Web Systems Integration

Ever wonder how Amazon.com works? You\u27ll have a better idea when this workshop is over. Ever heard of web services? Ever seen them work? If you ever plan on working with, for, or against IT people, this workshop is for you. In this workshop you learn about and build real technologies that real companies are using in real situations. The focus of this workshop is on systems integration specifically building knowledge on top of the development skills learned in analysis, design, database, programming, and networks. Because interoperability was one of the guiding principles behind the Internet, web systems integration provides a strong technology base for integrating diverse applications. To highlight this interoperability and integration, the presentation illustrates Web Services, one of the ultimate integrated technologies on the Internet. This workshop is intended to teach faculty members who are interested in a web systems integration course for their departmental curriculum. The course is hands-on and requires attention to detail by instructor. From an instructor’s perspective, this course consistently has students from Information Systems, Computer Science, and Computer Engineering. This is useful for boosting departmental enrollments and creating connections between university departments. From a student’s perspective, the course consistently rates highly as useful for critical thinking, systems thinking, and job searching. This workshop illustrates the tenets of the course and points in the right direction for getting this course up and running

Designing Tailorable Technologies

Tailorable technologies are technologies that are modified by users in the context of their use and are around us as desktop operating systems, web portals, and mobile telephones. While tailorable technologies provide users with limitless ways to modify the technology, as designers and researchers we have little understanding of how this should affect design. In this paper we present principles from four designers to strengthen inquiry into tailorable technologies. We then apply the principles to the case of the design of a web portal. We conclude that designers need to more consciously build reflective and active design environments and gradients of interactive capabilities in order for technology to be readily modified in the context of its use

Ubiquitous Computing: Surfing the Trend in a Balanced Act

Ubiquitous computing often presented as a third wave of computing, a departure from its predecessors—mainframe and personal computing. We examine this claim and argue that ubiquitous computing is not a departure from traditional computing but rather an evolutionary and natural step, which is in-sync with the global trends influencing the development of information technologies. Using two interrelated analytical prisms—megatrends and equilibriums, this paper provides a new point-of-entry for understanding ubiquitous computing from a perspective that accounts for human nature and the technology they use. We demonstrate that, together, megatrends and equilibriums provide a foundation for understanding information systems, and in particular ubiquitous computing systems. As an illustration, we provide systems architects and mangers with a set of four megatrends and another set of four equilibriums, which must be understood to better develop, implement, and manage ubiquitous computing environments

Secondary Design: A Case of Community Participation

Online communities often rely on the loyalty and time of community members to donate energy and expertise in processes ofsecondary design. The focus of this paper is regarding a breakdown in the processes of secondary design at such an onlinecommunity. We follow a case of change at an established online community, Digg.com. Changes in technology componentsby Digg administration and the effects this has had on the Digg community members affected how members contributed toprocesses of secondary design. This case warrants investigation as organizations are increasingly attempting to leverageonline communities in the design and development of systems. The case contributes to theorizing about secondary design andcommunities of practice

Understanding Open Source Communities as Complex Adaptive Systems: A Case of the R Project Community

Open source communities evolve. This evolution is, at times, driven by corporate engagement with those communities. In these corporate-communal contexts, open source foundations often serve as facilitators in the evolution process and make these arrangements more stable over time. This paper expands the application of complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory to understand the role of open source foundations as facilitators in the evolution of corporate-communal arrangements. We present the case of the R Project community and how we can leverage complex adaptive systems as a way to understand the evolution of the community as driven by corporate engagement and facilitated by open source foundations. We develop the theory of CAS by enhancing the understanding of attractors in the evolution of CAS

Designing Tailorable Technologies

This paper provides principles for designing tailorable technologies. Tailorable technologies are technologies that are modified by end users in the context of their use and are around us as desktop operating systems, web portals, and mobile telephones. While tailorable technologies provide end users with limitless ways to modify the technology, as designers and researchers we have little understanding of how tailorable technologies are initially designed to support that end-user modification. In this paper, we argue that tailorable technologies are a unique technology type in the same light as group support systems and emergent knowledge support systems. This unique technology type is becoming common and we are forced to reevaluate existing design theory, methods of analysis, and streams of literature. In this paper we present design principles of Gordon Pask, Christopher Alexander, Greg Gargarian, and Kim Madsen to strengthen inquiry into tailorable technologies. We then apply the principles to designing tailorable technologies in order for their design to become more coherent and tractable. We conclude that designers need to build reflective and active design environments and gradients of interactive capabilities in order for technology to be readily modified in the context of its use

From Practice to Design and Back: Emergence of an Information Service View

A critical part of transforming research to practice is the recognition of the coordination between the research domain and the problem-solving domain. An action research perspective which supports this coordination is useful in the realization of a new information service view of technology. The information service view engenders a shift from the provision of defined and preset services or applications to an environment that enables users to actively select and integrate technology services in the ongoing creation and re-creation of unique information systems in the service of action. In this research, we argue that design practice in the construction and evaluation of the information services view is a necessary complement to the expansion of research to construct a coherent view of this emergent class of IS. We use an exploratory case analysis of practice to construct a unique information service view and suggest that this view of service-oriented information systems can benefit practice and research

Causal Factors for Web Site Complexity

The World Wide Web has become the medium of choice for the distribution and use of information by individuals, teams, organizations, and communities. Web sites—the collection of web pages that make up the World Wide Web—are the fundamental means by which that information is retrieved and distributed. Understanding the factors that impact the complexity of a web site is a key step toward effective retrieval and distribution of information and its ultimate use in collaborative activity.This paper proposes three major dimensions of factors that impact the complexity of a web site: (1) cognition, (2) content, and (3) form. These three dimensions and their associated factors comprise how individuals perceive a web site, the content that is located at the site, and the manner in which the web site is constructed. A model and associated propositions are presented, and implications of this approach for research and practice are discussed. This multi-dimensional view of web site complexity provides a richer approach to understanding how complexity might be examined and, ultimately, reduced. This paper relates to collaborative work through individuals and their interaction with a web site. This interaction is, in fact, a communication between the individual using a web site and an individual, group, or organization responsible for the design of the web site. Additionally, the individual perspective is a necessary starting point for collaborative use between and among people