages or general purpose languages like Java. Apart from failures made when manually transform an abstract specification into a concrete implementation, the gap between design and implementation may also result in the divergence of design and implementation. The framework discussed in this dissertation presents a platform-independent domain-specific modeling language for MASs called Dsml4MAS that allows modeling agent systems in a platform-independent and graphical manner. Apart from the abstract design, Dsml4MAS also allows to automatically (i) check the generated design artifacts against a formal semantic specification to guarantee the well-formedness of the design and (ii) translate the abstract specification into a concrete implementation. Taking both together, Dsml4MAS ensures that for any well-formed design, an associated implementation will be generated closing the gap between design and code.Aufgrund wachsender Akzeptanz von Agentensystemen zur Behandlung komplexer Problemstellungen wird der Schwerpunkt auf dem Gebiet der agentenorientierten Softwareentwicklung vor allem auf die Erforschung von geeignetem Entwicklungswerkzeugen gesetzt. Stand der Forschung ist es dabei das Agentendesign mittels einer Agentenmethodologie zu spezifizieren und die resultierenden Artefakte als Grundlage zur manuellen Programmierung zu verwenden. Fehler, die bei dieser manuellen Überführung entstehen, machen insbesondere das abstrakte Design weniger nützlich in Hinsicht auf die Nachhaltigkeit der entwickelten Softwareapplikation. Das in dieser Dissertation diskutierte Rahmenwerk erörtert eine plattformunabhängige domänenspezifische Modellierungssprache für Multiagentensysteme namens Dsml4MAS. Dsml4MAS erlaubt es Agentensysteme auf eine plattformunabhängige und graphische Art und Weise darzustellen. Die Modellierungssprache umfasst (i) eine abstrakte Syntax, die das Vokabular der Sprache definiert, (ii) eine konkrete Syntax, die die graphische Darstellung spezifiziert sowie (iii) eine formale Semantik, die dem Vokabular eine präzise Bedeutung gibt. Dsml4MAS ist Bestandteil einer (semi-automatischen) Methodologie, die es (i) erlaubt die abstrakte Spezifikation schrittweise bis hin zur konkreten Implementierung zu konkretisieren und (ii) die Interoperabilität zu alternativen Softwareparadigmen wie z.B. Dienstorientierte Architekturen zu gewährleisten