Understanding the Internet of Things: A Conceptualisation of Business-to-Thing (B2T) Interactions

The Internet of Things is widely regarded as one of the most disruptive technologies as it integrates Internet-enabled physical objects into the networked society and makes these objects increasingly autonomous partners in digitised value chains. After transforming internal processes and enhancing efficiency, the Internet of Things yields the potential to transform traditional business-to-customer interactions in a way previously not thought of. Remote patient monitoring, predictive maintenance, and automatic car repair are only some innovative examples. This paper contributes to the conceptualisation of the emerging business relationships based on such empowered smart things by proposing a series of core and advanced business-to-thing (B2T) interaction patterns. The core patterns named C2T-Only, B2T-Only, Customer-Centred, Business-Centred, Thing-Centred, and All-In B2T classify alternative interactions between businesses, customers, and smart things, using the connected car as an ongoing case and Uber as an example to demonstrate how patters can be composed. The proposed patterns demonstrate the affordances of integrating smart things into the networked society and sensitise for the emergence of B2T interactions

Developing eInteractions - A Framework for Business Capabilities and Exchanges

The development of e-interactions (IT supported business interaction) need to be facilitated by comprehensive frameworks for business interaction. Existing frameworks cover fragments of the important constituents of business interaction. Based on a review of existing frameworks a more comprehensive one is presented in this paper. This comprehensive framework builds upon a symmetric focus on a supplier and on a customer. Attention is directed towards both communicative and material/financial exchanges. It distinguishes between different levels (markets level and dyadic level) of business interaction and acknowledges the dynamics of business interaction as the continual development of capabilities and business relations. On the dyadic level a distinction is made between frame contracting and business transaction. The proposed framework should be and has been used for evaluating, modelling and designing e-interactions

Modeling for Accountability: The Case of the Viral Business Counter

In face of pressure from politicians and constituents public agencies have to collaborate with each other to offer a one-stop shop. The emphasis shifts from vertical to horizontal coordination and integration, which requires the making of commitments between public agencies and the fulfillment of these commitments. Consequently accountability shifts from hierarchical to commitment-based accountability. In this paper we propose an agent-based modeling approach aimed at modeling coordination of activities and commitments. Software agents are used to simulate the actors and dynamic behavior of the organization network. Our approach supports decision-makers to improve cross-agency business processes and checks if the commitment loop of request, promises, reports on status of the commitments and justification is completed. We apply the proposed modeling approach in a case study of a virtual business counter and test the approach using a number of interviews

DIDET: Digital libraries for distributed, innovative design education and teamwork. Final project report

The central goal of the DIDET Project was to enhance student learning opportunities by enabling them to partake in global, team based design engineering projects, in which they directly experience different cultural contexts and access a variety of digital information sources via a range of appropriate technology. To achieve this overall project goal, the project delivered on the following objectives: 1. Teach engineering information retrieval, manipulation, and archiving skills to students studying on engineering degree programs. 2. Measure the use of those skills in design projects in all years of an undergraduate degree program. 3. Measure the learning performance in engineering design courses affected by the provision of access to information that would have been otherwise difficult to access. 4. Measure student learning performance in different cultural contexts that influence the use of alternative sources of information and varying forms of Information and Communications Technology. 5. Develop and provide workshops for staff development. 6. Use the measurement results to annually redesign course content and the digital libraries technology. The overall DIDET Project approach was to develop, implement, use and evaluate a testbed to improve the teaching and learning of students partaking in global team based design projects. The use of digital libraries and virtual design studios was used to fundamentally change the way design engineering is taught at the collaborating institutions. This was done by implementing a digital library at the partner institutions to improve learning in the field of Design Engineering and by developing a Global Team Design Project run as part of assessed classes at Strathclyde, Stanford and Olin. Evaluation was carried out on an ongoing basis and fed back into project development, both on the class teaching model and the LauLima system developed at Strathclyde to support teaching and learning. Major findings include the requirement to overcome technological, pedagogical and cultural issues for successful elearning implementations. A need for strong leadership has been identified, particularly to exploit the benefits of cross-discipline team working. One major project output still being developed is a DIDET Project Framework for Distributed Innovative Design, Education and Teamwork to encapsulate all project findings and outputs. The project achieved its goal of embedding major change to the teaching of Design Engineering and Strathclyde's new Global Design class has been both successful and popular with students