Principles in Patterns (PiP) : Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Institutional Story

The principal outputs of the PiP Project surround the Course and Class Approval (C-CAP) system. This web-based system built on Microsoft SharePoint addresses and resolves many of the issues identified by the project. Generally well received by both academic and support staff, the system provides personalised views, adaptive forms and contextualised support for all phases of the approval process. Although the system deliberately encapsulates and facilitates existing approval processes thus achieving buy-in, it is already achieving significant improvements over the previous processes, not only in reducing the administrative overheads but also in supporting curriculum design and academic quality. The system is now embedded across three faculties and is now considered by the University of Strathclyde to be a "core institutional service". Alongside the C-CAP system the PiP Project also cultivated a suite of approaches: an incremental systems development methodology; a structured and replicable evaluation approach, and; Strathclyde's Lean Approach to Efficiencies in Education Kit (SLEEK) business process improvement methodology Each is based on recognised formal techniques, providing the basis for a rigorous approach. This is contextualised within and adapted to the HE institutional context thus building the foundation not only for the project but ultimately for institution wide process improvement. This "institutional story" report summarises the principal outcomes of the Project

An Approach for Supporting Ad-hoc Modifications in Distributed Workflow Management Systems

Supporting enterprise-wide or even cross-organizational business processes is a characteristic challenge for any workflow management system (WfMS). Scalability at the presence of high loads as well as the capability to dynamically modify running workflow (WF) instances (e.g., to cope with exceptional situations) are essential requirements in this context. Should the latter one, in particular, not be met, the WfMS will not have the necessary flexibility to cover the wide range of process-oriented applications deployed in many organizations. Scalability and flexibility have, for the most part, been treated separately in the relevant literature thus far. Even though they are basic needs for a WfMS, the requirements related with them are totally different. To achieve satisfactory scalability, on the one hand, the system needs to be designed such that a workflow instance can be controlled by several WF servers that are as independent from each other as possible. Yet dynamic WF modifications, on the other hand, necessitate a (logical) central control instance which knows the current and global state of a WF instance. For the first time, this paper presents methods which allow ad-hoc modifications (e.g., to insert, delete, or shift steps) to be performed in a distributed WfMS; i.e., in a WfMS with partitioned WF execution graphs and distributed WF control. It is especially noteworthy that the system succeeds in realizing the full functionality as given in the central case while, at the same time, achieving extremely favorable behavior with respect to communication costs

The LIFE2 final project report

Executive summary: The first phase of LIFE (Lifecycle Information For E-Literature) made a major contribution to understanding the long-term costs of digital preservation; an essential step in helping institutions plan for the future. The LIFE work models the digital lifecycle and calculates the costs of preserving digital information for future years. Organisations can apply this process in order to understand costs and plan effectively for the preservation of their digital collections The second phase of the LIFE Project, LIFE2, has refined the LIFE Model adding three new exemplar Case Studies to further build upon LIFE1. LIFE2 is an 18-month JISC-funded project between UCL (University College London) and The British Library (BL), supported by the LIBER Access and Preservation Divisions. LIFE2 began in March 2007, and completed in August 2008. The LIFE approach has been validated by a full independent economic review and has successfully produced an updated lifecycle costing model (LIFE Model v2) and digital preservation costing model (GPM v1.1). The LIFE Model has been tested with three further Case Studies including institutional repositories (SHERPA-LEAP), digital preservation services (SHERPA DP) and a comparison of analogue and digital collections (British Library Newspapers). These Case Studies were useful for scenario building and have fed back into both the LIFE Model and the LIFE Methodology. The experiences of implementing the Case Studies indicated that enhancements made to the LIFE Methodology, Model and associated tools have simplified the costing process. Mapping a specific lifecycle to the LIFE Model isn’t always a straightforward process. The revised and more detailed Model has reduced ambiguity. The costing templates, which were refined throughout the process of developing the Case Studies, ensure clear articulation of both working and cost figures, and facilitate comparative analysis between different lifecycles. The LIFE work has been successfully disseminated throughout the digital preservation and HE communities. Early adopters of the work include the Royal Danish Library, State Archives and the State and University Library, Denmark as well as the LIFE2 Project partners. Furthermore, interest in the LIFE work has not been limited to these sectors, with interest in LIFE expressed by local government, records offices, and private industry. LIFE has also provided input into the LC-JISC Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Economic Sustainability of Digital Preservation. Moving forward our ability to cost the digital preservation lifecycle will require further investment in costing tools and models. Developments in estimative models will be needed to support planning activities, both at a collection management level and at a later preservation planning level once a collection has been acquired. In order to support these developments a greater volume of raw cost data will be required to inform and test new cost models. This volume of data cannot be supported via the Case Study approach, and the LIFE team would suggest that a software tool would provide the volume of costing data necessary to provide a truly accurate predictive model

Implementation of a Workflow-Based Application in Human Resource System

Workflow technology provides a suitable platform to define and manage the coordination of business process activities. This project is entitled "Implementing a Workflow-Based Application in Human Resource System". The objective of this project is to be able to implement workflow technology to simplify document traveling within an organization. The scope of study for this project is to focus on how the workflow concept can improve the efficiency of the business process within an organization, as well as to implement a workflow-based application in an organization. However, the main focus will be on the workflow concept. The methodology applied in this research includes analyzing the current system, conducting research, designing and developing the system prototype using the specified tools. Findings would show that the prototype may be able to improve and increase efficiency of the business processes within an organization

Technology Target Studies: Technology Solutions to Make Patient Care Safer and More Efficient

Presents findings on technologies that could enhance care delivery, including patient records and medication processes; features and functionality nurses require, including tracking, interoperability, and hand-held capability; and best practices

Optimized Time Management for Declarative Workflows

Declarative process models are increasingly used since they fit better with the nature of flexible process-aware information systems and the requirements of the stakeholders involved. When managing business processes, in addition, support for representing time and reasoning about it becomes crucial. Given a declarative process model, users may choose among different ways to execute it, i.e., there exist numerous possible enactment plans, each one presenting specific values for the given objective functions (e.g., overall completion time). This paper suggests a method for generating optimized enactment plans (e.g., plans minimizing overall completion time) from declarative process models with explicit temporal constraints. The latter covers a number of well-known workflow time patterns. The generated plans can be used for different purposes like providing personal schedules to users, facilitating early detection of critical situations, or predicting execution times for process activities. The proposed approach is applied to a range of test models of varying complexity. Although the optimization of process execution is a highly constrained problem, results indicate that our approach produces a satisfactory number of suitable solutions, i.e., solutions optimal in many cases

User and Systems Requirement Framework for Electronic Land Registration Systems Decentralisation in Ghana

Although land registration systems are constantly changing based on entrenched institutional frameworks, they cannot fulfill their technical objectives. Technical designs based on loopholes in the existing land registration system are the common steps in advanced countries. However, the missing link between the implementation of technical designs and their uses and users, affect the prospects of land registration decentralisation in developing countries. User and System requirements are used to integrate and enhance land registration services delivery across land information systems. This study assesses and develops framework for decentralised electronic land registration systems in Ghana. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect user and system requirement data from clients and technical staff of the Lands Commission in Accra. The framework pointed out five main policy outline strategies. These include land registration process modeling (process reduction and turnaround time monitoring), technical function (file tracking), the effect of changes in the registration loupe and absorption of land registration report, land registration workflow improvement, and the use of aerial images. The study recommends a systemic monitoring and evaluation of staff job roles