DESERV IT: A Method for Devolving Service Tasks in IT Services

Nowadays, IT operations devolve many tasks in IT services to internal customers (i.e., IT self-service). The rationale for this service task devolvement is often to reduce the IT personnel’s workload. However, prior research has shown that IT operations often fail to achieve this goal. Existing methods for modeling and analyzing services fall short of supporting service providers in identifying and specifying service tasks suitable to be devolved to (internal) customers. This paper presents, therefore, the first method for devolving service tasks in IT services (DESERV IT). DESERV IT is a compound of four method components encompassing a joint meta-model, a visual notation for modeling IT services, and procedural recommendations. The DESERV IT meta-model extends the meta-model of service blueprinting by means of concepts required to analyze service task devolvement. DESERV IT is evaluated in four evaluation episodes. The results of the evaluation episodes show that DESERV IT is perceived as effective, useful, complete, and generalizable by experts in the IT service management and enterprise architecture discipline. This paper contributes to enterprise modeling by demonstrating the feasibility of DESERV IT in an example case and describing DESERV IT’s evolution during the evaluation episodes. DESERV IT supports practitioners (e.g., request fulfillment managers) in modeling and analyzing IT services

Towards a classification framework for approaches to enterprise architecture analysis

Analysis is an important part of the Enterprise Architecture Management Process. Prior to decisions regarding transformation of the Enterprise Architecture, the current situation and the outcomes of alternative action plans have to be analyzed. Many analysis approaches have been proposed by researchers and current Enterprise Architecture Management tools implement Analysis functionalities. However, few work has been done structuring and classifying Enterprise Architecture Analysis approaches. This paper collects and extends existing classification schemes, presenting a framework for Enterprise Architecture Analysis classification. For evaluation, a collection of Enterprise Architecture Analysis approaches has been classified based on this framework. As a result, the description of these approaches has been assessed, a common set of important categories for Enterprise Architecture Analysis classification has been derived and suggestions for further development are drawn

Effort Estimation in BPMS Migration

Usually Business Process Management Systems (BPMS) are highly integrated in the IT of organizations and are at the core of their business. Thus, migrating from one BPMS solution to another is not a common task. However, there are forces that are pushing organizations to perform this step, e.g. maintenance costs of legacy BPMS or the need for additional functionality. Before the actual migration, the risk and the effort must be evaluated. This work provides a framework for effort estimation regarding the technical aspects of BPMS migration. The framework provides questions for BPMS comparison and an effort evaluation schema. The applicability of the framework is evaluated based on a simplified BPMS migration scenario

Method and Notation Application for Case Model Creation in the Social Sector

Adaptive Case Management (ACM) is an approach for the management of knowledge-intensive processes. “Case Management Model and Notation” (CMMN) is an industry standard that can be used as a notation for process models in the context of ACM. However, CMMN only specifies a notation. Methods for process elicitation and management have not been well addressed by scientific investigations. This work assesses the method support and the feasibility of ACM on the example of a social care company. This company, on the one hand, represents a typical environment for ACM application and, on the other hand, contains some characteristics that are common for the social care industry. Thus, future development directions, a combined process and case approach for the social care company and an evaluation of existing and proposed methodology are provided in a qualitative way

Selected Topics on Business Informatics: Editorial Introduction to Issue 29 of CSIMQ

The objective of this thematic issue was to show the diversity of research in the field of business informatics, both from the perspective of application areas and from the research methodologies applied. Application areas visible in this issue are product development in manufacturing industries, online learning in universities, innovation activities in networks of museums, and curriculum engineering in educational organizations. Research methods include various quantitative and qualitative approaches combined with prototyping and the design science paradigm

SPARQL Query Builders: Overview and Comparison

Abstract. The SPARQL query language has been proposed as a simple language for querying graph-structured data on the Semantic Web. However, users have to write queries that must conform to the SPARQL syntax. This requirement might be alleviated using a SPARQL query builder that suggests relevant parts of the query. But, up to now, only a few basic comparisons of such tools exist. The goal of this paper is to develop such a comparison as the result of a structured literature analysis

An evaluation approach for smart support of teaching and learning processes

Abstract In the KOSMOS-2 project, a smart learning approach in form of a modern portal for students at Universities has been developed, called “MeinKosmos”. An important question from the point of view of universities and teachers is what the quality of such new tools are or what their benefits are. This article describes the evaluation approach defined in the KOSMOS-2 project for the “MeinKosmos” learning portal, and the results of using the approach in an undergraduate degree program. The focus of the evaluation is on the learning success of the students and the quality of the meta-search