Management Characteristics of Agents and Multiagents in Electronic Commerce

Business alliances are becoming ubiquitous globally. We are studying agent and multiagent tasks in electronic commerce, representative of normal business functioning. Our work is a study of the need for management functions in agent and multiagent tasks in electronic commerce. We observed and documented management tasks among multiagent networks and recommended specific roles for management that may be applied to business alliances

An Internet EDI Model for E-Government

Many businesses and governments outside of North America do not have the current technologies needed to fully implement e-government. Our research combines older EDI technology with current telecommunications to produce a hybrid Internet EDI model for e-government, illustrated with standard taxation processes. This model enables e-government for all businesses and governments at a level that is reasonable and will work for them. Many countries are still using old technologies and need to make them work with newer ones. In particular in the public service, many systems have been in place for many years and there is minimal money to upgrade or revamp systems extensively. Our solution allows these governments to get reasonably up-to-date with minimal time and money. Background is provided on traditional EDI issues, the Internet and e-government application services, followed by a description of the proposed hybrid architecture, system and administrative requirements, functionality, security features and strengths

Interorganizational Partner Selection as Negotiation: A Study of Two Distance Education Consortia

The choice of appropriate collaborative partners has consistently been reported as a key issue for contemporary managers. This study reports findings from a study which explored the process and criteria of partner selection - how and why partners are chosen. The results show multiple cycles of deal-making, partnership roles and organizational approval. Partner choice criteria focused on partnership requirements, but was influenced by additional factors. These results suggest that partner selection may be much more complex than previously recognized and could be better described as partner negotiation. The researcher reviewed recent literature on partnerships, decision-making, and partner selection. Concepts from this previous work were updated with data from three initial interviewees experienced in university-industry partnerships. A conceptual Partner Negotiation Model was developed including three cycles of Deal-Making, Organizational Approval, and Partner Role/Selection. Our hypothesized Partner Choice Criteria centred on requirements, but were influenced by resource availability, social network, reputation, politics, and ambiguity. Two Canada-wide distance education consortia were identified as large-scale case studies for investigation of the research theory. A total of 34 informants were contacted. Written business plans, contracts, documents, partner network diagrams and 231 archival e-mails from 36 correspondents were collected and analysed for the two consortia. The results showed strong support for partner selection included in negotiation cycles of deal-making and organizational approval. Partner choice criteria supported the need to meet documented requirements, but was also strongly influenced by resource availability, social network, and reputation. Additional issues of interest to the interviewees were motivation, operations, unit of partner, self-sustaining income, and integration to one consortium. As well, the Case Study Narratives offered deep, interesting insight into two specific cases of Canadian consortia. The findings suggest that the formation of partnerships and the process of partner selection are both very complex. This research has provided new insights linking business negotiation concepts with partner selection. A model has been developed for viewing partner selection as negotiation. Three negotiation cycles of deal-making, organizational approval, and partner role/selection have been proposed. The research has identified four criteria that influence why specific partners are chosen ? requirements, resource availability, social network, and reputation. Finally, based on the complexities and issues from this work, a number of ideas for future research have been summarized

WIN-EC: An Electronic Commerce Model for Small Business

The accessibility of the Internet and the World Wide Web has provided an excellent means for presenting, disseminating and distributing information. As well, this is a new and convenient channel for businesses to reach customers and other businesses. In this paper, we describe WIN-EC, an electronic commerce model for small business. We discuss various services that a typical small business may want to provide its customers. Possible technologies to implement the services are examined and finally, a prototype to generate such a model will be suggested

18. Electronic Social Networks, Teaching, and Learning

This paper explores the relationship between electronic social networks, teaching, and learning. Previous studies have shown a strong positive correlation between student engagement and learning. By extending this work to engage instructors and add an electronic component, our study shows possible teaching improvement as well. In particular, enthusiastic teachers and learners have a more positive attitude toward their work and studies

Partner Power: A study of two distance education consortia

This research reports findings from a study which explored the process and criteria of partner selection – how and why partners are chosen – for two distance education consortia. The researchers reviewed recent literature on partnerships and partner selection. Two Canada-wide distance education consortia were identified as large-scale case studies for investigation of the research theory. A total of 34 informants were contacted. Written business plans, contracts, documents, partner network diagrams, and 231 archival emails from 36 correspondents were collected and analyzed for the two consortia. The research identified four criteria that influence why specific partners are chosen: requirements, resource availability, social network, and reputation. These findings suggest that the formation of partnerships and the process of partner selection are both very complex

Quality, cleanroom and formal methods

We have proposed a new approach to software quality combining cleanroom methodologies and formal methods. Cleanroom emphasizes defect prevention rather than defect removal. Formal methods use mathematical and logical formalizations to find defects early in the software development lifecycle. These two methods have been used separately to improve software quality since the 1980’s. The combination of the two methods may provide further quality improvements through reduced software defects. This result, in turn, may reduce development costs, improve time to market, and increase overall product excellence. Defects in computer software are costly. Their detection is usually postponed to the test phase, and their removal is also a very time consuming and expensive task. Cleanroom software engineering is a methodology which relies on preventing the defects, rather than removing them. It is based on incremental development and it emphasizes the development phase. An enhancement to this methodology is presented in this paper, which combines formal methods and cleanroom. The efficiency of the new model rests on an appropriate logical representation, to write the specification of the intended system. In the new model, design plans are formally verified before any implementation is done. The advantages of finding defects in the early stages are decreased cost and increased quality. Results show that, by using formal methods, a higher quality will be achieved and the software project can also benefit from the existing mechanized tools of these two techniques