Comparative process architectures in two higher education institutions

Enterprises are increasingly organising their activities and IT support around key business processes. These processes and their interrelationships may be identified in a process architecture. Ould (2005) claims that the Riva method identifies the process architecture that an organisation should have, and asserts that organisations in the same business have the same process architecture. This assertion is not self-evidently true, and it has not been corroborated by the literature. But it is an important claim: if true, then process architectures could be reused either for new process development, or for appraising an organisation’s existing architecture. We assessed the assertion by comparing the process architectures produced by applying Riva to two higher education institutions. The results partially support the view that an essential process architecture underpins higher education institutions, and also that for regulated business domains the optimal process architecture may be one based upon designed as well as essential business entities. The conclusion is that process architecture reuse, with its attendant potential savings of time and money, is worth investigating further, even though the extent to which the invariant assertion is testable may not be clear yet

Process Architectures In Higher Education

We have used the business process modelling method ‘Riva’ to model processes of programme management in two UK universities. The method depends on the identification of ‘essential business entities’ as the basis for defining a process architecture. The author of the method claims that organisations in the same business will have the same process architecture. In two attempts to produce process architectures for our case organisations, we could not produce any convergence in the outcomes. The exercise was however useful, as is the method. We make some suggestions regarding a core architecture for the area of activity under study, and make some observations on the method and the concepts used in it

Conquest and Form: Narrativity in Joshua 5-11 and Historical Discourse in Ancient Judah

One goal of this essay is to offer an exploratory, historiographical analysis of the conquest account in the book of Joshua, an analysis that focuses upon the sociocultural milieu of ancient Judah. I propose to show how this narrative of conquest might have contributed to discourse(s) among the literate Judean community that perpetuated the text, and I will offer a few thoughts on the potential relationship between the narrative and the supposed cultic reforms of the late seventh century b.c.e. A number of biblical scholars have argued that the late monarchic period gave rise to the conquest story as recounted in Joshua. In this essay, I would like to pay special attention to precisely how this narrative might have functioned within the milieu of the late monarchic period, thus refining our understanding of the narrative’s contribution to the discourses of this era and our knowledge of its relationship to other narratives that were probably extant at the same time. In other words, what particular features of the narrative might have had special import in this period? Specifically, I will argue that the narrative reveals certain discursive statements about Yahweh’s cultic supremacy and about important cultic sites in late monarchic Judah, and that this is evident in particular narratival features that are present in the text

Labor And The Politics Of Structural Adjustment In Australia And Indonesia

The labour forces of Australia and Indonesia are compared for the period from the late 1960s to the 1990s. The position of labour in a global economy is also considered. It is determined that the outlook for organised labour is bleak, however its position is also contingent upon national circumstance

Foundations for a Humanist informatics

This thesis consists of a selection of my papers, with a linking narrative. The aim of the narrative is to bring out the lines of inquiry in the papers more clearly. to provide foundations for a 'humanist informatics'. While the discipline of informatics has generally been geared towards technical or abstract representation, technological innovation, and technocratic control, a humanist informatics would focus instead on how information is produced and used by humans, and on how humans experience information and information technologies in their lives. The research method has been to review the papers and categorise them into four main themes, and from an initial analysis produce an outline argument consistent with the development of a humanist informatics. A more detailed treatment of a representative subset of papers then follows, and is combined with supporting but independent analyses of humanism and informatics, to produce a fuller account of the bases for a humanist informatics. Of the many available strands of humanism, the approach brought out here, combining existential and civic varieties, identifies the human being as at the same time an individual creature and a member of society. The analysis identifies some key characteristics for a humanist informatics, including these: • lnformatics must have at its centre a study of information, not as objective material, but in terms of how it is produced and used by human beings. • Suitable methodologies are needed to explore and describe people's lived experience of information and information technologies. • The processes by which information is produced and used should be discovered empirically. From a humanist perspective, experimentation and discovery are more fundamental than design, coherence is achieved through narrative and communication rather than by system design, and tactics have a larger part to play than strategies. • A humanist informatics should include study of wider and longer term issues in the production and use of information, and any generally deleterious impacts of the increasing power and reach of information technologies should be resisted. 1EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Flow and convergence in information systems evaluation.

Hirschheim and Smithson (1988, 1998, 1999) highlight the continuing dominance of objective-rational techniques in the assessment of the impacts of information systems. We suggest that emphasis on evaluation techniques or content becomes self-perpetuating. Willcocks and Lester (1999) support this view, suggesting that the dominance arises from adherence to values and measures used to assess the impact of previous generations of information technology. Symons (1991) highlights the importance of the evaluation process. Two models of process are introduced and compared. Scarbrough and Corbett’s (1992) model of organisation and technology as process is compared to the model proposed by Farbey et al (1993). The former emphasises utilisation and encourages longitudinal study of information systems impacts. The latter is primarily concerned with investment decisions that occur in the early phases of the information systems life cycle. The effects of the differing views of process on information systems evaluation are explored through discussion their implications for research and practice. Our aim in this short paper is not to present specific research findings, but to discuss the significance of the two models of process on the practice of evaluating information system

Negotiating expectations: Towards sustainable technology.

This paper reports some research into the design and implementation processes associated with the introduction of the UK National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS) into the Avon and Somerset Constabulary. The complexity of the system specification and the organisational setting gave rise to a range of expectations of the system and conflicting agendas for its use. These issues are explored through a comprehensive discussion of the research process. The research process itself is identified as a vehicle for the exploration of participative techniques which can be used to ameliorate the dissonance which arises from these conflicting expectations. The capacity of researchers to facilitate what Elden and Levin (1991) call “cogenerative dialogue” is explored in the context of the case study. The paper sets out to demonstrate the complementarity of existing methods, tools and techniques, thereby promoting their synthesis. We argue that bridge building is more important in the information systems context than grand theorising. The local outcomes and national implications of the research to date are reported and discussed in the paper